Luis Fernández-Galiano   “Neither the old nor the new: the necessary.” Thus did Tatlin define in 1920 the attitude of an avant-garde determined to construct a useful art. Both his culture of materials and his emphasis on production were in line with that will to merge art wi

Andréi Ikonnikov   On October 25, 1917 (November 7 according to our calendar), at twenty to ten at night, the city of Petrograd (the former St. Petersburg) could hear the cannon shot from the frigate Aurora to signal the beginning of the storming of the Winter Palace b

Selim Jan-Magomedov   An impetuous incursion into the future marked Soviet architecture from its earliest years. It was inevitable if we take into account the radical social changes that were taking place in the country: the wonderful prospect of a new, evolving socialist

Juan Miguel Hernández León   At the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925, two constructions of special importance coincided because of their formal translation of theoretical reflections that were already grounded, but already irreversibly differentiated in the common

Ton Salvadó   The icon is one of the forms of the Russian pictorial tradition that is absolutely present in the beginnings of the Russian-Soviet avant-garde. All those characters who would later become the protagonists of that episode had been initiated in the pic

Catherine Cooke   The many ways of approaching architectural history illustrate, in turn, many factors that are vital to design: client relationships, for example; explicit symbolic systems; the effect of certain legal or economic factors on forms, or of a particular

Jean-Louis Cohen   The deployment of architectural magazines published in Russia in the period between the revolution and World War II represents an essential factor in the constitution of architectural movements and their daily activity. An indispensable platform for

Born in Pavlograd in 1899 and died in Moscow in 1951, Andrei Georgievich Chemijov is a somewhat unusual character in the panorama of Russian Constructivism. Before the October Revolution, he studied at the Odessa Art School, while working in some cra

Moisei Iakovlevich Guinzburg was born in Minsk in 1892 and died in Moscow in 1946. He had an architectural training since childhood, as his father was an architect, so he was able to study in Italy, at the Academy of Art in Milan. When he finished, i

Born in 1902 in Babino (Tver region) and died in 1959 in Moscow, Ivan Ilich Leonidov was one of the youngest members of Russian Constructivism. He was educated in his hometown and in St. Petersburg, and from the beginning he stood out for his ability

Lazar Markovich Lisitskii (Polchinok, 1890, Moscow, 1941) was undoubtedly the most versatile of Russian artists. His training was equally varied. Rejected in 1909 by the St. Petersburg Academy of Art, he emigrated to Germany to study architecture in

Born in 1891 in St. Petersburg and died in 1956 in Moscow, Alexandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko was not specifically dedicated to architecture, but his work in various artistic fields had a decisive influence on the development of constructivist architect

One of the oldest members of Constructivism, Vladimir Tatlin (Moscow, 1885-1953) was already an accomplished artist when the October Revolution broke out. The son of an engineer and a poetess, he grew up in Kharkov, where he began to study to become

Alexandr Alexandrovich Vesnin (Yurevets, 1883, Moscow, 1959) was the youngest member of the trio formed with his two brothers, Leonid (1880-1933) and Viktor (1882-1950). Together they worked on many Constructivist proposals, but the leadership of the