Avant-Garde Heritage

The value of the Russian / Soviet Avant-Garde for the development of all modern architecture cannot be overestimated. The most venerable architects of the whole world regularly mention the symbolic names of the Russian avant-gardists as their teachers, and specific, albeit unrealized projects of the 1920s – 1930s are called sources of inspiration and a powerful incentive to creativity. Many of the world iconic buildings of modern times carry the features of the ideas of Russian avant-garde artists, who pushed the horizons of architectural thought of their time a century ahead.

The most vivid concepts and daring endeavours of the Avant-Garde, associated with the new principles of cities arrangement and the nature of their high-rise dominants. The skyscrapers proposed in the projects of Ivan Leonidov, the brothers Alexander and Victor Vesnins, El Lissitzky and Konstantin Melnikov gave rise to a different appreciation of the appearance, place and possibilities of the architectural structure in a city fabric. The futuristic sketches and fantasies of Jacob Chernikhov about the images of the city of the future anticipated the concept of American cities skylines and the general character of the visual search for the world urban planning until the end of the twentieth century. And specific domestic projects of high-rise buildings of the 1920s continue to influence the character of skyscrapers being built on a global basis in the 21st century.

What was so extraordinary and revolutionary that the masters of the Russian and Soviet avant-garde offered the world?

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Text: Marianna Mayevskaya, Research Associate in the Scientific Research Institute of Theory and History of Architecture and Urban Planning (NIITIAG)