Russia: Modern Architectures in History - Softcover

Anderson, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780235038 ISBN 13: 9781780235035

Publisher: Reaktion Books, 2015

Synopsis

This book offers a comprehensive account of Russia’s architectural production from the late nineteenth century to the present, explaining how its architecture was both shaped by and came to embody Russia’s rapid cultural, economic, and social revolutions over the past century.
           
Richard Anderson looks at Russia’s complex relationship to global architectural culture, exploring the country’s central presence in the Rationalism and Constructivism movements of the 1920s, as well as its role as a key protagonist during the Cold War. Looking deeply at Soviet Russia, he brings the relationship between architecture and socialism into focus through detailed case studies that situate buildings and architectural concepts within the socialist milieu of Soviet society. He tracks the way Russian architectural institutions departed from the course of modernism being developed in capitalist countries, and he reappraises the architecture of the Stalin era and the final decades of the USSR. Finally, he traces the influence of Soviet conventions on contemporary Russian architecture—which is now a more heterogeneous mix of approaches and styles— and how it made a lasting and little-known impact on territories extending from the Middle East, to Central Asia, and into China.
           
A bold new assessment of Russia’s architectural legacy and contemporary contributions, this book is a fascinating exploration of a tumultuous place—and the creativity that has come from it. 

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Anderson is lecturer in architectural history at the University of Edinburgh. He is the editor and principal translator of Ludwig Hilberseimer’s Metropolisarchitecture and Selected Essays and coauthor of Architecture in Print: Design and Debate in the Soviet Union, 1919–1935.

Review:

This isan elegantrecasting of the modern architectural tradition in Russia. Spanning150 years, from thereforms introduced byAlexander IIin1861 and thesubsequentindustrial urbanization of the Romanov Imperium, to the abstract constructivism of the avant garde that accompanied the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Anderson s text moves from thelessfamiliar but more pragmatic Sovietrealityof the late 20s, andthe laterhistoricizing Socialist Realism that constituted the reactionary architectural production of the Stalinist totalitarian state, to the Russian Federation of today.Anderson has written aprecisely articulated, socioeconomic cultural historyof Russian architecture. --Kenneth Frampton"

"This is an elegant recasting of the modern architectural tradition in Russia. Spanning 150 years, from the reforms introduced by Alexander II in 1861 and the subsequent industrial urbanization of the Romanov Imperium, to the abstract constructivism of the avant garde that accompanied the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Anderson's text moves from the less familiar but more pragmatic Soviet reality of the late '20s, and the later historicizing Socialist Realism that constituted the reactionary architectural production of the Stalinist totalitarian state, to the Russian Federation of today. Anderson has written a precisely articulated, socioeconomic cultural history of Russian architecture."--Kenneth Frampton

About this edition

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1780235038
• ISBN 13: 9781780235035
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352