An overview of Soviet architecture

An overview of Soviet Architecture

The Soviet Union was a Marxist-Leninist state. It was also known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR It lasted 68 years, from 1922 to 1991, when it was decommissioned just a few days before its 69th birthday. Let us explore the architecture of the first country to declare itself socialist and work toward establishing a communist society, the path of utilising the best elements of old classical design. “A new political viewpoint necessitates the development of a new aesthetic.” This was the statement by Soviet architects working to reestablish the Soviet building envelope in the 1920s. Soviet architecture is a one-of-a-kind blend of futuristic and strangely retro styles.

The Beginning of Soviet Architecture

At its peak, the USSR occupied nearly one-sixth of the Earth’s surface. The vast land mass stretched from the Balkans to the Bering Strait, with China, Iran, and Finland as neighbours. With over 100 nationalities residing within Soviet borders, the centralised government looked for a new visual language to unite the country’s diverse people.

Shortly, during his decades in power, Joseph Stalin scrutinised many aspects of Soviet life, from film scripts to architectural plans and military hardware. The region’s top architects were enlisted to construct a slew of structures, and no expense was spared. These Soviet architectural works featured monumentality, industrial motifs, and a strained blend of classicism and modernism. During the Stalinist era, different styles were experimented with in early constructions. Independent structures, or one-block development projects, describe the early years of Stalinist architecture. The Soviet Union has five major eras (pre-war, post-war, thaw, stagnation, and the end), each corresponding to specific architectural patterns.

The Tower of the Third International, designed by Vladimir Tatlin in 1919, was a huge inspiration for constructivist Russian designers, and one of the initial buildings built in its honour was the Shukhov Tower, finished in 1922 in Moscow by Vladimir Shukhov. Before the Soviet Union, Russian architecture was distinguished by its distinctive colors, structural forms, and overall oddity. The architecture evolved with the city’s culture, and the demand for infrastructure enabled Soviet architecture to transform the nation’s personality at any given time.

“Architecture should speak of its time and place but yearn for timelessness.” – Frank Gehry

Constructivist and Stalinist Architecture

Soviet architecture is related to two architectural styles associated with the Soviet Union, Pre-World War II and Post-World War II: Constructivist architecture (the 1920s and early 1930s) and Stalinist architecture (1930s through 1950s)

Constructivist architecture combined contemporary technological and engineering advances with an overtly Communist social cause. The first project was the Visionary Vladimir Tatlin’s 1919 idea for the Comintern headquarters in St Petersburg, known as Tatlin’s Tower. Though it was never built, the materials—glass and steel—and the movements of its internal volumes were meant to represent revolution. Many subsequent, ambitious projects have included Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, which is deemed a “Constructivist Museum” with 140 built instances of the form. Another well-known surviving example is Moscow’s Dom Narkomfin social housing project.

The application of 3D cubism to abstract and non-objective elements was the main feature of constructivism. Straight lines, cylinders, cubes, and rectangles were used, as well as modern elements such as radio antennae, tension cables, concrete frames, and steel girders. Modern materials, such as steel frames that supported large areas of glazing, exposed rather than concealed building joints, balconies, and sun decks, were also investigated.

By the late 1930s, there had been a pervasive shift away from Constructivism and toward Stalinist classicism. The Stalinist architecture consists of various forms of urban architecture designed and built during Josef Stalin’s decades-long dictatorship in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or Soviet Union). Urban designs shifted away toward an architectural style with a more Gothic emphasis.

The architecture of Stalinist classicism was meticulously planned and standardised. Skyscrapers, mid-rise apartment buildings, and factories were strictly controlled by the state, often by Stalin or his appointees. Broad streets and straight avenues were built for military parades and ceremonial functions. This demonstrated the Soviet Union’s splendour to the rest of the world. Symmetry and massive compositions were used widely in the layout of most constructions while they were being built.

Stalinist architecture prioritised form over function. The design of the Soviet Union’s landmark buildings, the Seven Sisters, in symbolic locations around Moscow exemplifies this. These skyscrapers incorporated new Gothic elements such as arches, columns, and verticality. Most of the floors in the buildings made inefficient use of space. Instead, the focus was on the building’s form and aesthetic sense. Furthermore, most construction took many years to complete, and some were only completed after Stalin’s death. The last Stalinist structure, the Hotel Ukrayina in Kyiv, was finished in 1961.

Architecture after Joseph Stalin’s death

After assuming power, N. S. Khrushchev assaulted I. V. Stalin’s manifestations as a “personality cult,”. Due to the slow pace of housing construction, the new management thought that simply abandoning any architectural image would address the issue. The practice of liquidating truly Soviet architecture began in 1955. Many buildings that were started but not finished before 1955 were ruthlessly “stripped down” by the Khrushchevites: the originally envisioned decoration was either removed from the final plan or barbarically scuffed down. He devised and tested the mass-scale, industrialised workflow, which was based on concrete panel plants and a tight assembly timeframe. The idea of mass production also marked the end of Soviet architecture’s Stalinist era.

The Khrushchyovka architecture was an early attempt at concrete plants that were trucked to locations as needed. Planners considered elevators too expensive and time-consuming to develop, and Soviet health/safety standards stated a maximum height of a building without an elevator of five stories. As a result, nearly all Khrushchyovkas have five stories.

The five Central Asian republics’ capitals had notably huge regions that adhered to USSR planning guidelines. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital, was severely impacted by an earthquake in 1948 and was redeveloped in Soviet style. Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, was destructed by an earthquake in 1966, which made it possible for widespread rebuilding using mass-produced structures. Urban areas such as Navoiy in Uzbekistan and several smaller towns in Kazakhstan that had been built from scratch to meet the requirements of those working in quarrying or fertilizer manufacturing for cotton cultivation pursued the Soviet model.

The Soviet Union’s Architecture in its Final Stages

Soviet cities’ cultural and living spaces began to be filled with modernist architecture alien to aesthetics. Unfortunately, as the state preferred to concentrate on producing building blocks, Soviet architecture in its final phases did not construct many monumental structures. Even now, after the victorious bourgeois counter-revolution, it can be seen in the greatness of Moscow’s tall structures, the architecture of the Volga’s great canals, the dressing of the Leningrad subway, Kyiv’s main street, and thousands of exceedingly historic buildings throughout the former USSR. Different and peculiar, immense, courageous, secular, governmental, futuristic, and classical – all these characteristics are evident in Soviet architecture, making it a real 20th-century trinket.

The Soviet flag was dropped one final time over the Kremlin in Moscow nearly three decades ago, but the Union’s reflection still looms in several remote parts of former socialist nations.

References:

3. Online sources

Citations for websites:

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20. Images/visual mediums

Citations for images/photographs – Print or Online:

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