Editorial

On 24 and 25 November 2012, the 19th Vienna Architecture Congress took place at the Architekturzentrum Wien. Bearing the same title as the exhibition, it explored the unknown stories of Soviet modernist architecture from 1955 to 1991. As with the exhibition and the publication accompanying it, the event focused first and foremost on issues relating to the regional specificities of this architecture.

Experts from the independent successor states of the former Soviet republics addressed phenomena – some occurring in various republics, others limited to only one – that took place on the periphery of the union in spite of the centrally organised Soviet planning system. Together with the large number of international visitors in the audience, diverse themes were discussed that had never been dealt with in this form and on this scale outside or even inside the former Soviet Union. Scholars from Western Europe, Canada and the United States added their insights. A delegation from the Russian Union of Architects based in Moscow charmingly succeeded in directing attention to Russia for at least part of the time by holding the „Last Congress of Architects of the USSR“ in Vienna.

The questions that were discussed in the four panels – „Capitalism versus Communism. The Architecture of Modernism in East and West“, „The Soviet Heritage: National or Russian?“, „Local Modernisms. Centrifugal Forces in the Architecture of the USSR“ and „Built Ideology“ – can be roughly summed up as examining the following themes: the influence of Western Modernism on the work of Soviet architects and the integration of Soviet Modernism into international architectural history; the central theme of local differences, that even in the post- Soviet age have an effect on the preservation of the architectural heritage; and the manifestations of Soviet ideology in architecture and urban planning.

From the 1950s on, a dialogue between architects from East and West gradually emerged. The socio-economic problems following the Second World War and the reconstruction efforts confronted capitalist and socialist societies with similar problems. The shortage of housing and the lack of infrastructure were issues dealt with on both sides by large-scale housing projects. However, the Cold War perspective still informs the reception of the Modernism from the Eastern bloc. Post-war Modernism has yet to be seen from the angle of a dialogue between East and West. It thus hardly comes as a surprise that prejudices – such as, that the architecture of the Soviet Union was largely dismal and uniform and characterised by endless rows of pre-fab buildings – have remained up to the present, and also correspond to the perception these countries have of themselves. Many references to the transfer of knowledge from West to East were made during the Conference, but a more in-depth examination of their mutual influence still seems to be lacking.

The question as to a national art and thus also a national architecture was one of the key concerns throughout the entire Soviet period. (For all the connotations associated with the word „national“, it cannot, in the context of the Soviet Union, be replaced by „local“ or „ethnic“). The slogan „national in form, socialist in content“, so widespread during the Stalin years, briefly lost its relevance during the political „Thaw“ under Khrushchev only to once again gain significance under Brezhnev. This slogan was supposed to convey – both within the country as well as to the outside world – that the Soviet Union was a single family consisting of 15 republics, in which more than 120 peoples had their place and could find ways to develop their own culture. In reality, however, this policy was subject to the strict control of the centre, that is Russia, which ascribed to each nationality a fixed place within the hierarchy. It is important to remember that in all of the former republics one can speak of a more or less forced membership in the Soviet Union, even if the political constellations were very different and there were local forces everywhere that backed the system. The policy of Sovietisation and culture thus moves us into a post-colonial discourse.

Many (ethnically) „non-local“ architects worked in Central Asia in particular. The demand for the national could often only be met through the use of decorative elements that were recaptured in a new context. Even if, for instance, folkloric ornaments were integrated in mosaics or sun shields that covered every possible building, this usually had little to do with the traditional lifestyle of the local population, nor did it respond to the difficult climatic conditions. In his text architectural theoretician Boris Chukhovich, born in Uzbekistan and now a resident of Canada, examines the roots of the Soviet approach to the „Oriental“, locating them in the sketches of the avant-garde from the 1920s. His reflections can be read on pages 31–9. Following his lecture a fascinating dialogue developed between him and architect Andrey Kosinskiy, whose work in Uzbekistan was the basis of Chukhovich’s reconstruction of the colonial character of Soviet architecture in Central Asia. Kosinskiy expressed his appreciation for the serious interest in his work, but he insisted that his only goal was for the architecture to be „udobna“, that is, comfortable for its users, and that the form had emerged from this.

The situation is very different in the Baltic region. There, architecture was understood to be an expression of national identity, but one that was part of European culture. Scandinavian works served as models and a latent opposition towards the Soviet system was also evident. As Estonian art historian Mart Kalm explained, the anti-Soviet stance was ambivalent, since in reality it collaborated with Soviet power; the Baltic countries were certainly complimented by the attention their „more beautiful architecture“ received.

In Estonia, in particular, the way of dealing with the architectural heritage is exemplary. But as Lithuanian art historian Marija Dre˙maite˙ pointed out, the buildings of post-war Modernism in Lithuania are seen less as a Soviet legacy than as a national legacy that was built by local architects. Buildings from the Stalinist period, on the other hand, are seen as an alien „Russian“ heritage. The acceptance or rejection of a certain architectural „time layer“ was also related to the extent that this architecture corresponded to the worldview of a society. For this reason perhaps, the functional and expedient architecture of the post- Stalin era finds a more positive echo in the Baltic countries.

In the Caucasus as well, local architects have been instrumental in shaping the architectural scene. Especially in Georgia and Armenia the contemporaneous modernisation and renationalisation of architecture begun in the Khrushchev era and accompanied an aspiration for national autonomy. This is the theme of the Georgian architect Levan Asabashvili’s text on pages 41–7. Today’s neglect of the architectural heritage of the period of Soviet Modernism in these countries could be explained by the idea that it is easier for the former republics than it is for Russia to evade political responsibility for the Soviet past. This is often perceived as something „that happened to us“ while having „little to do with me“. Thus the architectural legacy from the Soviet period has at times been perceived as „alien“, „non-native“ or „Russian“.

Dimitrij Zadorin, an architect from Belarus, described how architecture was being streamlined in Eastern Europe, while at the same time what was „national“ was being reduced in significance – it was applied, as needed, as a decorative element similar to the themes of the „Great Patriotic War“ or the „cosmos“. In Lukashenko’s Belarus, Europe’s last dictatorship, Soviet architecture is positively assessed in official propaganda, which can be simply explained by the government’s political adherence to the old party line. Even ideologically influenced building types such as Soviet memorials are cultivated there and maintain the same function. In other successor states buildings with anachronistic functions such as those for political education or pioneer palaces are either torn down (like the building for political education by architect Raine Karp in Tallinn) or given a new function. Only in very rare instances is there an accurate reconstruction – the case of the former Museum of the Revolution in Vilnius that today houses the National Gallery being one such welcome exception.

Children’s camps, too, can be found in the category of ideologically motivated building types, since their function was, after all, to not only accommodate the children of working parents but also to inculcate in the next generation the spirit of „Soviet patriotism“. In addition to school work, great importance was attached to extra-curricular activities. A vacation spent under the state’s wings lent itself particularly well to cultivating a collective socialist mind-set. In his lecture (pages 49–57) the architecture critic Wolfgang Kil compared the reconstruction of the former showcase pioneer camp Artek with the recreation of the educational institutions of the Nazi regime, but also with a Kibbutz in Israel, thus questioning the continued use of ideologically motivated buildings.

In addition to the contributions of the experts, the comments and lectures of the architects, most of them from Russia and having worked in the USSR, contributed significantly to an understanding of the phenomenon of Soviet Modernism. At the end of the congress a joint petition was formulated to endorse the preservation of the often-neglected buildings from this period. Parallel to the 19th Vienna Architecture Congress, the international ICOMOS conference „Between Rejection and Assimilation. The Architectural Heritage of Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe“ took place in Leipzig. This shows that the architecture of the former socialist states is also being increasingly addressed in the international discourse on the preservation of the architecture of post-war Modernism.

Last but not least, the international audience, which showed untiring perseverance and active interest, also proved that the 19th Vienna architecture congress was on a highly topical subject.

Katharina Ritter, Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair, Alexandra Wachter

Inhalt

05 Preface
19th Vienna Architecture Congress
11 Felix Novikov: Soviet Modernism
21 Olga Kazakova: Architectural Modernism: Penetrating the Iron Curtain
31 Boris Chukhovich: Local Modernism and Global Orientalism: Building the „Soviet Orient“
41 Levan Asabashvili: Prevailing Attitudes on Soviet Architectural Heritage in Georgia: A historical perspective
49 Wolfgang Kil: The Republic of Red Scarves: The Artek Pioneer Camp in the Crimea
59 Gudrun Hausegger: The Old Masters: The Last Congress of the Architects

Az W Journal
66 Vladimir Kulic´, Maroje Mrduljaš: Scenes from an Unfinished Modernisation
78 Anneke Essl: Az W Studio Visits
80 Ute Waditschatka: „Wien Mitte“ – All’s well that ends well?
84 Biographies Authors
85 Team Az W
86 Members Architecture Lounge, xlarge Partner

Local Modernism and Global Orientalism

(SUBTITLE) Building the „Soviet Orient“

 The phrase „local Modernism“ contains an obvious paradox that is almost an oxymoron. The founding fathers of Modernism had sweeping and global ambitions; they regarded the language of the new art as universal, while their social ideas, for all their diversity, were nourished by a dream of cultural hegemony which would soon be appropriated by totalitarian regimes. The name of one of the principal products of the modernist movement – the International Style – confirms the cosmopolitanism and universality of the modernist program. This explains the false confidence that Modernism could either be universal, i.e. „Modernism, period“, or make concessions to external circumstances, i.e. be „not entirely Modernism“.

When we study modernist slogans, it is not difficult to come to another tempting, but not always productive conclusion. It is easy to suppose that local Modernism comes about mainly as the result of the decisive influence exerted on an architect by natural or cultural context. Thus, for instance, architecture criticism has long since tended to „localise“ the work of Alvar Aalto (Sigfried Giedion, for instance, wrote that „wherever Aalto was, Finland was always with him“).[1]

It is probable that there were indeed such links and influences, but I would like to emphasise that the focus on them was characteristic of that time when critics still treated architects’ words and thoughts with a pronounced reverence. Today, however, we are very conscious that architects’ words and the criticism written by their contemporaries have sometimes concealed much more than they have explained. The discourse that took place between architects’ work and the general public possessed the general qualities of discourse, i.e. it was not simply abstract reflection following, with certain gaps and deviations, in the footsteps of form creation, but was indirectly or directly linked with the fields of power and authority that directed the construction process. For instance, the modern researcher studying the architectural work of Aalto will undoubtedly note the fact that Aalto often played with different explanations of his work depending upon the zigzag-shaped geopolitical situation in the period between the two world wars, easily passing over in silence, when necessary, the Finnish qualities of his creations and just as easily switching to an emphasis of their pan-European character.[2]

For all its universalist declarations, the origins of Modernism were not global, but absolutely local. As Nicolas Bourriaud has stated with lapidary simplicity in one of his interviews, „Modernism in the 20th century was actually quite Western-based.“[3] As a consequence, when modernist experiments spread beyond the territorial borders of Europe, the significance of the discursive fitting of architecture to the local context increased markedly. In the case of the West’s periphery, as in the example given above from Nordic Scandinavia, the primary emphasis was on the distinctive quality of the natural context; in non- Western areas, on the other hand, priority was given to cultural and civilisational specifics, whether real or deliberately invented. In this respect the history of Modernism in Central Asia is extremely interesting.

We may assert that the discursive framework for new architecture in what used to be Russian Turkestan was based on imported old European views of the „Orient“. The metanarrative that nourished the local architectural process was all about building „a new East“, „the Soviet East“, and „a showcase for socialism in the East“, with help from „the workers of the East“ and in particular from „liberated women of the East“ in order that Central-Asian cities should „shine like the stars of the East“ and become „capitals of friendship and warmth“. In other words, what was distinctive about the Central Asian situation was the meeting of local Modernism and global Orientalism. Of course, this was not the Orientalism that figures in serene old texts concerning the fruitful meeting and interaction of the cultures of East and West, but rather the phenomenon that we see today in post-colonial studies.

We may consider the precursor of the meeting of Modernism and Orientalism to be Konstantin Melnikov’s final sketch for the Paris Pavilion of 1925. In spite of the worldwide fame of this monument of the Russian avant-garde, architecture historians have paid almost no attention to the Central Asian emblems which appear in the sketch. As an emblem of Bukhara, Melnikov chose a camel against the background of a sunny landscape with barchan dunes and a river; as a symbol of the Turkestan Republic he chose an Islamic crescent. These symbols are clearly a reflection of typical European prejudices. Central Asia is seen here either as virgin desert by way of contrast with the technological civilisation of the West, or as a concentration of medieval religiousness (again as distinct from Western rationalism and atheism). The parade of such exotic representations paradoxically makes Melnikov’s masterpiece part of the series of pavilions for world colonial exhibitions held in Paris from the second half of the 19th century. The exhibition of 1925 was similar to the 19th century exhibitions in that the pavilions representing the European powers stood next to numerous pavilions belonging to the French colonies. This context should make our perception of the Soviet pavilion more multidimensional. The pavilion’s ground floor was occupied by mini representative stands for what had been parts of the Russian Empire, beginning with Russia, which in the imperial tradition was called la Grande Russie. Extremely interesting here is the fact that the republic of Bukhara is depicted as part of the USSR, although it never was. In the autumn of 1924, when the design of the pavilion was being prepared, Bukhara was still officially recognised by the RSFSR as an independent state, while in 1925, when the pavilion was built, it was indeed part of the USSR – not, though, as the Republic of Bukhara, but as part of the new state of Uzbekistan. Thus Bukhara’s inclusion in the Soviet pavilion is proof of the colonial character of the annexation of parts of Central Asia to the USSR. At a time when the local elite were still discussing what political form the region would take, its future as part of the Soviet Union had already been entirely predetermined in Moscow. But, of course, Bukhara was not a standard colony of the capitalist world. Even if the centre still prevailed politically over the periphery in the „socialist colonies“, the relationship between the two and the discourses involving them were of a different kind – as was reflected metaphorically in Melnikov’s pavilion. Borrowing from the Marxist lexicon, we may say that the pavilion’s colonial „base“ is surmounted by a Soviet/proletarian superstructure. Thus the first international artistic representation of the Soviet state was a symbolic combination of two images of modernisation: it was hierarchical/ colonial on the one hand and cosmopolitan/socialist on the other.

When the Russian avant-garde compared their own experiments with what was happening in Europe, they for obvious reasons emphasised what made their work different from the West, but when they turned to face Asia, they consciously or unconsciously became Europeans, embodying in their approach various European stereotypes of the East. The emblems chosen by Melnikov show us once again how superficial the Russian avant-garde’s knowledge of Central Asian reality was and how orientalist the demiurgic modernist designs that they proposed for this region were. The principal paradox of the Central Asian situation is thus seen to be that even the cosmopolitan/socialist component of modernisation was largely orientalist in character, precisely as a result of imposing on the region rules of life and an image which had been determined in the „centre“. The „living creative work of the masses“ was organised and directed from the centre, had to report to the centre, and represented Central Asia to the rest of the Soviet Union as „the Soviet East“. So the old principles of European domination filtered through into Soviet practices and were orchestrated within the context of the new public order that declared an allegiance to the principles of universal brotherhood and equality.

In 1926 Moisey Ginzburg wrote a famous article entitled „The National Architecture of the Peoples of the USSR“. This was probably the most programmatic statement ever made by the Constructivists concerning „the East“. The broad generalisations made in the article were based on the architectural environment of the cities of Dagestan and Central Asia, in analysing which Ginzburg came to the conclusion that Soviet architects were here confronted with a „dead East“ and a „living East“. As an example of the dead East he gave the medressa of Ulugbek in Samarkand, about which he remarked: „The mosque of Ulug-bek [sic] is the culmination of the once mighty, but now absolutely dead, historical period in Uzbekistan, a gravestone for the now finished period of national development of the Muslims, a period of autocratic oriental tyrants and the apogee of Islamism, which enslaved the living active force of working Muslims; these are forms which are capable of reflecting only the atavistic national idea of the East.“ As a counterweight to this there exists „the typical residential district of the oriental kishlak, aul, or city – the starting point for the development of a new national culture of the East.“[4] It is easy to note that Ginzburg’s statements here are based on the most common clichés, clichés that have been unmasked by Edward Said and are evidence, on the one hand, of Ginzburg’s evident incompetence regarding Central Asian architecture, and, on the other, of his confidence in his right to dissect the body of culture into „dead“ and „living“ – into that which is to be destroyed or preserved in a museum and that which may be retained and used.

Two years later, Ginzburg was commissioned to design the Government House in Alma-Ata. The design has a free and asymmetrical layout of the kind that is characteristic of Constructivism – with an internal courtyard and a number of blocks standing on pilotis that allow free passage through to the other side, in complete accordance with the five principles formulated by Le Corbusier. However, the need for this concept to be discursively fitted to the local context made it necessary for Ginzburg to abstract himself from the original source (Le Corbusier) and reorient himself on local traditions. „In front of the main entrance into the Government House itself,“ writes Ginzburg, „on the north side is an open space with columns under the congress hall – a kind of terrace, which has great functional importance given the climatic and living conditions of our East.“[5] Many years later, Selim Magomedov accepted this derivation unquestioningly. He wrote: „Ginzburg took account of the local natural and climatic conditions and living traditions. The blocks of which the House of Government is composed are arranged in such a way as to form a green courtyard in the centre, and in the vestibule in front of the meeting room and among the vegetation on the flat roof there are the open reservoirs (hauzes) that are traditional for Central Asia.“[6]

There is one point that needs to be clarified here. Hauzes were indeed popular inside old Central Asian cities such as Samarkand or Bukhara. However, Alma-Ata is a city situated to the north-east of Bukhara and further from it than Cologne to Rome, in another climatic zone and in an utterly different cultural context (originally, the city took shape as the Russian settlement of Verny; the native Kazakh population was not settled and so could have no tradition of building hauzes in its public spaces). In just the same way as the typical 19th century European orientalist took the East to be the enormous territory stretching from Northern Africa to Japan, the researcher into Soviet Constructivism understood the Central Asian republics, a territory comparable to that of Western and Eastern Europe, as a single geographical and cultural space.

We may distinguish two different types of Orientalism in Central Asian Modernism: earth-based and demiurgic. The former was expressed in the stylisation of formal parts of buildings or the urban environment associated with the region’s historical architecture. For instance, Melnikov in his design for the Palace of Labour in Tashkent uses patterned grilles – features that are unusual in his work – in the balcony railings, while Shchusev employs the continuous ornamentation of certain walls in his design for the Government House in Samarkand. This kind of decoration of what is basically modernist architecture was subsequently practised from the 1960s to 1980s, notwithstanding all the declarations about building „a new historical community, the Soviet people“, a policy which supposed that factors relating to the ethno-cultural genesis of different regions would be evened out.

The second, demiurgic, type of Orientalism was based on the conviction that the historical environment of medieval cities – the „dead East“ to use Ginzburg’s terminology – was part of the feudal lifestyle of the local population, a lifestyle that needed to be demolished to its foundations. The most decisive word in this matter belonged to urbanism. For decades following the master plan for the development of Tashkent of 1928–1931, architects put forward proposals involving the „extermination“ of the historical urban environment. In certain cases, and specifically in Tashkent and Samarkand, their methods have survived perestroika and the grand bulldozing process is only now coming to an end. However, there have also been exceptions. The idea of not demolishing old urban development in its entirety occurred for the first time in the reconstruction project for Bukhara (F. Dolgov, 1935–1936), which proposed preserving parts of the historical centre as „historical and archaeological reservations“![7] At Tashkent a similar concept made its appearance during discussion of the master plan of 1939. One of the proposals involved leaving part of the old urban environment as a „museum“ in order that future generations should be able to compare the good life lived under socialism with „the dour medieval past“.[8] This discussion was interrupted by the war; later, however, it was taken up again with new force. Mitkhat Bulatov, the Chief Architect of Tashkent, expressed the conviction that the structure of the old city, which is divided into mahallas,[9] should be developed rather than destroyed, since the mahalla was a prototype for the collective life that would be led in the future under Communism.[10] Thirty years later, this idea was taken further in the reconstruction project for the old Tashkent district of Kalkauz (Andrey Kosinskiy, Gennady Korobovtsev, 1978).

By the end of the 1970s most of Tashkent’s old districts had already been demolished and replaced with a grid of modern avenues. The reconstruction plan for the district of Kalkauz, where there were numerous architectural monuments and a picturesque canal, proposed a different kind of approach. Preserving the medieval buildings and structure of the crooked lanes around them, the architects proposed surrounding them with tiers of modern development. The dense low-rise residential environment was to be replaced with 5- or 9- storey houses. The avenue was to be crowned by extravagant multi-storey hotels from which tourists would be able to relish exotic views. The layout took the form of an amphitheatre concentrated around what remained of the old city. Evidently realising the impossibility of preserving the old way of life, the architects proposed populating the old streets with a concentration of craftsmen – potters, engravers, chisellers, and so on – who could produce their goods under the watching eyes of tourists. Thus the old city was to become a theatre stage with actors as its fictive inhabitants, while the residents of the multi-storey residential buildings and hotel guests would be a voyeuristic audience. This idea is slightly reminiscent of the reconstruction plan for Algiers proposed by Le Corbusier in 1931. Subsequently much criticised for his colonialist approach, the maître of Modernism tried to separate the new city from the famous Casbah, erecting tiers of multi-storey houses above the old city blocks and even creating a special suspended road for those who wished to descend to the sea, allowing them to observe the historical environment from above without actually having to pass through it. The ancient city was on show for everyone to see – a kind of exotic museum exhibit. In spite of the similarity of these two projects, there were also notable differences between them. The Kalkauz project does not set out to conserve the old areas of the city, as is the case with le Corbusier’s plan for Algiers. The city blocks are to be divided into zones, called „communist mahallas“; and the proposals represent the coming together of three projects – communist modernisation, the invention of the „New East“, and the representation of the „old city“ as a „historical-cultural reservation“.

Even if the Central Asian architects shunned historical references, their works were invariably subjected to discursive approbation in order to satisfy the requirements of orientalist representativeness. For instance, with regard to the Karl Marx Library in Ashgabat (Abdullah Akhmedov, 1966–1976), a building that was clearly inspired by Le Corbusier’s Brutalist experiments in India, one critic wrote: “The problem of national form has here been given a talented and profound interpretation. The overall layout in itself – with its inner courtyards and covered terraces – reveals the influence of the techniques of national architecture […]. But all this is merely at the level of general associations; there is an absence of forms or details taken from ancient architecture.”[11] This kind of displacement of meanings is extremely typical, as is the encratic character of the rhetoric used here. For instance, in describing Gulistan Market in Ashgabat (Vladimir Vysotin, 1984), whose exterior expresses the classic modernist motif of „resisting mass“, one writer emphasises that „in it we can trace a link with the ancient traditions of Central Asian cities, where the bazaars were not just places for trade, but also centres of interaction between people.“[12] Another example is the work of Yury Parkhov, a Dushanbe architect who systematically developed two modernist themes – combinations of the atomic forms of the parallelepiped and cylinder and the use of longitudinal horizontal strips to add texture to buildings. In the commentaries written on his work we read: „The external appearance of [his] buildings is understated, while their brick cladding will facilitate associations and visual links with Tajik folk architecture.“[13] Thus local reality verbally re-codes architecture in accordance with the rules of Soviet orientalist discourse.

Post-colonial research has clearly shown the strong link between Orientalism and the West’s colonial domination of the rest of the world. Central Asian Modernism is an example of the constant presence of these colonial connotations. We are tempted to ask bluntly: do the architectural practices considered here not confirm the widespread view of the USSR as a „red empire“ and of the Central Asian republics as its colonial annexes? I think there cannot be a single objective researcher who would equate relations between the centre and the periphery in the USSR and in classic empires such as Great Britain and France. In the latter cases there were different historical circumstances, but it is also true, above all, that „classical colonisation“ and communist society possessed different projects. However, a distinctive Soviet Orientalism nevertheless existed, and there was likewise a relationship of domination between the „European“ centre of the USSR in Moscow and the „Eastern“-Asiatic periphery. This relationship turned out to be part of the Soviet project, with the latter combining global plans for the creation of a global „kingdom of freedom“ with what was frequently the forced construction of a Eurasian power. Like Melnikov’s pavilion of 1925, it contained two components: a communist one and an orientalist one. These may be thought of in two different ways – as the erection of a communist superstructure on top of a post-colonial base or as the gradual overcoming of colonial elements during the course of the unfolding of the communist project, hopes of which were encouraged by the cosmopolitan 1960s. It is difficult, however, in the light of the geopolitical catastrophe that soon befell the USSR, to escape the conclusion that the model of base and superstructure is more apt.


[01] Sigfried Giedion, Vremya, prostranstvo, arkhitektura [„Time, space, architecture“]. Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1984 (3rd edition), p. 340.
[02] As was done by Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen in her monograph Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009.
[03] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqHMILrKpDY.
[04] Moisey Ginzburg, „The national architecture of the peoples of the USSR“, Sovremennaya arkhitektura, Nos. 5–6, 1926, p. 113.
[05] Sovremennaya arkhitektura, No. 3, 1928, p. 77.
[06] Selim Khan-Magomedov, Arkhitektura sovetskogo avangarda. Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1984, p. 585.
[07] Dissertational research by Mark Notkin, 1980s, p.122 (undefended dissertation; manuscript supplied by the author).
[08] Paul Stronski, Tashkent: Forging a Soviet City, 1930–1966. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010, p.70.
[09] Mahallas: distinctive urban communities in historical Central Asian cities.
[10] Stronski, ibid., p. 151.
[11] Yury Gnedovsky, „The new library building in Ashgabat“, Sovetskaya arkhitektura, No. 6, 1976, p. 8.
[12] Yuly Katsnelson, Agliman Azizov, Yevgeny Vysotsky, Arkhitektura Sovetskoy Turkmenii. Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1986, pp. 202–203.
[13] Vsevolod Veselovsky, Rustam Mukimov, and others, Arkhitectura Sovetskogo Tadjikistana. Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1987, p.185.

Hintergrund, Mo., 2013.05.13

13. Mai 2013 Boris Chukhovich

The Republic of Red Scarves The Artek Pioneer Camp in the Crimea

Artek, the most renowned children’s vacation camp in the Soviet Union, is located on the coast of the Black Sea, on the Crimean peninsula. Five complexes that are named after their topographical site are distributed over a length of seven and a half kilometres and a surface measuring almost three hundred hectares: Morskoy (Sea Camp), Pribrezhny (Coast Camp), Gorny (Mountain Camp), Kiparisny (Cypress Camp) and Lazurny (Ocean Blue Camp). In several expansion phases additional room was created to accommodate up to 32 000 boys and girls a year, who were looked after by almost 2000 adults. In the summer vacation months up to 5000 children could stay there.

In particular Morskoy, the „Sea Camp“, with its striking cubes constructed of concrete and glass is today seen as the symbol of Artek. Against the backdrop of the enormous slope of Aju Dag (Bear Mountain), the cubes floating lightly over the beach were „the dream of all Soviet and post-Soviet children of freedom, the distant sign of a city of happiness on the Crimean peninsula.“[1] Children could distinguish the four identical pavilions by their colours – from red to blue, and orange to marine green. On top of the flat roofs, which afforded a view of the sea, children could play under a light sunroof. There were four sleeping rooms in each pavilion, two for boys and two for girls. „In each room there were beds for ten to twelve children. This corresponded to the smallest social unit: a pioneer brigade. The next largest social unit is the pioneer group consisting in three or four brigades. Each cube of the Morskoy camp thus accommodates a pioneer group.“[2] At the end of the row there was a fifth pavilion, which, in contrast to the others, was intended to be used by adult leaders and guests who stayed in rooms with two beds and a private balcony.

By the end of the 1960s, a total of 36 buildings had been erected in Artek, including living and sleeping space, eight dining halls (originally covered outdoor canteens), a school with room for a 1000 students, a medical centre, a stadium for 10 000 spectators, two sea-water swimming pools, a museum, a film studio, and a port with a sailing club. Later further buildings were added – for instance a gymnasium in 1981, or the swimming pool of the Mountain Camp – elements that embody the completely different formal repertory of the Brezhnev years and thus disrupt the otherwise wonderfully harmonious ensemble.

The history of the vacation camp reaches far back into the early period of the Soviet Union. Zinovy Solovyov, chairman of the Russian Red Cross at the time, a close friend of Lenin and himself plagued with tuberculosis, wanted to also give children from socially marginalised and unhealthy living conditions access to the salutary climate of the Black Sea. At his order the camp’s operation began in the summer of 1925 with a few tents.

A longer phase with wooden barracks and the first ceremonial communal buildings was to be followed by a master plan for a large Artek elaborated by Ivan Leonidov from 1935 on, and published in Arkhitektura SSSR in 1938. War and the German occupation of Crimea in 1941–1944 prevented the plans from being implemented. After Hitler’s Wehrmacht was expelled, nothing remained of the children’s camp, but its immediate reconstruction meant that it was founded again. Even if Stalin had announced ambitious plans, the concrete buildings only proceeded haltingly. A few buildings such as the Pioneer’s Palace or a pretentious dining hall from 1953/54 today serve as testimony to the period of „Socialist Realism“ and its characteristic neo-classicist architecture.

„In reality“, as we can glean from Bohdan Tscherke’s remarks, „there is – apart from doctors, educators and architects – one person without whom the New Artek never would have been built: Nikita Khrushchev.“ This was the party chief who noted the following in his memoirs: „People would like to have their freedom, to live better and to satisfy their needs. They say: Why do you promise us a better life in the next world? Give us some happiness on earth.“[3]

In 1957, an architectural competition was advertised for the expansion of Artek – and the winner was a young architects’ collective from Moscow. The prize-winners had developed a construction kit out of pre-fabricated reinforced concrete elements with which very different buildings could be built with effectively and with great precision. In this way they made their debut by clearly committing themselves to industrial construction. The head of the collective, Anatoly Polyansky, was only 29 at the time of the competition and thus, as Arne Winkelmann writes in his dissertation from 2003, „had not yet appeared with any larger construction. It was not until 1958 that with his participation in the design of the Soviet pavilion at the World Exposition in Brussels he was to join the ranks of more well-known architects.“[4]

Yet let us return to the years after Stalin’s death. A turning point, everything was in flux! Young, unexhausted forces were sought, and so it was possible that someone completely unknown could become the man of the hour. Especially if he promised not only to assemble houses like tractors, but to let them glide, even fly like in an animated dream! In 1961 the first buildings from Polyansky’s building kit were ready to move into. As a contemporary enthusiastically reported: „Using pre-fab concrete pieces made it possible to raise seven pavilions within eight month’s time. Thanks to the frame constructions, it was not necessary to do large-scale excavation work in spite of the complicated land profile on the bluff.“[5] Indeed, even the historian can only sing his praises in retrospect:

“Even though they were all constructed out of the same prefab pieces, given their variations in length, width and height, the way they have been embedded in the landscape with great care and their colourful design, they all look pleasantly different. […] Khrushchev’s dream of industrial construction had found its most beautiful manifestation here!”[6]

In 2003, one year after the exhibition Glück Stadt Raum in Europa 1945–2000 at the Berlin Akademie der Künste, I had a chance to make a brief excursion to Artek while visiting the Crimean peninsula. I wanted to see what remained of the camp and its famous architecture following the end of the Soviet Union, and the transformation of the former pioneer camp into an „International Centre for Children“ under the auspices of the Ukrainian government. The government, with different degrees of success, prevented the commercial privatisation of the complex and – to this day – has managed to maintain the operation of the international camp.

Without knowing it, I was one of the last visitors to see Polyansky’s camp buildings in their original form as shortly afterwards a large reconstruction took place, which turned the pioneer paradise into a holiday resort for the youngsters of parents who were financially better off. „Today the children no longer wear scarves at Artek,“ as we can read in the journal Mare. „More than 60 percent of the camp guests (in the summer up to almost 90 percent) come to Artek because they can afford it. 600 dollars for three weeks room and board in a twelve-bed room – in countries where the minimum wage is 60 dollars a month this is a lot of money. Most children are between nine and 16 years of age. Many are here at their parents’ wish.“[7]

The „Republic of Red Scarves“ is now history. The brutal reconstruction has destroyed Anatoly Polyansky’s New Artek, which nevertheless continues to exert a fascination to this very day. A moment of remorse should be allowed among friends of good architecture! The question of assessing this historical milestone of architecture has thus assumed a new urgency. „Any architecturally trained eye will wallow in reminiscences, so clear the expression of modernity in concrete, steel and glass,“[8] as a group of students from Weimar enthused in 2000 even though they knew that: “One had to earn the right to spend a summer on the Black Sea with the best grades in school, good behaviour and social as well as political involvement. […] The program was largely directed to the formation of a Soviet elite. Everything there served this one sole goal...”[9]

And thus we are once again confronted with the gnawing question, which has made any exploration of the 20th century painful: How is it possible to live the right life in the wrong time? This rift can be traced throughout the entire century, and can be illustrated with the following three historical cases.

Germany – The KdF-Spa Prora on the island of Rügen Sanatoriums for the regeneration of the masses were a phenomenon that was pursued worldwide with great interest. This is why Clemens Klotz received a gold medal for the megalomaniac, but also serially structured and well thought-out design that he submitted to the world exposition in Paris 1937. “A sea spa for 20 000 vacationers, thousands of rooms with a view of the sea… at the time this was certainly progressive and was bound to impress both architects, social politicians and vacation organisers.”[10] But Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper called Prora an example of Nazi-Architecture, indeed: „While Clemens Klotz copies the forms of a building by Mendelsohn, Erich Mendelsohn as a Jew remained safe only in exile. The adopted form can, however, continue to be good.“[11] Or at least useful – as the spa illustrates today having been expanded to serve as a youth hostel.

Italy – The Colonie di Infanzia In a review of a book of photographs about the children’s camps of Italian Fascismo, we read: “What makes these buildings so significant? It is certainly the tangible, obvious contradiction between on the one hand, the architectural forms that in most colonies are in the style of rationalism, that is the Italian variant of modernism, and on the other the content, which is the paramilitary training of children in a totalitarian system. This contradiction is particularly strongly noted outside of Italy. […] Following the end of the Fascist SPUK the children’s camps were still used, until from the 1960s on – as it was elsewhere – the trend became to prefer individual family vacations.”[12] As one sees, the reviewer was neither able to praise nor to dismiss the buildings depicted.

Israel – The Kibbuzim While the third reference might seem a bit out of place here, I wanted to show those images with which the curators of the Israeli pavilion at the Architecture Biennale in Venice 2010 surprised not only me. Here historical photographs of Kibbutz buildings – all magnificent examples of a radiant white modernist style built in the desert sand – were contrasted with scenes from the at times strictly collectivist settlement life. The declared intention was to commemorate the socialist legacy of the settlers’ movement, which even in Israel has fallen into oblivion. That this legacy had its ugly side was not hidden, as was shown by the photo depicting Kibbuzniks mourning in front of the veiled portrait of Stalin after his death.

If one compares Artek with Prora, or the Italian childrens’ camps from the perspective of their complex relationship to modernity, then doesn’t the Crimean project clearly come out better? Do we really want to hold it against that project that we now have other models of recreation for young people today? The assessment that Arne Winkelmann ultimately arrives at in his dissertation is ambivalent. While he certainly does acknowledge that „in no other states were such large amounts spent on the education, training and entertainment of children as in the Soviet Union of the sixties.“ Yet without putting it all into perspective one can not draw an accurate picture: “It was with great effort and expense that the government staged these places of „happy childhood“ and seeming self-determination, and by doing so kept control over the activities of children and young people.”

With this “yes, but…” one remains within the bounds of today’s research into socialism. Here a picture is usually drawn of a society that is becoming increasingly foreign to us, a picture that is limited to the power structures and repression of socialism. Power is assumed as an end in itself and too seldom is it asked whether the formation and use of power were not also based on a social concept or even a vision. What purpose did this entire effort, this expenditure serve? For what purpose did this omnipresent state penetrate all spheres, regulating and dominating everything?

Ten years after the fall of the Iron Curtain the large exhibition Glück. Stadt. Raum („Happiness. City. Space“) tried to compare systems in a cultural historical sense. To the amazement of many, it discovered a surprising number of affinities between private and collective ideals and desires behind the fronts of the Cold War. While we, under the sway of liberalism, had already gotten used to tracking down anything that reeked of totalitarianism within the modernity of the social welfare state, the question suddenly snuck in the backdoor: To what extent were the classical values and hopes of social democracy actually at work in state socialism?

Spurred on by this question and remembering the Khrushchev-quote „Give us some happiness on earth!“, I would agree with Winkelmann’s final verdict that refers to Artek’s symbolic political importance:

“Artek is more an architectural creed than just an architectural document of the political „Thaw“. No other building and no other architectural complex in the Soviet Union illustrates the euphoria and the hope of people in this time, among so many other aspects. […] The transparency and openness of architecture and the generous scale of the facility are in a sense metaphoric of a sigh of relief following the Stalinist terror. […] Artek was supposed to be a beacon showing the world the new age in the Soviet Union.”[13]

Small addendum

Certainly not everything that today strikes us as acceptable or even worth commemorating in the legacy of state socialism was wrested from those in power or was created in niches at a remove from the party. Even the „leading cadres“ of the party state were not the homogenous caste they are usually portrayed as today. These were people with rather different characters, with their own experiences and ideas, among which one was able, when necessary, to find allies.

In the publications on Artek I discovered a sheet with a sketch by Polyansky that I found touching and made me think of my own early years at the drawing board. There they were again, the dream-like, blissful hours of the unhindered explorer who, full of exuberance, illuminates the ground plan and the section of his waterside pavilion with one sun. To overcome gravity in such a way, to leave behind Euclidean space – this is not something that an accomplice of power is capable of pulling off, and I’ve also rarely seen a dissident who was so laid-back. I simply believe that we – to paraphrase Camus – have to imagine the architect of the New Artek as a happy individual. That his sketches would then actually bring forth buildings, this is something others have decided.


[01] Bohdan Tscherkes, „Zauber meiner Seele. Anatoli Poljanski und die Pionierrepublik Artek auf der Krim“, Glück Stadt Raum in Europa 1945–2000. Romana Schneider and Rudolf Stegers (eds). Basel: Birkhäuser, 2002, p. 76 ff.
[02] Ibid.
[03] Ibid.
[04] Arne Winkelmamnn, Das Pionierlager Artek. Realität und Utopie in der sowjetischen Architektur der sechziger Jahre. Dissertation at the Bauhaus University Weimar, 2003. PDF-Download: http://knigi.suuk.su/architektur_de-1.pdf
[05] Liv Falkenberg, „Neubauten in Artek“, Deutsche Architektur, Vol. 1 (1962), p. 46. In the German Democratic Republic Polyansky’s buildings were immediately presented by a number of illustrations in the professional journal Deutsche Architektur. This was immediately followed by a discussion of Pier Luigi Nervi’s „Palace of Labor“ that had just been completed in Turin.
[06] Bohdan Tscherkes, op. cit.
[07] Stefanie Flamm, „Im Paradies der Pioniere“, Mare, No. 34, October 2002.
[08] Martin Fröhlich, „Der Rundgang“, Bauwelt, vol. 16 (2000), p. 23.
[09] Bohdan Tscherkes, op. cit.
[10] Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper, „Das KdF-Bad Prora auf Rügen. Ein Versuch über Architektur und Moral“, Das Kunstwerk als Geschichtsdokument. Annette Tietenberg (ed.). Munich: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1999, p. 153.
[11] Ibid, p. 154.
[12] Benedikt Hotze, „Der verlassene Faschismus“, Baunetzwoche, No. 291, Oct. 12, 2012. Download: www.baunetz.de/cid/2981133
[13] Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper, op. cit., p. 157.

Hintergrund, Mo., 2013.05.13

13. Mai 2013 Wolfgang Kil

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