El Lissitzky: Dream of Skyscraper, or Dream Skyscraper
The history of high-rise construction in the first third of the 20th century is inextricably entwined with Russia. The most prominent representatives of the Russian avant-garde architecture were interested in the ideas of conquering outer space, so they develop dynamic forms of flying up or moving objects that anticipated many scientific discoveries and technical achievements. Domestic architects dreamed of creating soaring edifices that were developed so purposefully and inspiringly in Russia as nowhere in the world. Overhanging over the ground, suspended on cables or standing on high supports, buildings by I. Leonidov, K.S. Melnikov, N. Ladovsky were advanced developments and offered solutions to certain social problems, but were virtually impossible to implement in the conditions of that time, one of the fundamental ideologists of which was El Lissitzky.
In early 1920, El Lissitzky wrote: “We are now experiencing an exceptional era of a new birth in space entering into our consciousness.” It was the time when the Russian architect was engaged in a serious theoretical study of a new type of tall buildings. His skyscraper project contrasted sharply with the existing American types of high-rise buildings in all major respects. According to the Russian avant-gardist, multi-storey buildings were built without regard to the existing city space, and they served economic and image interests only. He proposed an alternative concept for the design of vertical structures originating from the opposite prerequisites, i.e. the part should follow the whole, so the nature of structures should be determined by the urban-planning grid and the development master plan. In his works, the author criticized the American type of skyscraper, which turned the “horizontal European corridor into a vertical elevator shaft with tiers of floors strung around it” (as he wrote in his article in 1926 when presenting a new project in the “Izvestiya ASNOVA” journal). He believed that it is more common for a person to move horizontally than vertically – and this principle should not be violated even in the context of high-density cities. This is the foundations used by El Lissitzky to develop his Horizontal Skyscraper concept for Moscow (1923-1925).
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Text by NINA KONOVALOVA