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PROPORTION, dis-HARMONIES, IDENTITIES
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ARCHITECTURE
Abstract
The Russian Constructivism of the 1920s is
traditionally reviewed in opposition to prin-
ciples of classical architecture. Disharmony
and disproportions are its identifying features.
But were loud manifestations of Avant-Guard
ideologists a real opposition to basics of clas-
sical architecture or rejection of stencils of
the XIXth century eclectic age and order sys-
tem as external features of the gone epochs?
Speaking about basics of constructivist theory,
I claim they are grounded on Vitruvian triad of
Firmitas, Utilitas and Venustas, bringing each
element to comparison with theoretical postu-
lates by Constructivists (rst of all by M. Gins-
burg). Constructivists intended to introduce
new functional architecture as it was in its
origins before sculpture, painting and music.
Turning to the “Lectures on Aesthetics” by He-
gel, I reect on Constructivist theory in Hege-
lian terms of Symbolic, Classical and Romantic
architecture, attributing huge part of Avant-
Guard heritage as Independent or Symbolic
architecture. This helps understand “Creative
Discussion” of the 1932 after which Construc-
tivism was abandoned and the course taken to
apprehension of “Classical Heritage” resulted
in establishment of Socialist Realism. I argue
that Stalinist architecture in Hegelian sense is
more Romantic (Gothic) than Classical. Analy-
sis of categories of harmony, proportions and
identity in early Soviet architecture through
classical theories by Vitruvius and Hegel ena-
bles to reach the origins of modernist archi-
tecture and understand its later development.
Keywords: Russian Constructivism, architec-
ture, Hegel, Vitruvius, architectural theory.
1. Architectural Language of Constructivism:
the Destiny of Materialized Theory
The character and structure of architectural
language of the 1920-s is unique comparing to
the languages of previous “classical” epochs.
Architecture of Russian Avant-Guard highly in-
uenced on development of the XX century’s
world architecture. Constructivism oered the
whole specter of new means through which
architects reached expressiveness and perfec-
tion of architectural image. Traditional and
new materials and constructions that were
previously taken as pure utilitarian were now
interpreted not only constructively but aes-
thetically as well. Functional method changed
attitude to organization of architectural space
on all levels: from a single building to metrop-
olis. Constructivists were eager for social and
artistic reformation of surrounding environ-
ment through the means of architecture. Prac-
ticing scientic methods in art they developed
new architectural language that in dierent
periods was interpreted dierently.
Application of the aesthetic categories of Pro-
portions and Harmony to a certain architectural
style brings up the question of its architectural
language through which these categories are
outspoken. The artistic qualities and aesthetic
components of the newly developed architec-
tural method form its artistic language. Under
the formulation of the artistic language of archi-
tecture I mean a totality of formal and compo-
sitional means by which architecture expresses
its architectural idea, emotionally and aestheti-
cally aects the viewer, declares and conrms its
functional and aesthetic competence, highlights
and remarks features of its own internal struc-
ture, thus forming architectural environment
that can be taken as a subject to aesthetic and
artistic evaluation and critique.
Up to the present the question of artistic lan-
guage of constructivism has scarcely interest-
ed researches. It is not surprising, since archi-
tects of Constructivism themselves declared
that artistry was not paramount in their work.
Constructivism at the moment of its forma-
tion was more social occurrence than artistic.
S.O. Khan-Mahgometov, the founder of Russian
Avant-guard’s historiography, notices in his
book, published in 2003, that “the reader can
be surprised by the use of such word combina-
tions as “aesthetics of constructivism”, “sty-
listic of constructivism”, “artistic form” and
others” (2003, 23). He reminds that in their
declarations and manifests constructivists
preferred to speak not of the new style but
about new method of architectural creativity.
“But at the same time, - he continues - Con-
structivism as creative trend possesses highly
expressed artistic and stylistic denition, and
it is that very stylistics of Constructivism that
inuenced greatly on the style of the XX cen-
tury as a whole” (Ibid.).
In turn, the study of the problem of artistic
language of constructivism consists of several
components. First, the theoretical and ideo-
logical concept of constructivism had been de-
veloping along with the process of construction
of its objects. It was loudly accompanied by
manifests, programs, theoretical works by its
ideologists, etc. This trail, undoubtedly, nds
its visual expression in material works, yet it
is only one of the factors that form specics
of constructivist architectural language. Ar-
chitectural practice is not a mere translation
of the theory of constructivism. On one hand
architectural practice interprets and material-
izes the theory, on the other it creates means
of artistic expression that contradict with de-
clared theoretical statements. As a result, in
the realized objects of constructivism we get
certain aggregate of common features, by
means of which these works aect our percep-
tion and express their social, communal and
artistic function. Here another problem of ar-
tistic language – the problem of our percep-
tion, of the way we understand and appraise
artistic features of constructivist architecture
appears. In dierent historical periods this ap-
praisal varies from admiration to rejection.
I realize that in the eort to reconstruct con-
structivist theory I should separate theoretical
principles that were created by its founders
and practitioners from their own practice and
even more from the reception of them both.
In order to approach the turning point of the
1932 Decree after which constructivism failed
Irina SEITS
Department of Aesthetics, Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden
irina.seits@sh.se
What is Classical Architectural Theory for Russian Constructivism:
a Threshold or a Closure?
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PROPORTION, dis-HARMONIES, IDENTITIES
60
ARCHITECTURE
to defend its theoretical principles and was -
nally abandoned, I reect on the inner contra-
dictions within constructivist method itself by
relating it to the classical architectural theory.
I aim to analyze, whether loud manifestations
of constructivism’s ideologists were a real op-
position to the basics of the classical architec-
ture (to its ground and major principles), or it
was mostly rejection of the stencils of the ec-
lectic age of the XIXth century that was citing
external features of the gone epochs. Another
problem that I touch here is the 1930-s discus-
sion between “former” constructivists and the
newly-born apologists of the declared “social-
ist realism”. It rst seems confusing how ready
the masters of constructivism were to adjust
functionalist method to the taken course to-
wards assimilation and development of the
“Classical Heritage” on one side (apart from
the fact that it was a question of survival in
professional and literal meanings) as well as
the confusion of the socialist realists to dene
the very term of the “Classical Heritage” and
the means of its assimilation and development.
Mosey Ginsburg, the leading theorist and prac-
titioner of constructivism, many times tried to
defend his statement that the use of the func-
tional method does not contradict with new
formulation of the architectural task, i.e. with
Socialist Realism. If we turn to the principles
of Greek and Classical architectural theory
as they are described in Hegel’s Lectures on
Aesthetics, then there will be discovered less
controversies between classical theory and
modernist architectural movement.
Howbeit, whether fastened by its own inner
contradictions or due to political acts, but
there was a creative and ideological discus-
sion started shortly after Stalin’s Decree of
1932 of the dissolution of artistic organiza-
tions. After the Decree the situation changed
rapidly. Constructivism became a trend that
was buried while its creators were still alive.
At that time it was already a mature method
that developed unique architectural system of
bright formal individuality and that was loudly
criticized. In the early 1930-s ideologists of
constructivism still tried to defend their posi-
tions and later to adapt functional method to
requirements of Socialist Realism (M.Y. Gins-
burg, I.L. Matza). Among decisive factors of
Constructivism’s “defeat” the straightness and
monosemanticity of its architectural expres-
sion could be suggested. Its energy, principal
ideology, and deniteness of formal elements
reected rather well determined concept of
ideological and artistic Weltanschauung. The
“Creative” discussion of the 1930-s stopped
the development of constructivist language. At
the same time critique of constructivism ena-
bles for the further attribution of the features
of its formal language.
Thus by tracing the history of birth, develop-
ment and failure of constructivism in Russia, as
well as the history of perception of its theory
we can come closer to the more comprehen-
sive understanding of constructivist theory
itself, its relation to the classical categories
such as harmony and proportions as well as its
inuence on the architecture of the XX century
as such.
2. Vitruvian Origins of Constructivist Theory
I have to speak few words about use of the
term “Constructivism” in my research. Here
I mean all Avant-Guard trends in modernism
that existed in architecture of the 1920-s. Dif-
ferent movements, groups and studios of the
studied period, in spite of their ideological
contradictions, formed stylistically solid archi-
tectural movement, which is generally called
“Constructivism”.
Today, after 90 years passed, it does not
seem principal for the formal analysis to di-
vide architectural Avant-Guard to dierent
movements (i.e. constructivism, rationalism,
suprematism, etc.).Anyway, speaking about
architecture of Russian Constructivism we
mean Avant-Guard Architecture.
Speaking about the basics of the theory of con-
structivism, I can claim that they are grounded
on the classical Vitruvian triad of Firmitas,
Utilitas and Venustas. That shouldn’t be sur-
prising, since constructivists were search-
ing for the universal architectural working
method that was applicable anywhere in the
world regardless of temporal concepts of poli-
tics, regimes, fashion, individual commission,
nancial situation, urban or country environ-
ment, etc. M. Ginsburg, the leading theorist
of Constructivism, who formulated its major
principles, called architectural practice the
“life-building” (1927, 160). The social real-
ity and nature were taken more as materials
to work with, and practical attitude towards
these materials prevailed on their aesthetical
comprehensions. The new method was to or-
ganize human life in the most eective way,
and all three elements of the triad - strength,
utility and beauty were given the most care-
ful attention, for constructivists it was modern
technology, not nature, that was responsible
for the Strength, and the level of Machinatio
was lifted up to the top.
In the 1924 M. Ginsburg summarized the rst re-
sults of his theoretical work in the book called
“The Style and Epoch”. It was there where the
major principles that became foundations of
constructivist aesthetics were articulated. Ma-
chine – as the major engine of the production
of art was brought up to be the subject of aes-
thetic comprehension. It was the Machine that
was moving life processes that set the rhythm
to the new art, and gave intensity to the archi-
tectural image. “The machine… that changed
our psyche and aesthetics is the greatest fac-
tor that inuenced essentially on our under-
standing of the form”, - he declared (1924,
84). For Ginsburg it was less the aestheticized
image of the machine as the grounding of ar-
chitecture, rather than it was its very organi-
zation, which, being “clear and precise to the
extreme” (1924, 93), created “concreteness
of the formal language” (1924, 96) that was
able to save the art from “the huge danger”,
that threatened it – “abstractiveness” (Ibid).
Thus the theoretical insight for the newly in-
vented architecture was in a way opposite
to what came up as its materialized objects,
blamed by the apologists of socialist realism in
what constructivists were trying to avoid – that
very abstractiveness, and for which construc-
tivist architecture was praised through the
most of the XXth century. Ginsburg stood up
for Strength and Utility, for the sanity and con-
creteness of architectural language in its pure
harmony and proportions that could catch the
own pulse of the time and re-structuralize life
into a plant, where no abstract or unnecessary
details destructed the operator from eec-
tive production of everything from goods and
values to the life itself. Ginsburg introduced
the constructive type of industrial factory to
the area of artistically valuable architectural
objects. “Indeed, the contemporary indus-
trial factory condensates in itself all the most
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PROPORTION, dis-HARMONIES, IDENTITIES
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ARCHITECTURE
characteristic and potential in aesthetic sense
features of the new life, - he writes, – Here
it is all that is able to produce the necessary
power of the creative impulse, the picture of
modernity, which is the brightest and the most
dierent from the past: endless silhouettes
of the intensely functioning muscles of the
thousands hands and legs, deafening noise of
the organized monster-machines, rhythmical
run of the sheaves that unite everything and
everybody by their movements, the streams
of light through the elastic cover of glass and
metal, and the collective creation of values,
that are being disgorged by this creative forge.
Can it be a picture more vividly reecting ef-
fective light of modernity?” (1924, 84). It is
easy to imagine Ginsburg and Vitruvius stand-
ing together in fascination before the operat-
ing war machines.
As for the second component of the triad –
Utility, it is enweaved into the tissue of con-
structivist method. The means to reach Utili-
tas were fundamental for the theorists and
practitioners of Constructivism. Architectural
practice was to demonstrate the strongest
connection between rationatio and fabrica.
None of the components of architectural prac-
tice could be unimportant, yet they should be
carefully selected for the goal of reecting
the idea of the architectural object, for the
functioning without interruption by strange
details. In order to introduce the truly func-
tional method, constructivists tried to purify
and clarify the reason for each object they
were working at (on all levels – from a single
building to metropolis).
The Beauty of the realized idea of the build-
ing that is pure in its enacted function, is the
third element of the “triad”. N. Tchuzhak, who
continued developing Ginsburg’s theory of life-
building, emphasized necessity to purify art, to
bring it to its primordial in his article published
in the SA Magazine in 1927, accepting interpre-
tation of art “only as maximum-lively art, born
by “life… for life” (1927, 21). He calls not for
rejection of formal searches, but for “maximal
materialization of art” (Ibid), for the extrac-
tion of the beautiful out of the own utility of
the thing, for the ability of the socially-useful
thing (i.e. architectural object) to satisfy the
whole specter of human’s needs, including
his aesthetic needs and feeling for harmony,
without the necessity of dismissal of one of
the qualities of this thing – either utilitarian
or aesthetical. The result of this search would
be the formula that allowed to construct art in
its most harmonious, beautiful and pure state,
deprived of any abstractiveness and inneces-
sity. This formula was opposed to the given set
of rules, that would inevitably bring practition-
ers to mechanical reproduction of theoretical
postulates and nally to another (or, in fact,
to the same) order system, that constructivists
were deconstructing. They were developing al-
gorithms leading to the denition of necessary
proportions instead of using ready recipes. As
the result of materialization of original func-
tion of constructed object, they introduced
new types of buildings. These types could
either perform same function that their “ar-
chetypes” developed in previous (“canonic”
epochs) or a totally new one – but they neces-
sarily represented the function and purpose of
the building in a completely dierent way. The
viewer, who was used to the “order” classical
architecture, and who recognized the building
that e.g. performs the function of the theatres
according to his experience of seeing them and
visiting them, could not observe same quali-
ties of the “normal”, “classical” theatre any-
more (planning, size, position, décor of the
facades, features of the order architecture
such as columns, pillars, etc.). Yet she could
still read that architectural object through its
proportions and design as a theatre at least on
the level of suggestion or a guess, because the
function itself, the purpose of the building, pu-
ried from canons of order and connotations
to previous ages, was materialized in that new
type of the “Palace of Culture” that came to
replace the “obsolete” classical theatre.
The search for the architectural primordial led
constructivists to the development of stand-
ards, where under the standard the best sam-
ple of the thing was understood, but not its
mechanical and schematic reproduction (which
would be stencil). “Standard, - as another con-
structivist, A. Pasternak, states, almost citing
Vitruvius in dierent terms, - is “logics, analy-
sis, economy {oikonomia}, scientic research,
mathematics, the sense of invention {inventio}:
it is the highest achievement in the laboratory
of knowledge and mind, research and creativ-
ity” (1927, 54). Thus the architect should work
within encyclopedia of knowledge, trying to
get as close to sollertia as possible in order to
reach the apogee of architectural creativity –
which is the creation of the standard, of the
sample, but not the sample for the imitation
and copying like in previous “stylish” epochs,
but of the sample-algorithm of the best incar-
nation of the harmonious thing, materializa-
tion of the socially-signicant, useful (which is
equal to beautiful) idea.
It is then obvious, that in their longing for the
denition of the real architecture, construc-
tivists were more or less consciously going
back (or forward?) to the encyclopedic form of
knowledge and to the myth of the origin as an
organizing principle.
3. Hegelian Terms for the Modernist Language
Constructivists tried to introduce new func-
tional architecture as it was in its earliest be-
ginnings, before sculpture, painting and music
appeared. If we turn now to the Hegel’s Lec-
tures on Aesthetics”, we can nd citations that
reect the objectives of constructivists’ prac-
tice: “…the task of art consists in giving shape
to what is objective in itself, i.e. the physical
world of nature, the external environment of
the spirit, and so to build into what has no in-
ner life of its own a meaning and form which
remain external to it because this meaning and
form are not immanent in the objective world
itself” (1975, 631). The return to the “original
hut” so widely discussed by the classical theo-
rists since Enlightenment to the XIXth century
was realized in constructivists practice. Sim-
plicity of regular geometrical shape and un-
derstanding of the form-originating laws was
among the basics of constructivists practice. In
his book The Rhythm in Architecture, Ginsburg
points out extreme simplicity of basic laws
of formation of architectural masses and the
Fig. 1 - The M. Gorky Palace of Culture. Arch. I. Gegello,
1926-27. Photo: Great Soviet Encyclopedia
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PROPORTION, dis-HARMONIES, IDENTITIES
64
ARCHITECTURE
origins of the right proportions: “These are al-
most always the laws of formations of the reg-
ular geometric form, clear in its mathematic
essence, distinct in its rhythm”(1923, 28).
The question of the materials used by Con-
structivists was highly important, as any com-
ponent of their architectural practice. On the
top of the hierarchy the reinforced concrete
was placed as the symbol of the new industrial
age of technologies, and as a material that
allows standards to develop. As for “natural”
materials such as wood or stone, they were
not controversial to the functionalist method
at all. In the architectural practice, especially
considering harsh economic environment that
constructivists had to deal with, any materials
could be used, including construction garbage
that was painted over to imitate reinforced
concrete. The form that was to be not less
than the shaped function and objective of
the construction was always predominant to
the material. As Hegel was reecting on the
origins of architecture and the question of the
original material (wood or stone), he would
still assume, as Wallenstein notes, “that the
form does not arise from the movement of the
material itself, instead it is something which is
merely sought for” (2009, 62).
In their eort to start the history of architec-
ture from scratch, constructivists needed a
starting point – “zero point of symbolization”
– using Wallenstein’s words regarding Hegel’s
“independent architecture” (2009, 64). Con-
structivists were purifying architectural prac-
tice and theory to the condition of Hegel’s
independent protoarchitecture, unconsciously
placing themselves into necessity of working
through all Hegel’s types again, though not con-
sequently from independent to symbolic, clas-
sical and nally romantic – but at once, within
the short period of the 1920-s, which led to the
contradictions within modernist architectural
movement and separation to dierent working
groups and studios (constructivists, functional-
ists, suprematists, rationalists, etc.).
The huge part of constructivists’ architectural
practice could be attributed as Independent
or Symbolic architecture (for which Ginsburg
had argued). There could be another con-
structivists’ manifest published using Hegel’s
denition of Symbolic architecture: “The
original interest [of art] depends on making
visible to themselves and to others the origi-
nal objective insights and universal essential
thoughts… in order to represent them into it-
self man catches at what is equally abstract,
i.e. matter as such, at what has mass and
weight” (1975, 636).
Religion, which, according to Hegel, is what
unies men, serves as the “primary purpose”
(1975, 637) for the construction of Symbolic
architecture, since, as he says, “whole na-
tions have been able to express their religion
and their deepest needs no otherwise than by
building, or at least in the main in some con-
structional way” (1975, 636). For constructiv-
ists, religion was substituted by ideology and
ideas of the total reformation of the world.
Developing their theory and practicing directly
after the Bolshevik Revolution, they took real-
ity they got to live in and to work with as very
symbolic. Constructivists tried to “catch” the
very moment they worshipped and to shape it,
to give it an architectural form. M. Ginsburg
believed that for each epoch there is a certain
rhythm, which is characteristic to its time and
which is materialized formally in the works of
art. This rhythm forms the “style”, which in-
evitably leads to decline. Among objectives of
new architecture Ginsburg saw not the crea-
tion of another temporal rhythmic form, but
comprehension of the rhythm itself in order
“to nd those elements of form and laws of
their combinations, that would reect the
rhythmic beating of our days” (1923, 116).
The “Holy” for constructivists was the Idea
of the New Life and opportunity to realize it
granted by the Revolution. The new religion
in turn needed the Symbol, needed the God
that could be placed inside of this main all-
nation unifying Symbolic Building. That God
was found, and the brightest piece of Symbolic
architecture appeared – the Lenin’s Mausole-
um by A. Schusev (built between 1924-1930).
Its shape that reminds Egyptian Pyramids and
is yet very “natural” to constructivists is the
original Temple of the new Soviet era. It is dif-
cult to describe the Tomb better than by us-
ing Hegel’s words, thus I take his description of
Egyptian Mausoleums that represent Symbolic
age in the history of architecture: “…the Egyp-
tian mausoleums {or Lenin’s one} form the ear-
liest temples; the essential thing; the center
of worship is a person and objective individual
who appears signicant on his own account
and expresses himself in distinction from his
habitation which thus is constructed as a pure-
ly serviceable shell. And indeed it is not an ac-
tual man for whose needs a house or a palace
is constructed, on the contrary, it is the dead,
who have no needs, e.g. Kings and sacred ani-
mals, around whom enormous constructions
are built as an enclosure” (1975, 651).
The major dierence is that Egyptian pyra-
mids were not meant to be entered or used
again, and passages were meant for the soul to
wander about, while in case with Lenin’s Mau-
soleum – from the times, when the body was
placed there, it has served more as a temple,
where a certain, almost religious ceremony, is
conducted (men remove their hats and all in
silence pass by). Even today it remains one of
the major attractions of Moscow – the tourist
site, where the body of Lenin for many is not
less or more than the Mummy in the National
Museum in Cairo. As for the architecture of
Lenin’s Mausoleum – it meets requirements
of Symbolic architecture being as “mere en-
closure and as inorganic nature” that “can be
shaped only in a way external to itself, though
the external form is not organic but abstract
and mathematical” (1975, 654).
There can be other examples of Symbolic Ar-
chitecture found in Constructivist practice.
They went back to the point when synthesis
with painting and sculpture was not necessary
at all, since it was the structure of the build-
ing, its plan and its shape that often produced
impression of a large scale sculpture – I mean
those buildings that imitated Soviet Symbols
or reproduced machines (almost Gods) in their
architecture (again some sort of Independent
architecture on the edge with sculpture). It
Fig.2 - Lenin’s Mausoleum. Arch. A. Schusev, 1924-30.
Photo: Central State Archive of Film, Photo and Phono
Documents of St. Petersburg
67
PROPORTION, dis-HARMONIES, IDENTITIES
66
ARCHITECTURE
was same imitation of nature that Hegel was
talking about - only the nature itself was modi-
ed. Industry, machines and modernity were
taken as new nature, new material to work
with. Later the same thing happened to con-
structivist symbolic buildings as to the ones
that originated classical order system of col-
umns: “…imitation is not true to nature; on
the contrary; the plants-form {constructivists
would read “plants” as “factories”} are dis-
torted architecturally, brought nearer to the
circle, the straight line, and what is mathe-
matically regular” (1975, 654).
As for the next stage analyzed by Hegel, the
Classical architecture, – it perfectly ts into
constructivists theory as well. The General
Character of Classical Architecture as dened
by Hegel: Subservience to a Specic End, the
Building’s Fitness for its Purpose, the House
as the Fundamental Type (1975, 661-62). We
could recall “The Dwelling” by M. Ginsburg
(1934) and the huge inuence that Le Cor-
busier’s “machines for living” had on Russian
constructivists among numerous other ex-
amples. The categories introduced by Hegel
sound again as postulates of the “new” ar-
chitectural theory. There could be numerous
parallels to continue with. If to speak about
comparisons with the architecture of Antiq-
uity, constructivism seems to be closer to
the Greek, than to the Roman architecture.
Hegel recognizes, that “Roman architecture,
to speak generally, had a totally dierent
range and character from the Greek” (1975,
682). It was the following era of Stalin’s “Em-
pire Style” that appealed to the Roman ar-
chitecture. As Hegel notices, “whereas the
Romans are skillful in mechanics of building,
and although their buildings are richer and
more magnicent {like the ones constructed
in Soviet Union 1930-1950-s}, they have less
nobility and grace” (Ibid). I nd this state-
ment applicable to the pair Constructivism/
Stalin’s Classicism (Socialist Realism) as well.
It is also relevant to them what Hegel writes
about dierence between Greek and Ro-
man characters, when “the Greeks devoted
the splendor and beauty of art only to pub-
lic buildings; their private houses remained
insignicant. Whereas in the case of the Ro-
mans, not only was there an enlarged range
of public buildings where the purposiveness
of their construction was allied with grandi-
ose magnicence… but architecture was also
directed to the requirements of private life”
(1975, 683).
If in the era of classical heritage mastering
the living houses, especially those built for the
ocers of dierent “departments” (e.g. one
of the “Seven Sisters”) were extremely repre-
sentative, then “dwellings” constructed in the
1920-s were really meant to serve its purpose
of providing people with living conditions.
Later constructivists were blamed in building
match boxes for people to live in, declaring
that those apartment blocks lacked any aes-
thetic qualities. As I. Sablin, one of the known
Russian historians of architecture, notices,
“Avant-Guard in its “classical” forms can be
imagined as movement to the rst principles
of art. And in this sense any building – is actu-
ally a box, and architects of the 1920-s simply
realized the reduction of the (living) house
as archetype to such forms, which purity has
been attractive to only the few up to the pre-
sent, majority does not understand it at all”
(2005, 25).
We could now turn to the “General Charac-
ter of Romantic Architecture” described by
Hegel at last, and to the denition of Ro-
mantic Architecture as the one that, being
independent, is at the same united with ar-
chitecture that serves a purpose. Construc-
tivist architecture is the least “romantic”
in its origin, yet the presence of Romantic
features, as they are dened by Hegel, and
that are visible in many works by masters of
Avant-guard, originate contradictions within
constructivist architectural movement on
one hand, and show wideness of the appli-
cability of the functionalist method on the
other. What could be Romantic about the
architecture that struggled against abstrac-
tiveness, tried to expose the construction to
its bare nudity and to purify forms to their
“natural” regularity? Constructivists, wor-
shipping pragmatism and rationalism on one
hand, identied themselves as revolution-
ists, and their method – as a revolutionary
one. They wanted to be heard, they needed
to reach high level of expressiveness, and
thus both their architectural practices and
theoretical manifests were highly declara-
tive. Their goals would go beyond reforma-
tion of contemporary reality, as they dreamt
about architecture that, as Hegel describes
Romantic architecture, “has and displays
a denite purpose; but in its grandeur and
sublime peace it is lifted above anything
purely utilitarian into an innity in itself”
(1975, 685). It is all to be nd, for example,
in the projects by Melnikov and Leonidov.
In this striving for creation of the Universal
method based on the “natural” principles of
architecture that were articulated ages ago,
masters of constructivism left an amazingly
diverse heritage.
Although for the “main streamers” within
Fig. 3 - House at Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. Arch. D.
Chechulin, A. Rostovsky, 1937-52. Photo: Central State Ar-
chive of Film, Photo and Phono Documents of St. Petersburg
Fig. 4 - The House of Melnikov. Arch. K. Melnikov, 1927-29.
Photo: Central State Archive of Film, Photo and Phono
Documents of St. Petersburg
69
PROPORTION, dis-HARMONIES, IDENTITIES
68
ARCHITECTURE
constructivism movement, the idea of losing
everything “in the greatness of the whole”
(1975, 684) was quite alien. Constructivists
would not sacrice “strict dierence be-
tween load and support” 1975, 688), which
could lead to the abstraction of the form and
undermine the original construction. Yet all
those features that Hegel attributes to Ro-
mantic architecture were the ones that the
next era of the “Classical heritage” master-
ing was longing for. In the 1930-s it was Clas-
sical Roman architecture that was taken as
an example for grandiose and unconditionally
beautiful architecture that was able to pro-
mote new political ideology. Yet many of the
buildings, created in the reign of Stalin, pro-
duce the feeling of rather Gothic (Romantic)
architecture than of the Classical (Roman).
Closer reading of Hegel shows that Stalin’s
architecture is even more Gothic than it is
usually noticed. Those were particular direc-
tives and instructions that masters of the new
style had to follow on their way to sublimity
of the Roman Empire, but in reality it turns
out that they were unconsciously creating
Gothic architecture with Classical decoration
- contradictions that are explicit in all major
objects of the style. These contradictions are
brought to the level of empyreal extreme in
the most grandiose, unrealized and unreal-
izable project of the Palace of Soviets (not
only in the project by B. Iofan, that was ap-
proved, but in majority of the projects intro-
duced for the contest). Its enormous size, its
masses, striving upwards, the independency
of exterior from interior – we can nd again
the description (or the ready recipe) for the
Palace of Soviets in Hegel’s Letters. It was
to be a Palace of Soviets (with the function
of a cathedral in the original period of the
Romantic Architecture) where, as Hegel de-
scribes, “there is a room for an entire com-
munity. For here the whole community of the
city and its neighborhood is to assemble not
round the building but inside it” (1975, 692).
No wonder, that “Commissioner” was not
satised with its appearance for quite a long
time, since proportions of Classical architec-
ture that many tried to stretch to the gigan-
tic size of the building of the Palace of Sovi-
ets could not possibly represent the sort of
Sublime that architects were striving to pro-
duce. It could be only intuitively that B. Iofan
realized that his project belongs to Romantic
architecture, and that “in romantic architec-
ture the interior of the building not only ac-
quires a more essential importance because
the whole thing is meant to be an enclosure
only, but the interior glints also through the
shape of the exterior and determines its form
and arrangement in detail” (Ibid). Yet, Iofan
still tried to stay loyal to “Antiquity”, and as
a result the huge monster cake with a bridal
gure of Lenin on top turned out to be too
shockingly sublime and the gigantic construc-
tion never aroused in its “rm structure and
immutable form”.
The confusion and uncertainty among theo-
rists of the Socialist Realism in the ways to
comprehend Classical Heritage made them
choose stencils of the Antique Roman ar-
chitecture to keep on the safe side. As for
the declared universality of the functional-
ist vocabulary, when translated into the ar-
chitectural objects constructivist texts were
often too radical and loud to be listened to.
At the end, constructivists invented new lan-
guage to express ancient ideas. Thus it was
one of the brightest attempts of modernity
to redene those categories that were in-
troduced by Vitruvius and summarized by
Hegel, as Wallenstein notes in the article on
the Grounding of Architecture (2009, 77). As
it turned out, for the Russian constructiv-
ists Hegel’s philosophy constituted more a
threshold than a closure.
Fig. 5 - The Palace of Soviets. Arch. B. Iofan, V. Schuko and
V. Gelfreikh. Model, 1937-39. Photo: Central State Archive
of Film, Photo and Phono Documents of St. Petersburg
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