Hudson, Jr. / Hudson Blueprints and Blood

The Stalinization of Soviet Architecture, 1917-1937
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4008-7282-4
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 280 Seiten

Reihe: Princeton Legacy Library

Analyzing "totalitarianism from below" in a crucial area of Soviet culture, Hugh Hudson shows how Stalinist forces within the architectural community destroyed an avant-garde movement of urban planners and architects, who attempted to create a more humane built environment for the Soviet people. Through a study of the ideas and constructions of these visionary reformers, Hudson explores their efforts to build new forms of housing and "settlements" designed to free the residents, especially women, from drudgery, allowing them to participate in creative work and to enjoy the "songs of larks." Resolving to obliterate this movement of human liberation, Stalinists in the field of architecture unleashed a "little" terror from below, prior to Stalin's Great Terror.

Using formerly secret Party archives made available by perestroika, Hudson finds in the rediscovered theoretical work of the avant-garde architects a new understanding of their aims. He shows, for instance, how they saw the necessity of bringing elite desires for a transformed world into harmony with the people's wish to preserve national culture. Such goals brought their often divided movement into conflict with the Stalinists, especially on the subject of collectivization. Hudson's provocative work offers evidence that in spite of the ultimate success of the Stalinists, the Bolshevik Revolution was not monolithic: at one time it offered real architectural and human alternatives to the Terror.

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hudson, Jr., Hugh D.

Hudson, Jr.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Geschichte der Architektur, Baugeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction 3

Ch. 1 Revolution and Architectural Schools of Thought 15

Ch. 2 OSA and the People's Dreams 52

Ch. 3 The Foundations of Stalinism in Architecture 68

Ch. 4 The School of Revolutionary Architecture: VKhUTEMAS 84

Ch. 5 Students and the Architectural Wars 101

Ch. 6 Stalin's Agents in Architecture: VOPRA 118

Ch. 7 The Deintellectualization of Architecture 136

Ch. 8 Mikhail Okhitovich and the Terror in Architecture 147

Ch. 9 Organizing a Victory Celebration 166

Ch. 10 The Victory Congress? 185

Conclusion 203

Notes 217

Selected Bibliography 247

Index 255