Soviet Critical Design

Soviet Critical Design

Author: Tom Cubbin

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-12-13

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1350021970

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Soviet Critical Design is the first monograph to explore the socialist design practice of 'artistic projecteering', which was developed by the USSR's Senezh Experimental Studio in the 1960s. Tom Cubbin first examines the studio as a site for the development of the design discipline in the optimistic environment of the Soviet Thaw of the 1960s. He then explores how designers adapted to new realities of the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 80s. Over two decades, designers at the studio worked on critical projects that highlighted how the Soviet state's treatment of citizens, urban heritage and the environment was manifest in daily life. Drawing on previously unpublished visual material from private archives and also extensive interviews, this book presents a new history of the late socialist period in the USSR, which gives insight into the creative strategies of designers who engaged their practice as a contribution to broader discussions on alternative models for socialist existence. Overall, it argues that artistic projecteering must be read as a utopian activity which privileged the political and ideological over the functional.


Book Synopsis Soviet Critical Design by : Tom Cubbin

Download or read book Soviet Critical Design written by Tom Cubbin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-13 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soviet Critical Design is the first monograph to explore the socialist design practice of 'artistic projecteering', which was developed by the USSR's Senezh Experimental Studio in the 1960s. Tom Cubbin first examines the studio as a site for the development of the design discipline in the optimistic environment of the Soviet Thaw of the 1960s. He then explores how designers adapted to new realities of the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 80s. Over two decades, designers at the studio worked on critical projects that highlighted how the Soviet state's treatment of citizens, urban heritage and the environment was manifest in daily life. Drawing on previously unpublished visual material from private archives and also extensive interviews, this book presents a new history of the late socialist period in the USSR, which gives insight into the creative strategies of designers who engaged their practice as a contribution to broader discussions on alternative models for socialist existence. Overall, it argues that artistic projecteering must be read as a utopian activity which privileged the political and ideological over the functional.

Designing Russian Cinema

Designing Russian Cinema

Author: Eleanor Rees

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-12-15

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1350246387

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This book highlights the significant role that production artists played when Russian cinema was still in its infancy. It uncovers Russian cinema's connections with other art forms, examining how production artists drew on both aesthetic traditions and modernist experiments in architecture, painting and theatre as they explored the new medium of cinema and its potential to engender new models of perception and forms of audience engagement. Drawing on set design sketches, archival documents and film-makers' memoirs, Eleanor Rees reveals how less-canonical films such as Behind the Screen (Kulisy ekrana, 1919) and Palace and Fortress (Dvorets i krepost ?, 1923), were remarkable from a design perspective, and also provides new readings of well-known films, such as Children of the Age (Deti veka, 1915) and Strike (Stachka, 1925). Rees brings to light information on significant but understudied figures such as Vladimir Egorov and Sergei Kozlovskii, and highlights the involvement of well-known figures such as Lev Kuleshov and Aleksandr Rodchenko. Unlike the majority of late Imperial directors and camera operators, many early-Russian production artists continued to work in cinema in the Soviet era and to draw on practices forged before the 1917 Revolution. In spanning the entire silent era, this book highlights the often overlooked continuities between the late-Imperial and early-Soviet periods of cinema, thus questioning traditional historical periodisations.


Book Synopsis Designing Russian Cinema by : Eleanor Rees

Download or read book Designing Russian Cinema written by Eleanor Rees and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the significant role that production artists played when Russian cinema was still in its infancy. It uncovers Russian cinema's connections with other art forms, examining how production artists drew on both aesthetic traditions and modernist experiments in architecture, painting and theatre as they explored the new medium of cinema and its potential to engender new models of perception and forms of audience engagement. Drawing on set design sketches, archival documents and film-makers' memoirs, Eleanor Rees reveals how less-canonical films such as Behind the Screen (Kulisy ekrana, 1919) and Palace and Fortress (Dvorets i krepost ?, 1923), were remarkable from a design perspective, and also provides new readings of well-known films, such as Children of the Age (Deti veka, 1915) and Strike (Stachka, 1925). Rees brings to light information on significant but understudied figures such as Vladimir Egorov and Sergei Kozlovskii, and highlights the involvement of well-known figures such as Lev Kuleshov and Aleksandr Rodchenko. Unlike the majority of late Imperial directors and camera operators, many early-Russian production artists continued to work in cinema in the Soviet era and to draw on practices forged before the 1917 Revolution. In spanning the entire silent era, this book highlights the often overlooked continuities between the late-Imperial and early-Soviet periods of cinema, thus questioning traditional historical periodisations.

Spatial Revolution

Spatial Revolution

Author: Christina E. Crawford

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2022-02-15

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 1501759213

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Spatial Revolution is the first comparative parallel study of Soviet architecture and planning to create a narrative arc across a vast geography. The narrative binds together three critical industrial-residential projects in Baku, Magnitogorsk, and Kharkiv, built during the first fifteen years of the Soviet project and followed attentively worldwide after the collapse of capitalist markets in 1929. Among the revelations provided by Christina E. Crawford is the degree to which outside experts participated in the construction of the Soviet industrial complex, while facing difficult topographies, near-impossible deadlines, and inchoate theories of socialist space-making. Crawford describes how early Soviet architecture and planning activities were kinetic and negotiated and how questions about the proper distribution of people and industry under socialism were posed and refined through the construction of brick and mortar, steel and concrete projects, living laboratories that tested alternative spatial models. As a result, Spatial Revolution answers important questions of how the first Soviet industrialization drive was a catalyst for construction of thousands of new enterprises on remote sites across the Eurasian continent, an effort that spread to far-flung sites in other socialist states—and capitalist welfare states—for decades to follow. Thanks to generous funding from Emory University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.


Book Synopsis Spatial Revolution by : Christina E. Crawford

Download or read book Spatial Revolution written by Christina E. Crawford and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spatial Revolution is the first comparative parallel study of Soviet architecture and planning to create a narrative arc across a vast geography. The narrative binds together three critical industrial-residential projects in Baku, Magnitogorsk, and Kharkiv, built during the first fifteen years of the Soviet project and followed attentively worldwide after the collapse of capitalist markets in 1929. Among the revelations provided by Christina E. Crawford is the degree to which outside experts participated in the construction of the Soviet industrial complex, while facing difficult topographies, near-impossible deadlines, and inchoate theories of socialist space-making. Crawford describes how early Soviet architecture and planning activities were kinetic and negotiated and how questions about the proper distribution of people and industry under socialism were posed and refined through the construction of brick and mortar, steel and concrete projects, living laboratories that tested alternative spatial models. As a result, Spatial Revolution answers important questions of how the first Soviet industrialization drive was a catalyst for construction of thousands of new enterprises on remote sites across the Eurasian continent, an effort that spread to far-flung sites in other socialist states—and capitalist welfare states—for decades to follow. Thanks to generous funding from Emory University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Comradely objects

Comradely objects

Author: Yulia Karpova

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2020-02-28

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1526139863

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This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The Russian avant-garde of the 1920s is broadly recognised to have been Russia’s first truly original contribution to world culture. In contrast, Soviet design of the post-war period is often dismissed as hack-work and plagiarism that resulted in a shabby world of commodities. This book offers a new perspective on the history of Soviet design by focusing on the notion of the comradely object as an agent of progressive social relations that state-sponsored Soviet design inherited from the avant-garde. It introduces a shared history of domestic objects, hand-made as well as machine made, mass-produced as well as unique, utilitarian as well as challenging the conventional notion of utility. This is a study of post-avant-garde Russian productivism at the intersection of intellectual history, social history and material culture studies, an account attentive to the complexities and contradictions of Soviet design.


Book Synopsis Comradely objects by : Yulia Karpova

Download or read book Comradely objects written by Yulia Karpova and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The Russian avant-garde of the 1920s is broadly recognised to have been Russia’s first truly original contribution to world culture. In contrast, Soviet design of the post-war period is often dismissed as hack-work and plagiarism that resulted in a shabby world of commodities. This book offers a new perspective on the history of Soviet design by focusing on the notion of the comradely object as an agent of progressive social relations that state-sponsored Soviet design inherited from the avant-garde. It introduces a shared history of domestic objects, hand-made as well as machine made, mass-produced as well as unique, utilitarian as well as challenging the conventional notion of utility. This is a study of post-avant-garde Russian productivism at the intersection of intellectual history, social history and material culture studies, an account attentive to the complexities and contradictions of Soviet design.

International Design Organizations

International Design Organizations

Author: Jeremy Aynsley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-01-13

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1350112534

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This innovative volume brings together international design scholars to address the history and present-day status of national and international design organizations, working across design disciplines and located in countries including Argentina, Turkey, Estonia, Switzerland, Italy, China and the USA. In the second half of the 20th century, many non-governmental organizations were created to address urgent cultural, economic and welfare issues. Design organizations set out to create an international consensus for the future direction of design. This included enhancing communication between professionals, educators and practitioners, raising standards for design, and creating communities of designers across linguistic, national and political borders. Shared needs and agendas were identified and categories of design constantly defined and re-defined, often with overt cultural and political intents. Drawing on an impressive range of original research, archival sources and oral testimony, this volume questions the aims and achievements of national and international design organizations in light of their subsequent histories and their global remits. The Cold War period is central to the book, while many chapters draw on post-colonial perspectives to interpret how transnational networks and negotiations took place at events and congresses, and through publication.


Book Synopsis International Design Organizations by : Jeremy Aynsley

Download or read book International Design Organizations written by Jeremy Aynsley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-01-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative volume brings together international design scholars to address the history and present-day status of national and international design organizations, working across design disciplines and located in countries including Argentina, Turkey, Estonia, Switzerland, Italy, China and the USA. In the second half of the 20th century, many non-governmental organizations were created to address urgent cultural, economic and welfare issues. Design organizations set out to create an international consensus for the future direction of design. This included enhancing communication between professionals, educators and practitioners, raising standards for design, and creating communities of designers across linguistic, national and political borders. Shared needs and agendas were identified and categories of design constantly defined and re-defined, often with overt cultural and political intents. Drawing on an impressive range of original research, archival sources and oral testimony, this volume questions the aims and achievements of national and international design organizations in light of their subsequent histories and their global remits. The Cold War period is central to the book, while many chapters draw on post-colonial perspectives to interpret how transnational networks and negotiations took place at events and congresses, and through publication.

Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Russia

Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Russia

Author: Rebecca Friedman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-07-09

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1350112445

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Revolution, war, dislocation, famine, and rivers of blood: these traumas dominated everyday life at turn-of-the-century Russia. As Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Russia explains, amidst such public turmoil Russians turned inwards, embracing and carefully curating the home in an effort to express both personal and national identities. From the nostalgic landed estate with its backward gaze to the present-focused and efficient urban apartment to the utopian communal dreams of a Soviet future, the idea of time was deeply embedded in Russian domestic life. Rebecca Friedman is the first to weave together these twin concepts of time and space in relation to Russian culture and, in doing so, this book reveals how the revolutionary domestic experiments reflected a desire by the state and by individuals to control the rapidly changing landscape of modern Russia. Drawing on extensive popular and literary sources, both visual and textual, this fascinating book enables readers to understand the reshaping of Russian space and time as part of a larger revolutionary drive to eradicate, however ambivalently, the 19th-century gentrified sloth in favour of the proficient Soviet comrade.


Book Synopsis Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Russia by : Rebecca Friedman

Download or read book Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Russia written by Rebecca Friedman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revolution, war, dislocation, famine, and rivers of blood: these traumas dominated everyday life at turn-of-the-century Russia. As Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Russia explains, amidst such public turmoil Russians turned inwards, embracing and carefully curating the home in an effort to express both personal and national identities. From the nostalgic landed estate with its backward gaze to the present-focused and efficient urban apartment to the utopian communal dreams of a Soviet future, the idea of time was deeply embedded in Russian domestic life. Rebecca Friedman is the first to weave together these twin concepts of time and space in relation to Russian culture and, in doing so, this book reveals how the revolutionary domestic experiments reflected a desire by the state and by individuals to control the rapidly changing landscape of modern Russia. Drawing on extensive popular and literary sources, both visual and textual, this fascinating book enables readers to understand the reshaping of Russian space and time as part of a larger revolutionary drive to eradicate, however ambivalently, the 19th-century gentrified sloth in favour of the proficient Soviet comrade.

The Soviet Social Contract and why it Failed

The Soviet Social Contract and why it Failed

Author: Linda J. Cook

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780674828001

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This book is the first critical assessment of the likelihood and implications of such a contract. Linda Cook pursues the idea from Brezhnev's day to our own, and considers the constraining effect it may have had on Gorbachev's attempts to liberalize the Soviet economy.


Book Synopsis The Soviet Social Contract and why it Failed by : Linda J. Cook

Download or read book The Soviet Social Contract and why it Failed written by Linda J. Cook and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first critical assessment of the likelihood and implications of such a contract. Linda Cook pursues the idea from Brezhnev's day to our own, and considers the constraining effect it may have had on Gorbachev's attempts to liberalize the Soviet economy.

Stenberg Brothers

Stenberg Brothers

Author: Christopher Mount

Publisher: ABRAMS

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13:

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The exhibition Stenberg Brothers: Constructing a Revolution in Soviet Design, organized by Christopher Mount, Assistant Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design, is the first critical survey of the work of these two seminal figures in the history of twentieth-century graphic design.


Book Synopsis Stenberg Brothers by : Christopher Mount

Download or read book Stenberg Brothers written by Christopher Mount and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 1997 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The exhibition Stenberg Brothers: Constructing a Revolution in Soviet Design, organized by Christopher Mount, Assistant Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design, is the first critical survey of the work of these two seminal figures in the history of twentieth-century graphic design.

Russian Orientalism in a global context

Russian Orientalism in a global context

Author: Maria Taroutina

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2023-06-27

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1526166224

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This volume features new research on Russia’s historic relationship with Asia and the ways it was mediated and represented in the fine, decorative and performing arts and architecture from the mid-eighteenth century to the first two decades of Soviet rule. It interrogates how Russia’s perception of its position on the periphery of the west and its simultaneous self-consciousness as a colonial power shaped its artistic, cultural and national identity as a heterogenous, multi-ethnic empire. It also explores the extent to which cultural practitioners participated in the discursive matrices that advanced Russia’s colonial machinery on the one hand and critiqued and challenged it on the other, especially in territories that were themselves on the fault lines between the east and the west.


Book Synopsis Russian Orientalism in a global context by : Maria Taroutina

Download or read book Russian Orientalism in a global context written by Maria Taroutina and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume features new research on Russia’s historic relationship with Asia and the ways it was mediated and represented in the fine, decorative and performing arts and architecture from the mid-eighteenth century to the first two decades of Soviet rule. It interrogates how Russia’s perception of its position on the periphery of the west and its simultaneous self-consciousness as a colonial power shaped its artistic, cultural and national identity as a heterogenous, multi-ethnic empire. It also explores the extent to which cultural practitioners participated in the discursive matrices that advanced Russia’s colonial machinery on the one hand and critiqued and challenged it on the other, especially in territories that were themselves on the fault lines between the east and the west.

Architecture in Print

Architecture in Print

Author: Richard Anderson

Publisher: Miriam and IRA D. Wallach Art Gallery

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13: 9781884919183

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In the early 20th century, the Soviet architectural press became a forum for an extraordinary group of artists, designers, architects, and theorists to converge in debate over the shape of their present and future built environment. The visually stunning and rhetorically innovative publications include major contributions by many the most brilliant artists and graphic designers of the Russian and Soviet avant-garde: Aleksei Gan, Gustav Klutsis, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, the Stenberg brothers, Varvara Stepanova, and Solomon Telingater. Moreover, magazines such as Sovremennaia arkhitekura (Contemporary Architecture) and Stroitel'stvo Moskvy (Construction of Moscow) were the primary sites on which many of the most important architects of the period-Moisei Ginzburg, Ivan Leonidov, Konstantin Melnikov, and the Vesnin brothers-developed their ideas and projects. Richard Anderson and Kristin Romberg, both Columbia University doctoral candidates in art history are the co-curators of the exhibition and primary authors of the catalogue. Richard Anderson's essay, "The Journal States its Aims: Partisanship and the Party Line in the Soviet Architectural Press," concerns the material, cultural, and typographic production of three major Soviet architectural periodicals. Kristin Romberg in "From Veshch' to SA: Journal as Object" examines the tensions between autonomous art object and mass medium that are inherent in the evolution of the Soviet avant-garde journal as a form. The catalogue also contains a short introduction by Jean-Louis


Book Synopsis Architecture in Print by : Richard Anderson

Download or read book Architecture in Print written by Richard Anderson and published by Miriam and IRA D. Wallach Art Gallery. This book was released on 2005 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 20th century, the Soviet architectural press became a forum for an extraordinary group of artists, designers, architects, and theorists to converge in debate over the shape of their present and future built environment. The visually stunning and rhetorically innovative publications include major contributions by many the most brilliant artists and graphic designers of the Russian and Soviet avant-garde: Aleksei Gan, Gustav Klutsis, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, the Stenberg brothers, Varvara Stepanova, and Solomon Telingater. Moreover, magazines such as Sovremennaia arkhitekura (Contemporary Architecture) and Stroitel'stvo Moskvy (Construction of Moscow) were the primary sites on which many of the most important architects of the period-Moisei Ginzburg, Ivan Leonidov, Konstantin Melnikov, and the Vesnin brothers-developed their ideas and projects. Richard Anderson and Kristin Romberg, both Columbia University doctoral candidates in art history are the co-curators of the exhibition and primary authors of the catalogue. Richard Anderson's essay, "The Journal States its Aims: Partisanship and the Party Line in the Soviet Architectural Press," concerns the material, cultural, and typographic production of three major Soviet architectural periodicals. Kristin Romberg in "From Veshch' to SA: Journal as Object" examines the tensions between autonomous art object and mass medium that are inherent in the evolution of the Soviet avant-garde journal as a form. The catalogue also contains a short introduction by Jean-Louis