Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Drawing the Unbuildable

Architecture is conventionally perceived to be synonymous with building. In contrast, this book introduces and defines a new category – the unbuildable. The unbuildable involves projects that are not just unbuilt but also cannot be built. This distinct form of architectural project plays an important and often surprising role in architectural discourse, working not in opposition to the buildable, but frequently complementing it. Using well-known examples of early Soviet architecture – Tatlin’s Tower in particular – Nerma Prnjavorac Cridge demonstrates the relevance of the unbuildable, how it relates to current notions of seriality, copying, and reproduction, and its implications relative to contemporary practice and discourse in the computational age. The unbuildable offers a fresh perspective on our preconceptions and expectations of early Soviet architecture and the Constructivist movement.

Nerma Prnjavorac Cridge grew up and began her architectural career in Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia. At the beginning of the Bosnian War she came to the UK, continuing her studies first at Birmingham, and then at the Bartlett, UCL. Nerma was awarded a PhD at the Architectural Association in London in 2011. As well as working for several distinguished architectural practices including Thomas Heatherwick’s Studio and Art2Architecture, Nerma taught at the Universities of Greenwich, Birmingham, London

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Metropolitan, Central Saint Martins, IVE Hong Kong, and Brighton. A Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts since 2011, Nerma currently divides her time between teaching history and theory at the Architectural Association in London and design at Cambridge School of Art, as well as running her own art and design practice, Drawing Agency. She lives in London with her husband, Mark, and daughter, Marlena. Routledge Research in Architecture

The Routledge Research in Architecture series provides the reader with the latest scholarship in the field of architecture. The series publishes research from across the globe and covers areas as diverse as architectural history and theory, technology, digital architecture, structures, materials, details, design, monographs of architects, interior design and much more. By making these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote quality architectural research.

An Architecture of Parts The Films of Charles and Ray Eames Architects, Building Workers and A Universal Sense of Expectation Industrialisation in Britain 1940–1970 Eric Schuldenfrei Christine Wall Intersections of Space and Ethos Towards an Articulated Phenomeno Searching for the Unmeasurable logical Interpretation of Architecture Nikolaos-Ion Terzoglou, Kyriaki Phenomenal phenomenology Tsoukala and Charikleia Pantelidou M. Reza Shirazi Ars et Ingenium: The Embodiment of Architectural System Structures Imagination in Francesco di Giorgio Integrating Design Complexity in Martini’s Drawings Industrialised Construction Pari Riahi Kasper Sánchez Vibæk

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Kahn at Penn Space Unveiled Transformative Teacher of Architecture Invisible Cultures in the Design Studio James Williamson Edited by Carla Jackson Bell Designing the British Post-War Home Architectural Temperance Kenneth Wood, 1948–1968 Spain and Rome, 1700–1759 Fiona Fisher Victor Deupi Drawing the Unbuildable Assembling the Centre: Architecture for Seriality and reproduction in architecture Indigenous Cultures Nerma Prnjavorac Cridge Australia and Beyond Janet McGaw and Anoma Pieris Drawing the Unbuildable Seriality and reproduction in architecture

Nerma Prnjavorac Cridge Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 First published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Nerma Prnjavorac Cridge The right of Nerma Prnjavorac Cridge to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Cridge, Nerma. Drawing the unbuildable: seriality and reproduction in architecture/Nerma Cridge. pages cm. — (Routledge research in architecture) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Unbuilt architectural projects. 2. Communication in architectural design. 3. Architecture—Philosophy. I. Title. NA2705.5.C75 2015 720—dc23 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 2014042472

ISBN: 978-1-138-79006-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-76444-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon by diacriTech, Chennai Contents

List of figures vii Acknowledgements ix

Introduction: category of the unbuildable 1

Ptar I The unbuildable monument 21

1 Tatlin’s Tower: an image outside of time 23 2 The unbuildable tomb: the Palace of the Soviets 65 3 Tower and Palace: two faces of the gigantic monument 100

Ptar II The unbuildable series 125

4 Horizontal Skyscraper: series within a series 127 5 The serial series: Iakov Chernikhov 140 6 The pioneering series: Piranesi’s Carceri 160 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

Conclusion 171

Bibliography 178 Image credits 189 Index 190 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 List of figures

Figure I.1 Hand-written note by Le Corbusier for the lecture proclaiming ‘hatred of drawing’ 3 Figure I.2 ‘Slava Stalinu!’ (Glory to Stalin!) 10 Figure 1.1 Photographs of the original model in St. Petersburg in 1920 36 Figure 1.2 Built towers: Shukhov Tower and London Olympic Tower 43 Figure 1.3 Simplified model in street demonstration photographed from three different angles 51 Figure 1.4 Yuri Avvakumov, Red Tower, 1986 53 Figure 1.5 The first fragment of atlin’sT Tower 58 Figure 2.1 Palace of the Soviets 81 Figure 2.2 Russian Antarctic Base at the Pole of Inaccessibility 87 Figure 2.3 Iofan, Shchuko, and Gelfreikh, Palace of the Soviets, 1934 91 Figure 2.4 The difference between the Tower and the Palace 93 Figure 3.1 El Lissitzky, Tatlin at Work, 1920 116 Figure 4.1 El Lissitzky, Lenin Tribune, PROUN no. 85 128 Figure 4.2 Cloud Iron: Rendered Axonometric 133 Figure 5.1 Drawing size comparison: Palace of the Soviets by Boris Iofan versus Composition No. 28 by Iakov Chernikhov 143 Figure 5.2 Iakov Chernikhov, Composition No. 28, also referred to as Hammer and Sickle Fantasy 144 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Figure 5.3 Iakov Chernikhov, 101 Compositions 1925–1933 146 Figure 5.4 Iakov Chernikhov, composition from The Pantheons of the Great Patriotic War sequence, 1942–1945 153 Figure 5.5 Water Tower, Red Carnation Factory 156 Figure 6.1 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Carceri, The Drawbridge plate 164 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Acknowledgements

This book is based on my PhD thesis completed in 2011 at the Architectural Association in London. It would not have been possible without the support of my supervisors, Marina Lathouri and Mark Cousins. I also owe my deep gratitude to the director of the Architectural Association, Brett Steele. Anyone who has completed a PhD thesis and then was fortunate to publish it as a book will know how far from straightforward this process is. In my case, a particular difficulty was that the thesis dealt primarily with the visual, and included over 160 drawings, paintings, and photographs. In contrast, this book contains only 20 black-and-white images. Rather than hindering, I hope that this small selection helps to reinforce my main arguments. Since being created, the representations of the unbuildable have often been difficult to verify, were commonly forged, stolen, or simply deteriorated beyond recognition. Even now, most of the time, such material is only accessible through small black-and-white photocopies, making verification of the original size, location, or numbers of items, extremely difficult, perhapsimpossible. I hope that, similar to the unbuildable itself, this absence of basic information enables the reader to imagine how truly glorious their full scale and colours must have been, as well as to speculate on other real and fictional possibilities.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 My background informed both my approach to the subject and my access to it. I grew up in Sarajevo, ex-Yugoslavia. At least in part, this book is written for that young girl, who could see and appreciate the kind of country and political system there was, as well as having to flee for her life when the Bosnian War unfolded. However, this is not about nostalgia for what has been lost, but about acknowledging an important role that these lesser known histories have within an architectural discourse. Accessing Russian archives was extremely difficult, riddled with suspicion, bureaucracy, and many misunderstandings. Some of my experiences in Moscow would not be out of place in a Kafka novel. However, since this book is about perceptions in the West, most of the research comes from Western sources. I aimed to emphasise throughout how ideology and even so-called propaganda are not as clear-cut as they often tend to be perceived. As a consequence, our interpretations of any historical events should not and, in fact, must not be absolutist. Rather than neatly labelling every architect/designer/artist or a movement as such, every individual project, perhaps even a single drawing, ought to be looked at and judged on its own terms. I would also like to show my thanks to Yuri Avvakumov for being so generous and inspirational, and to Liudmila and Vlad Kirpichev for making me so welcome in Moscow. I sincerely appreciate the help of Chris Cross for sharing his experience of building Tatlin’s Tower in London in the 1980s, and Bob Harbison for discussing the notion of the unbuildable with me. I am grateful to Brian Hatton for his continuous invaluable advice, and to St Petersburg contacts Misha and Arsenii Borissov for all their help. Ed Frith, Katie Lloyd-Thomas, and Jonathan Hill deserve special mention for instilling curiosity early on in my architectural education. I am sincerely grateful to Graham Brooker for his contacts and encouragement, as well as to my publishers for their patience and support. I am indebted to many of my colleagues, most of all Tania Lopez Winkler, Doreen Bernath, Costandis Kizis, and Ricardo Ruivo Pereira, for their advice and encouragement, and to Liz, Sophie, and Jasna for their friendship. Particular thanks should go to my ‘English’ family: Ann, Michael, and Rachel Worley. I would like to dedicate this book to my family: my father who frequently traveled to the Soviet Union during my early childhood, my

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 mother who instilled in me a love of poetry, and my brother, whose unequivocal support helped in a much more direct way than anyone could possibly imagine. I have to extend this dedication to my husband, Mark, for all his love and support, and to my daughter Marlena, whose fierce intelligence, drawing ability, and sense of humor literally keep me alive. This book is for you. Thank you for everything. Introduction Category of the unbuildable

Architecture is conventionally perceived to be synonymous with building. In contrast, this book introduces and defines a new category – the unbuildable – involving projects that are not just unbuilt but also independent or autonomous from material realisation. I will argue that this distinct type of architectural production bears an important and often surprising role in architectural discourse, working not in opposition to the buildable, but frequently working towards complementing it. As reflected in the first portion of the title, the drawings and physical artefacts are provided as primary evidence. I scrutinise the visual, i.e. the drawings, photographs, and paintings, and I study their physical qualities, e.g. the size, colour, line, and actual content. This process includes architectural drawings, as well as other media, such as photography, film, and digital representations. The drawings offer additional and more precise evidence, whereas writing can be subjected to mistranslation or can become divorced from the actual architectural production altogether. Drawing can offer insights beyond the architects’ intended or attributed ‘meaning’. Using simple issues, such as size, colour, sky, position, and quantity, the general traits of the unbuildable are derived from the visual work itself. Strangely, the product of the activity of drawing, in which most architects at least occasionally engage, frequently gives rise to a strong

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 aversion that amounts to a ‘hatred’, instigated by none other than the architects themselves. The qualms against drawings tend to be particularly strongly directed at those drawings with pictorial quality and even more so towards architectural projects that operate purely within the visual sphere. Many prominent modernists have raised strong objections towards drawings in general. For example, Adolf Loos1 believed that drawing and building were not only separate, but at opposite ends of the production of architecture. By famously burning all of his designs before 2 Introduction his death, Loos demonstrated that he wished to be remembered by the buildings he had realised and not by his drawings. In fact, this final act of destruction clearly indicates that he did not think drawings have any right to exist outside of the building. Similarly, perhaps the most famous architect of all time, Le Corbusier, expressed nothing less than a ‘hatred of drawing’. As shown in his hand- written note in preparation for the lecture proclaiming ‘la haine du dessin’ in Précisions,2 he summarises a rhetoric that came to be entrenched and canonised within the modern movement:

Now that I have appealed to your spirit of truth, I would like to give you architectural students the hatred of drawings ... Architecture is created in the head ... Everything is in the plan and section.… Architecture is organization. You are an organizer, not a draftsman.3

Here, we come across positive terms, such as sense of truth, precision, exactness, accuracy, associated with architecture, immediately followed by the negative, expressed strongly as ‘the hatred of drawings’. From this statement, one could further expand Le Corbusier’s hatred of the seduction, speculation, and openness of interpretation inherent within a drawing. In contrast, we find adulation to the point of fetishising orthogonal drawings, such as plan and section. Finally, Le Corbusier supports the idea of architectural drawing as a means to an end, to convey an organisation of a building, created in the mind of the master architect/engineer. It seems no accident that in the English translation of Le Corbusier’s statement, the word ‘drawing’, as seen in Figure I.1 in Le Corbusier’s hand-written note, is replaced by a more innocuous term.4 In a paragraph titled ‘Language and Drawing’ in Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture, Adrian Forty uses the English translation to perpetuate the myth of Le Corbusier as not hating all Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 drawings but only a particular kind – renderings, or shaded drawings.5 Drawing is replaced by a particular type of drawing, i.e. rendering, or shaded drawing, as though the translator could possibly have been too ‘scared’ to imply that an architect as influential as Le Corbusier might hate architectural drawings in general. In 1978, Reyner Banham expressed comments, more specifically directed towards the drawings of the unbuildable, that testify to how unrelenting this loathing can be. Banham wrote the following: Introduction 3 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Figure I.1 Hand-written note by Le Corbusier in preparation for the lecture proclaiming ‘hatred of drawing’ (la haine du dessin) to architectural students at the Faculty of Exact Sciences, 21 December 1929, Buenos Aires.

The worship of drawing is a peculiar kind of professional atavism, architecture withdrawing from a hostile world to comfort itself in a security blanket that no one can take away from it.… Doing drawings is a way of continuing to make an architect without serving the 4 Introduction architect’s social function of creating buildings. Yes, if you insist, masturbation. This is hard saying, but needs to be said. As soon as we regard drawing as an end product of design, we have architectural interrupts; we have the creative process cut short at the point where it could become creative in “the world beyond the drawing board.” The true power of architectural draftsmanship (of all design draftsmanship, indeed) derives from its being a means, not an end.6

Clearly, Banham equates the social role of architects with designing buildings. You could argue that many socially irresponsible buildings are designed by architects. Indeed, in some contexts, building may be the worst possible outcome for a society. Equally, it is possible to assert a socially beneficial agenda by architectural means that do not involve building. This persistently hostile view against drawings without a building as their purpose is echoed in the following passage by Diane Ghirardo:

Conversely, when building opportunities dwindled in the United States in the 1970s, architects turned to drawings – not even designs of a different and better world, but instead a set of increasingly abstract, pretty (and marketable) renderings of their own or of antique works and recycled postclassical picturesque sites. Like much building of the decades just preceding, these aesthetic indul- gences simply masquerade as architecture. They reveal architects in full retreat from any involvement with the actual world of buildings.7

Again, Ghirardo does not allow for architectural drawing to exist as an end in itself. Indeed, it seems as though she considers such drawings as the opposite of building, as anti-building. Agreeing with that premise would mean dismissing the influence that such drawings might have,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 not just on students and theoreticians but also on the design of buildings themselves. I will argue that such production must be considered as a necessary and important part of architectural discourse, with particular relevance to architectural education. Similar to those who oppose autonomous architectural drawing, there have always been arguments for the primacy of practices relying almost entirely on teaching and theoretical projects, i.e. the production of drawings. Elevating such practices above that of designing buildings Introduction 5 is not my position. Everything said so far seems to point towards an enduring conflict between those who observe and limit architecture purely to the building, solidity, underlying structure, and implied truth, and those who allow, and at times privilege, practices that do not involve building. Although there is little point in denying that this division exists, I propose a different reasoning. The unbuildable and the buildable are different, but not necessarily opposite; and certainly one should not be perceived as more valuable than the other. Instead, they each have a distinct contribution and a role to fulfil within an architectural discourse. They are not opposed to one another, and one does not preclude the other. On occasion, they can even work together in a complementary way. The opposition between the two has been and is likely to continue to be persistent. My intention is to resist valu- ing the unbuildable more highly than the buildable; instead, I aim to establish several distinct ways in which the unbuildable operates. Separate from the necessity of the construction of an architectural object, the unbuildable has no need for the building to be the cause and an end product. Yet, such drawings will be argued to be just as ‘architectural’ as their more conventional counterparts. In many respects, the decision to focus on the unbuildable was related to their visual excess. Representations of the unbuildable can appear to be richer and some are more influential than many that result in the construction of buildings. The unbuildable is thus going to be discussed as a practice outside the norm, which by challenging conventions helps us to re-examine and redefine the very notion of the ‘architectural’. Most importantly, it will be demonstrated how the unbuildable also influences the design of buildings. Drawings of the unbuildable must be differentiated from conventional architectural production, particularly the so-called ‘working drawings’, which are produced as a means to an end and in adher- ence to a strict professional code. It is also important not to confuse

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 the unbuildable with projects that simply remain unbuilt. ‘Unbuilt’ is inadequate because it implies a lack of or a failing of some sort, instead of suggesting a generative potential that I believe exists. Many projects have been near completion, but, for trivial reasons, these projects did not succeed in being built and remain unbuilt. I chose the unbuildable as a stronger, more definite term, which is distinct from designs that are buildable, to pursue an enquiry for which the actual materialised building is simply deemed irrelevant. However, such projects rightly insist on 6 Introduction retaining their architectural status. Although many titles contain words such as ‘building’ or ‘unbuilt’, few titles include the word ‘unbuildable’.8 This view could likely be due to the word ‘unbuildable’, being associated with land that cannot be used for building either because of its natural disposition or due to prohibition by law. The adjective ‘unbuildable’ renders such land useless and thus valueless. This could be why, for example, the prominent architect Raimund Abraham chose to name his book The [Un]built,9 although he actually discussed the autonomous function of architectural drawing without any direct relationship to the construction of buildings. Apart from confirming that the unbuildable has more negative connotations than simply ‘unbuilt’, this interpretation likely means that the buildings by and large tend to be privileged and valued more highly than other possible types of architectural enquiry. Similar issues have often been explored under various headings, including ‘conceptual’, ‘paper’, or ‘theoretical’ architecture, and more recently ‘critical’ and ‘allegorical’10 architecture. In my view, none of these terms have exactly the same function as the unbuildable. Paper architecture still has an object, a building, as part of its aspirations. ‘Theoretical’ is too general as it seems self-evident that some buildings are theoretical. Similarly, the term conceptual is not sufficiently specific because certain buildings are and should be considered ‘conceptual’. Critical architecture suggests a critique, negativity, and opposition that could easily be misconstrued as being directly opposed to the buildable, and buildings often possess a critical function. Allegory involves an element of deception, which can be, but is not necessarily part of, the unbuildable’s objectives, which is why it would be inadequate to use here. A number of Russian sources used a term ‘disembodied architecture’, which seems to be appropriate here because the case is for architecture that is every bit as architectural as any other but without the presence of a physical

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 body. Different issues often get confused, making the entire discussion more problematic when, for example, Sean Griffiths in his essay ‘The Unbuildable’11 used this term almost interchangeably with the unbuilt. Nonetheless, Griffiths poses several relevant questions here, ‘such as nostalgia and fear of the future, the future we long for; but also have to consign towards never being capable of actually reaching’.12 It seems to me that, on the one hand, we are discussing architectural ideas that can only be visualised or drawn but that cannot be made. On Introduction 7 the other hand, I wish to emphasise that the unbuildable ought not to be viewed as competing or being opposed to the buildable. In fact, they often work in a complementary way. The autonomous function of this type of architectural project, through which architects have often critically thought and experimented, is precisely what will be discussed and argued here, with the unbuildable not observed as an alternative to the unbuilt or the built, but as a distinct and even complementary form of architectural knowledge. In one book with the unbuildable in its title, The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable,13 Robert Harbison only started to address the unbuildable in the final chapter, ‘Unbuildable Buildings’. This coupling of the words ‘unbuildable’ with ‘buildings’ appears to be a contradiction in terms; something can either be unbuildable or buildable, and buildings are always buildable. Even if we take ‘unbuildable buildings’ not to be a paradox, it still betrays the prevalent tendency to conflate an architectural project with building. Harbison writes about the uneasiness in defining the unbuildable:

Defining the unbuildable turns out to be harder than one could have foreseen. Certain things which exist are more farfetched than many which don’t. And actual buildings can be fictional, which is to say uninhabitable and thus unrealizable, in certain specifiable ways.14

By seeing the unbuildable as the final step before the inconceivable, Harbison describes it as so far away from the norm that it becomes difficult to even think about or create an imaginary construct representing it. Interestingly, Harbison realises that at times the existing, or perhaps we should say the physical, can seem more ‘fictional’ than the purely imaginary. In that sense, certain drawings could be considered as ‘realized’ once the designs they represent make themselves so present in our con-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 sciousness to appear at least as equally or even more real than many actual works of architecture. Harbison ‘confessed’ that the title of the chapter, ‘Unbuildable Buildings’, preceded the title of the book. In this sense, the book’s title may be misleading. Several examples in this book will show drawings that enter our architectural imaginary and become present and real, although they remain purely visual and immaterial. I hypothesise that the unbuildable, without the attachment of the noun ‘building’, not only does exist but 8 Introduction also performs an important function within an architectural discourse, and it often influences the design of buildings themselves. I should emphasise that drawings are not opposed to building and that this issue is not related to the availability of appropriate building techniques. The unbuildable remains external to the construction of the physical object and operates within the purely visual realm, but, importantly, it can and does remain architectural. In fact, the case studies presented in this book aim to demonstrate that the unbuildable, at times, should be considered to be more architectural than many buildings. Additionally, I would contest an almost automatic conflation between the building and architecture; the suggestion that a building is always ‘architectural’ seems equally absurd. The unbuildable has a tendency to position itself within the boundary of two or more areas, thus to remain in between, neither in the ‘architectural’ field nor outside it, inhabiting the border itself. The unbuildable and its forms of representation have the propensity to get ‘caught up’ between architecture and art, and more specifically, between architectural drawings and pictorial images. By operating less conspicuously than many other types of architectural projects, the unbuildable affects, shapes, and expands architecture and other fields. The possible origins of this specific form of architectural enquiry, in my opinion, are linked to the multiple points of rediscovery of perspective in the Renaissance. Various narratives of Brunelleschi’s experiment had a dual influence: they inspired a continuous increase in orthogonal drawings, including banning and actively discouraging the use of perspective, as well as the opposite – experimentations and the proliferation of perspectival drawings. The notion of the multiple is important for the category of the unbuildable in terms of points of origin, its traits, and modes of operation. It must be noted, however, that this present study is not by any means

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 an attempt to write a history of the unbuildable. Instead, through the main case studies, I tried to identify its characteristic ways of working and its traits. One such trait that I have identified shows a perspective to dominate graphic and visual expressions of the unbuildable. A perspective is considered to be the least architectural of all drawings, often used in addition to ‘proper’ architectural drawings, i.e. plan and section. An important consequence of the predominance of perspectives and the many ‘pictorial detours’ is the visual excess. The excessive use of visual Introduction 9 effects often triggered architects to defy laws and conventions of architectural modes of representation, thus expanding the boundary of what could be strictly defined as ‘architectural’. Acting against the convention, through negation, is an important characteristic of the working manner for the unbuildable. However, although such practices may affirm the rules, they do not conform to them. One such rule is related to the rediscovery of perspective and Brunelleschi. In an established account, Brunelleschi was said to have drawn the building as the sky was reflected in the mirror. This drawing designated him as an architect because architects draw architectural objects, which can be precisely measured, and the sky is the background, in the domain of the artists, outside the architectural. This is why there is an underlying narrative of a sky or a cloud in this book. A sky or a cloud becomes another reference that breaks the rules and can register the shift in architectural thought. By acting in this way, discreetly, indi- rectly, and subconsciously, the unbuildable influences not only the architectural discourse but also the building. Ernst Gombrich’s15 writing on ‘pictorial’ shows how this inconspicuous mode of working has been utilised by artists throughout history. However, conventionally the focus in architecture has and continues to be on the architectural object. It seems appropriate, therefore, for a study that looks beyond the architectural object per se to also critically look at the elements ordinarily confined to the background, such as the depictions of the sky. Thus, a particular drawing element, e.g. a sky or a cloud, which if present in the architectural representation usually remains confined to the background, is important here. The purpose of this is to reframe the idea of architectural drawing, and the speculations on sky in drawings form yet another set of possibilities. In this sense, they function in a similar way as other traits of the category of the unbuildable, instigating duplications, multiplications,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 and variations. Initiated by a curious central placement in Piranesi’s series of etchings, Carceri, the ‘sky’ will be used as a recurring reference, as another index of change, which may otherwise become imperceptible. This change may at times be as significant as scale or location or transformation from the singular towards the multiple. It must be perceived as a sign of the difference (and not opposition) between the ‘architectural’ and the ‘visual’, operating on a number of different levels. Instead of being a mere backdrop, as Figure I.2 shows, the ‘sky’ was used 10 Introduction

Figure I.2 ‘Slava Stalinu!’ (Glory to Stalin!). A ‘drawing’ in the sky made by airplanes to celebrate Stalin’s birthday. This particular photograph was later corrected, manipulated (with added audience, perfected words, and pilots), and used in many images and posters.

literally for augmenting ideological messages, making the size of such ‘drawings’ gigantic. The unbuildable, at least in part, should be considered simply as pictures. It is often met with hostility and denied an acceptance as ‘architectural’, because it does precisely what Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘pictorial detour’ prescribes architectural drawing must not do. In this way, pictorial is not just an argument to work against; it becomes much stronger, and acts as a trigger . For Benjamin, architecture is linked to objective structure and opposed to painting; it is associated with visual appearance and the pictorial:

What is crucial in the consideration of architecture is not seeing but the apprehension of structures. The objective effect of the buildings on the imaginative being of the viewer is more important than their “being seen.” In short, the most essential characteristic of the architectural drawing is that it does not take a pictorial 16 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 detour.

For Benjamin, the absence of pictorial quality distinguishes architectural drawing from a painting or a photograph, as pictorial quality negates ‘an objective effect’. If a drawing is to be architectural, it must not create a picture but delineate the structure instead. Far from obvious, this structure tends to be hidden and is only visible to an expert architectural eye. Here, again, architects are defined by what they should not draw, Introduction 11 and an architectural drawing is identified by what it ought not to be, i.e. a picture. An essential prerequisite of ‘architectural’ is less defined by what it should be because the notion of underlying structure is left vague and imprecise. Instead, it is conditioned through the negative by what it should not do. In contrast to Benjamin’s privileging of the structure, this book will show, among other arguments, how at times purely visual projects can and should be considered as architectural. Often, the unbuildable tends to be criticised as lacking precision and accuracy and reducing architecture to mere pictures. It may be true that, at times, architecture purely as a drawing involves a reduction. However, by taking a ‘pictorial detour’, the unbuildable also attains a surplus, an overflow of the visual. Inevitably, transformation from the initial design stages, rich in associations and meanings, into a building also leads to discarding and editing, thus to reducing. Instead of simply accepting that a drawing is always a reduction or vice versa, it seems more plausible that at different times either may be the case. Far from being an isolated view, Benjamin’s suggestion of a ‘detour’ in fact epitomises a highly established view within architecture. This is why Benjamin’s argument needs to be undermined, together with an apparently unceasing conflict between the underlying structure of the building and its visual appearance. This opposition has a long-lasting legacy embedded within the architectural discourse and practice, which tended to equate the idea of structure with truth, in opposition to the ‘deceptive’ qualities of the visual. In contrast, the visual has often been viewed as surplus, an unwanted distraction from the proper task of an architect, i.e. the construction of buildings. I intend to show how the unbuildable operates, not despite but precisely due to such negations. Such denials are triggers and an important way through which the unbuildable defines itself. I would argue that the pictorial and the perspectival, at times, are conflated and used inter-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 changeably due to, in part, these terms actually being conflated in the Western understanding of architecture. This is how an additional important attribute of the unbuildable was formulated, namely, the pictorial quality and close affinity with an image: in fact, visual excess. A particular type of drawing – perspective – features frequently in the depictions of the unbuildable; in fact, it dominates such representations. Simultaneously and curiously, the plan is frequently absent. This is due to the relationship between perspective and plan, the most pictorial and 12 Introduction considered inherently ‘realistic’, as opposed to the most abstract of all architectural drawings. The architectural status of perspective was persistently deemed as problematic, although the plan continued to be privileged and nearly automatically accepted. At the same time, a tendency persists in considering the plan to be synonymous with the building’s construction. I propose that favouring the plan and other orthogonal drawings17 has often resulted in limiting and constraining architecture to a building’s construction. However, similarly, prioritising the plan had the opposite effect of inspiring rebellion, working against the rules, and changing what was deemed to be acceptable for an architectural drawing. This is why in this study titled the unbuildable, itself working on the very margins of what can be considered to be ‘architectural’, particular attention needs to be given to the function of elements that are considered to be un-architectural or even ‘forbidden’. The notion of the ‘new’ complicates such issues. Mark Wigley’s18 unsettling ideas, not of a simple destruction but a complete extinction of architecture, are necessary in order for the ‘new’ to occur. Related to this, I will argue that the appearance of the ‘new’ and innovation may have increasingly less to do with a singular ground-breaking discovery. Instead, the ‘new’ may be only possible through an infinitely small, often hardly noticeable altera- tion, making gradual, discreet, and nearly imperceptible changes over a period of time. The majority of case studies have been reported from one specific and short period of history – during the existence of the Soviet Union. Due to an incredible number of drawn projects during this period, the unbuildable could be said to have reached the peak at this time. The idea of ‘new’ is crucial here. An important step in this process of annihilation of what was already there was the renaming of everything associated with the old. This is also how the Soviet Union19 became the first and pos-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 sibly the only country in the world to be renamed without reference to the geographical location or the nationality of its people. The new name also suggests the scope of the world-wide ambitions of the Soviet leaders from the outset: They did not want to be confined to the geographical territory of Russia or only Russian nationals. The urge to re-invent, which ranged from the language to physical structures, appears to have been aimed at ultimately creating a new way of life and even more, a completely new people. All of these spheres – language, technologies, Introduction 13 art, and architecture – were ultimately intended to produce a ‘new’ population. This attempt was incredibly ambitious, especially at the time, because Russian inhabitants were far from being in the forefront; they were even deemed ‘backward’ in comparison to other developed industrial nations.20 It cannot be an accident for the unbuildable to peak here because this practice is essentially connected with the reframing and re-inventing of the basic aspects of an architectural project. A persistent view maintains that the Soviet Union and utopia are closely connected and are often considered to be synonymous. The prevalent understanding of avant-garde practices in the Western conceptualisation tends to equate the Soviet avant-garde with simplistic notions of utopia. I would like to refute this in favour of the more complex notions of utopia. The same historical period became so fertile for the unbuildable, making this type of architectural practice almost the norm. This is why the main case studies discussed in this book are derived from this era, which I propose to be considered the ‘peak’ in the production of the unbuildable. Within the Soviet context, the depictions of the unbuildable have become closely associated with the concept of utopia, even conflated with it. Whether the concept of utopia can continue to be considered useful or relevant here will be examined throughout. Several characteristics shared by utopia and the unbuildable, starting with the definition of a non-place, will be used for defining other important traits for the unbuildable, such as the absence of physical location/multiple locations, a-scalability, i.e. the ability to operate across scales yet not to be confined to any scale in particular, and two-dimensionality , i.e. the complete lack of materiality of the final product. It may seem paradoxical that the Soviet Union became so fertile for the unbuildable projects in a period that strived to magnify production in all spheres. This was such a powerful motivating force for the avant-garde that, for example, some of the latter phase ‘Constructivists’

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 changed their name to Productivists and literally entered factories and industrial production. However, the proliferation of drawings, of the visual, as opposed to buildings is only paradoxical if one subscribes to the conventional equation of architectural production and buildings. By the addition of ‘utopia of production’, the word ‘display’ or more simply images, utopia itself becomes questionable. The problem of the two competing centres, connected with the historical rivalry of its two capital cities, is inherent in the Soviet Union. 14 Introduction Historically, Russia and the Soviet Union were torn between Moscow and St Petersburg,21 two competing capitals and rivalling centres. Architecturally, the rivalry of the two cities could be interpreted to reflect the inability to choose between the past and the future, history and modernity, Moscow’s Russian tradition and egocentricity and St Petersburg’s borrowed European character, its foreignness.22 The two cities took turns in assuming the capital role, which resulted in a discontinuity in their developments – St Petersburg was the capital of Russia before the revolution, after which Moscow became the main city yet again, and St Petersburg was renamed Leningrad. This interruption caused an almost schizophrenic relationship between the two capitals, whereby it was difficult to talk about one city and not mention the other, with each having gaps in its history when it was deemed less important. In addition to the nostalgia for what ‘could have happened’, there seems to be a notion of each city lacking what the other one has. One needs the other, but the two are forced to exist apart, separated by a considerable physical distance. This separation results in the problem of the lack of centre or the existence of two centres at the same time, which serves to further widen the area of speculation. Frequent deaths, including Lenin’s in 1924 and Mayakovsky’s suicide in 1930, created additional complexity. As if the notion of a new monument was not complex enough, tombs, funeral processions, memorials, and mass celebrations became so intertwined, combined, and confused, particularly to those observing from the outside. Tomb and monument became closely linked; the main public spaces were often being used for both. Although the majority of examples are obtained from the immediate post-revolutionary Soviet Union, this book calls for an understanding that extends beyond this period. This understanding rejects the simplified notions of the Soviet avant-garde and socialist-realism, as well

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 as the Constructivist movement. The predominant tendency seems to be to separate projects and publications and to dismiss them either as socialist-realism or to classify them far too broadly as avant-garde, or even more problematically as Constructivism. I propose that the two are more intertwined, as we will see in the evidence of ‘socialist-realist’ tendencies in many avant-garde projects. This is why I would suggest that each project should be understood on its own basis and not lumped together under the brackets of the ‘avant-garde’ or ‘socialist-realism’. Introduction 15 Part I of the book asserts the unbuildable as a category and highlights the limitations of the singular monumental examples. Part II deals with the alternative practices, which form the foundations for the contemporary understanding of the architectural series. All examples from the Soviet era are also pertinent because they apparently belong to a time that is no longer obtainable and that may never be considered to be possible again. Simultaneously, the book offers a fresh perspective and uncovers facts that often directly contradict our preconceptions and expectations of early Soviet architecture and the Constructivist movement. Written in a speculative manner, the book examines each project first in terms of the facts, which revealingly do not seem to be as familiar or as fixed as they may initially appear, and then through ‘questioning’ why each project was not built, comparing both similar and built counterparts. I offer reasons for the unbuildability, which range from probable to absurd and preposterous, and finally I explore the concept that may appear to undermine the very premise of the unbuildable: This is the notion that, in fact, this category may be at times so far from the unbuildable that it should be understood to be the most built of all. My analysis of Tatlin’s Tower, the Palace of the Soviets, and Cloud Iron, despite being among the best-known architectural projects of the Soviet era, demonstrates paradoxically that we actually know few definite facts concerning these projects. Even the most basic of forays into architectural archives reveal many inconsistencies and absences that leave much open to debate, fuelling unlikely comparisons and speculations. Precisely because they are unbuildable, these projects exist at multiple scales, in many locations, continually repeated and copied as a reference or, through multiple associations, giving scope to our imagination by remaining imprecise. Nearly everything that we think we know about the Tower or the Palace will be questioned, contested, and disputed. In some cases, the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 established accounts will be downright rejected, leaving the only possible truths as multiple and contradictory. This is how both structures continue to influence architectural discourse, through existing in multiple locations, through a manipulation and absence of the material evidence, drawings, and models. Their built counterparts, even if technically superior, are far less well known. Counter-posed to the singular notion of the monumental is a different kind of unbuildable, with a dispersed, fragmented nature, i.e. an architectural series. As an alternative, 16 Introduction to the singular monuments, serial architectural propositions are disclosed as a particular kind of enquiry, not only without an interest in creating the final singular object, but where no drawing ought to be understood in isolation, but first and foremost, through its seriality. The primary examples used here will be El Lissitzky’s PROUN series and Iakov Chernikhov’s oeuvres. In the Conclusion, the similarities and connections between the two subcategories of the unbuildable – the singular monument and the series – will be outlined. The idea of the architectural series as explored and defined by previous examples will be made relevant to contemporary architectural practice. I will venture to suggest how this may develop further, in relation to the current ubiquitous notion of copying. The concluding parts of the book expand from the assertion that the buildable continues to increasingly resemble the unbuildable, mimicking its traits, such as scalelessness, existing on multiple sites and with excessive visuality. As a consequence, the distinctions between the two are becoming more blurred and may eventually be abolished. The Conclusion will place emphasis on the complexity and blurring of the categories between building and the unbuildable, series and the singular monument, and the mixing of their traits. In writing this book, I faced the particular challenge of being able to include only a small number of images without any colour. However, I decided that this externally imposed constraint may, in fact, be appropriate and may help to communicate several arguments. Although many of the drawings produced during this period were extremely colourful and large in size, for an incredibly long time the majority of Western researchers could only hope to access a small number of black-and-white photocopies. If one was able to grasp at Piranesi’s time the magnitude of the etchings or the colour of the Palace of the Soviets, and the enormous size of drawings, or the colour, quantity,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 and small size of the enormous production by Chernikhov, would the tendency to oversimplify this production be avoided? It seems to me that it would make it less common and that if nothing else, this new ‘old’ data might add richness to an already under-represented field. A sense of urgency, a specific kind of nostalgia is attached to the drawings here. Simply by being made out of paper, such artefacts are ephemeral; not only are they far less permanent than architecture is supposed to be, they are in real danger of physically disintegrating23 and Introduction 17 disappearing altogether. There is a sense of loss and pathos, which even the most humble of buildings cannot possess. Lost not just once, but twice. The first time, the loss occurred through the wealth of speculation and contested facts. The second time, even the few small material facts that did remain are about to disappear. Only this time it may be forever.

Notes 1 Adolf Loos, Austrian modernist architect, 1870–1933. 2 In the original version in French, Le Corbusier uses the word ‘drawing’ and not ‘rendering’, as appears in the English translation of the same year: ‘Maintenant que j’ai fait appel a ton esprit de vérité, je voudrais te donner, a toi étudiant d’architecture, l’haine du dessin ... L’architecture est une organisation. Tu es un organisateur, non pas un dessinateur!’ Le Corbusier, Précisions, 1930, pp. 230–231. 3 In the preface referring to the title of these lectures and the subsequent publication, Le Corbusier wrote: ‘These ten lectures were given with the unceasing desire to offer certitudes. That is why this book is titled Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City Planning,’ (translated by Edith Schreiber Aujame), MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991. 4 ‘Now I have appealed to your sense of truth, I should like to give you the hatred of rendering. For to render is only to cover a sheet of paper with seductive things; these are the ‘styles’ or the ‘orders’; these are fashions. Architecture is in space, in extent, in depth, in height: it is volumes and circulation. Architecture is made inside one’s head. The sheet of paper is useful only to fix the design, to transmit it to one’s client and one’s contractor. Everything is in the plan and section ... Architecture is organization. You are an organizer not a draftsman.’ Le Corbusier, public lecture, 21 December 1929 at the Faculty of Exact Sciences, Buenos Aires. ‘The World City and Some Perhaps Untimely Considerations’. In Le Corbusier (translated by Edith Schreiber Auyame), Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City Planning, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,1991, p. 230. 5 Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture, Thames and Hudson, London, 2000, p. 31. 6 Reyner Banham, ‘Iso! Axo! (All Fall Down?)’, Suzanne Buttolph (Ed.), ‘Great Models: Digressions on the Architectural Model’, The Student Publication of the School of Design: 27, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 1978, pp. 17–20, p. 19. ‘Painting and sculpture only rot the mind, but ‘you can kill a man with a building.’ This mortal dimension that makes architecture the noblest of all design professions – and all creative vocations – sheds nobility on architectural draw- Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 ings as well, as long as they serve the noble end of causing buildings to be built. Detached from that end, they dwindle to the level of bad art, very bad art in most cases’. Ibid, p. 20. ‘Clearly privileging working drawings, i.e. architectural drawing towards building, Banham writes: ‘Anybody who has used a Mies office drawing for any purpose whatsoever will know that he has held a masterpiece. His are working drawings; they give instructions on how the building is to be assembled from its component parts; they direct care to the details. They also stand at the exact point where the process of intellectual creation transforms into a process of physical creation. Therefore, like all good working drawings, they have the kind of 18 Introduction

authority that no other kind of architectural drawing can have because they are, so to speak, the architect’s last word before the building slips out of his hands’. Ibid, p. 20. ‘For the true connection between great drawing and great building may never lie in the apparent beauty of the drawing. A great architectural drawing is great because of the architecture it seeks and intends to create; it may be neither beautiful nor elegant, though it must be transparently clear to the one man who matters in this context – the builder. All the rest of us are mere kibitzers and voyeurs; drawings made to please us are trivia – and we know it!’ Ibid, p. 20. 7 Diane Ghirardo, ‘Architecture of Deceit’, MIT Press, Perspecta, Vol. 21, 1984, pp. 110–15; p. 112. 8 Robert Harbison, The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable: In Pursuit of Architectural Meaning, Thames and Hudson, London, 1991; Wolf D. Prix (Ed.). Unbuildable Tatlin?, Springer, Vienna, 2013. Several articles have the word ‘unbuildable’ in their titles. 9 Raimund Abraham, The [Un]built, Springer, Vienna, 1996. 10 See Penelope Haralambidou, ‘The Allegorical Project: Architecture as Figurative Theory’. In Tim Anstey, Katja Grillner, and Rolf Hughes (Eds.), Architecture and Authorship: Studies in Disciplinary Remediation, Black Dog Publishing, London, 2007, pp. 118–29. 11 Stephen Coates and Alex Stetter (Eds.), Impossible Worlds: The Architecture of Perfection, Birkhausser, London, 2000, p. 192. 12 Sean Griffiths, ‘The Unbuildable’. In Stephen Coates and Alex Stetter (Eds.), Impossible Worlds: The Architecture of Perfection, Birkhausser, London, 2000, p. 196. 13 Robert Harbison, The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable: In Pursuit of Architectural Meaning, Thames and Hudson, London, 1991. 14 Ibid, p. 161. In an interview (October 2008) with the author. 15 Ibid, pp. 155–6. As one of the examples, Gombrich takes Leonardo da Vinci’s Deluge series where he used to help initiate creativity ‘quickening the spirit of invention’. Ibid, p. 159. 16 Walter Benjamin, ‘Rigorous Study of Art’, October, Volume 47, MIT Press, 1988, pp. 84–90. ‘Pictorial detour’, pp. 89–90. 17 For example, as the prefix anti- indicates in the title of Oblique Drawing: History of Anti-Perspective, Massimo Scolari clearly opposes orthogonal drawings, namely, axonometric to perspective. Massimo Scolari, Oblique Drawing: History of Anti-Perspective, MIT Press, 2012. 18 Mark Wigley, ‘Critique of the New’, Keynote Lecture, Architectural Association PhD Symposium, May 2007. 19 The word ‘Soviet’ originated from the Russian word for council. 20 It has been remarked that for the orthodox Marxists, the Communist revolution in Russia was noted to be a paradox due to the backwardness of its socio-political

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 system. Others have argued that precisely because of their backwardness, because they lacked emancipation, the Russian people were more open to the assault of the ‘new’ in all spheres of their lives. This was accurately perceived by the political leaders. In fact, Wolfe notes that ‘No wonder Lenin thought that if the agrarian reform should continue to operate for another decade, the possibility of a revolution such as he envisaged would vanish and he would never live to see it’. Lenin, Sochineniia, XV (1947), pp. 30–1 cited in Bertram D. Wolfe, ‘Backwardness and Industrialization in Russian History and Thought’, Slavic Review, Vol. 26, No. 2, The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, June 1967, p. 203. 21 Stalin was reported to have hated St Petersburg and held in deep suspicion its leading politicians, as a result of which many of them were imprisoned, including Introduction 19 Tatlin’s chief supporter (the reason Tatlin moved to St Petersburg), Nikolay Punin. 22 Karl Schlögel devotes an entire chapter of Moscow to this issue naming it ‘Strata’ with the subtitle ‘Moscow versus St Petersburg – The two halves of a whole.’ Karl Schlögel, Moscow, Reaktion Books, London, 2004. The entire basis of Vladimir Paperny’s book, Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two, is this nearly schizophrenic power struggle between the binary opposites, which he calls the two different cultures that cyclically dominated the USSR. Vladimir Paperny, Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. 23 The majority of drawings in the state archives of Shusev Architecture Museum in Moscow, for example, are held in inadequate conditions. There are numerous instances where the documents still exist; however, because of their poor condition, they can no longer be published. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Part I The unbuildable monument Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 1 Tatlin’s Tower An image outside of time

The subject of this chapter was chosen reluctantly. Being such a famous project, it seemed at first to be unlikely that anything remotely new could be said about it. However, even simple initial research showed that although Tatlin’s Tower is an iconic piece of architecture, it is hard to obtain concrete information regarding it. Any ‘original’ material is either scant or lost altogether. This lack of information is combined with the wealth of interpretations, including confusing and contradictory ‘facts’ and many misinterpretations. I would argue that, not despite but precisely, because it appears to be so well known, Tatlin’s Tower illustrates adequately an important mode of operation for the unbuildable. This perception enables some projects to be famous or even iconic, yet not known at all. A vast space for speculation, creativity, and imagination, opened in this way, is coupled with the unique idealism of the early Soviet period, enabling the Tower to surpass the period of its creation and stand literally outside of time. Although an immediate reaction almost always is of an overwhelming familiarity, in fact, there is little physical evidence of the Tower’s existence. We find many different accounts, much speculation, and a multitude of interpretations. My aim is not to prove that any particular interpretation is the correct one and even less so to create yet another

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 interpretation. I wish to focus on discovering the underlying reasons as to why this project may still be so current and influential and why it has not yet been exhausted. Despite being conceived so long ago, why does Tatlin’s Tower still appear to stubbornly retain an active role in the current architectural discourse? The potency and ultimately the value of the Tower will be proposed to be precisely due to this factual and material absence. 24 The unbuildable monument Persistent visual reference A photograph taken in 2005 of a five-star hotel in Kunming in China illustrates the perpetual return of the Tower’s image. Apparently copied from a different time, this picture, a paler, smaller copy of the image of Tatlin’s Tower, with one corner obscured by a traditional Chinese tem- ple, has been pasted into twenty-first century post-communist China. Although the top of this building may have the shape of Tatlin’s Tower, it is no longer revolving, not red in colour, nor inclined. Of a much smaller scale, this copy is only reminiscent of the original, resembling a miniscule paler version. It seems ironic that this symbol of the international communist movement was given a reincarnation as a luxury hotel in post- communist China. This process of copying and pasting of the image, at times completely betraying the ideas originally behind it, is evidently far from unusual. New theories and literature written about Tatlin’s Tower appear all the time, followed closely by ‘new’ copies. For a long time, its simplified image was used as a logo for the New Left publishing house, which later became Verso, and one of the leading Russian architectural papers is still carrying Tatlin’s name. Well-known academic and architect Wolf D. Prix1 has recently published a book titled Unbuildable Tatlin?, just to name one. We ask again, how can a structure that not only was never built, but may in fact be unbuildable, remain such a constant point of reference, with every new tower built, or just imagined, automatically being compared to it? Several comparisons could be considered logical, some may be blatantly obvious, whereas others could be considered apparently generic, several audacious, and a few even ridiculous. Tatlin’s Tower is most commonly associated with the Tower of Babel. However, an important difference between the two is that the Babel’s centre is fixed and solid, whereas Tatlin’s Tower positioned the structure outside the core, with the dynamic rotating shapes in the centre. Many Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 comparisons of Tatlin’s Tower are plausible, several are spurious and a considerable few are even ridiculous. In any case, it is persistent. The Tower asserts itself as a constant benchmark, a reference point, to which every tower or tall building, whether built or simply imagined, must, even just in passing, be compared. References include buildings that preceded it (Tower of Babel, Boccioni, Eiffel Tower, Novodevichy Monastery Bell Tower in Moscow, and others) and those that followed (CCTV in Tatlin’s Tower 25 Beijing), including those yet to be built (Crystal City in St Petersburg). Perhaps, among the most daring was the association of Tatlin’s Tower with the three-legged alien monsters from the Hollywood blockbuster, The War of the Worlds. A more recent comparison of Tatlin’s Tower included Olympic Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower built in 2012 in London, designed by the British artist Anish Kapoor. Another testament to the ubiquitous presence of this image is evident, this time as a piece of furniture, an Edra sofa, which is currently available for sale. Most of such referencing is impossible to conclusively prove; however , the fact that it continues to serve as a constant benchmark demonstrates the general wish to hold on to this image. After being repeated so often, the picture of the Tower maintains a continuous presence, even where any true resemblance is at best far-fetched. This Tower survived by becoming an architectural reference, a shortcut, and a synonym; at once, the Tower is an ideal project and a cliché. However, whether it achieved significant change in terms of an architectural conceptualisation of a monument remains questionable.

Monumental propaganda Often described as a mark of a singular moment in history, the historio- graphical and symbolic framework of this design remains underscruti- nised. Undoubtedly, Tatlin had an ambition towards the creation of the ‘new’, and this seems to be widely accepted as being achieved. Tatlin claimed that his intention in the design was in ‘uniting purely artistic forms with utilitarian aims’.2 He further wrote: ‘I placed at its basis the screw, as the most dynamic form – a symbol of time: energy, lucidity, striving. The transparent construction from metallic forms has the form of a spiral – inclined at the angle of the earth. The inclined forms to the angle of the earth are the most stable, soft forms’. The spiral shape naturally resulted in the Tower’s comparison to many other spiral structures. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 However, a spiral cannot be considered as a ‘new’ form because spiral structures, evidently, existed previously, the tower of Babel being one of the most famous. The ‘new’ element is that the spiral is inclined. The comparisons with more conventional, traditional structures never ceased. Among others, the Tower was said to resemble St Basil’s Cathedral and the Novodevichy Convent,3 creating yet another opportunity for misinterpretation. For example, Karl Schlögel seems to 26 The unbuildable monument forget that Tatlin did not build the first model in Novodevichy but in St Petersburg, with the convent being the birthplace of ‘LeTatlin’, a project developed later on.4 Although the spiral was obviously not an entirely new form, an important difference is that Tatlin places it at an angle. The skewing makes the Tower’s structure a cross between spiral, stairs, and ladder. The inclination would distort the perspective, making it appear to be higher than it actually was; also, it could be perceived as being damaged and falling. Alignment with the earth’s axis has been interpreted in many different ways; one interpretation included the concept that the intention was to make the structure comprehensible only from outer space. Caught in between the past and the future, jump and fall, the angle of inclination reinforces the Tower’s dual, at times directly opposite, meanings. The drawing depicting the side elevation shows the Tower as a dynamic spiral, with three clearly distinct, simple geometric shapes inside. The spiral structure was to be made of iron, with the three glass shapes representing debating chambers rotating at different speeds. The diagonal structure, a dynamic symbol, albeit with straight instead of curved forms, had been commonly used in many Constructivist designs. On a romantic level, this structure alludes to the absence of a stable ground, replacing it with the sea. If constructed, the effect of the dramatically leaning Tower to the observer on the ground would be different from that of a straight tower. Another curious fact would be if the Tower was actually constructed, it would resemble the scaffolding less, and the centre would appear to be more solid, despite the rotation. The speed of the rotating chambers was related to the duration of a day, month, and year; e.g. a cylinder, a cone, and a cube was each to house a different activity. The reasons for using such pure geometrical forms are likely rooted in the investment in the power of visual communication that goes beyond words and language, instead using the universal language of geometry. Simultaneously, plausi-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 ble arguments were made that the four geometric figures follow the same pattern as that of the Russian Orthodox Church building structures. In addition to the diagonal inclination and the simplicity of the debating chambers, a particularly Constructivist element is the use of rotation. Depending on the speed, different geometric shapes, e.g. triangle and cube, would be perceived as drum-like. In other words, the perception of the outer shape of an object would be altered through the trajectory and the speed of its movement. Although the speed would make it difficult Tatlin’s Tower 27 to perceive an instant change, the building’s overall appearance would be altered, rendering all of the shapes behind the primary structure to become blurred and drum-like, thus creating the appearance of continuous outlines instead of a clearly defined shape. We should not forget the more straightforward connection that revolution also means rotation.5 Svetlana Boym6 argued that the word ‘revolution’ connotated repetition and rotation, and only after the seventeenth century was the term used in the opposite meaning, as it is now used to refer to the rare and unrepeatable event. The rotation of each geometrical element uses a cinematic language; one recalls the rotation of the film carousel of the early cinema. Instead of the rotating projector/camera/tape/eye, portions of the building itself would rotate and create movement, while the viewer would remain static at a distance. The rotation also evokes, especially on the model scale, a playful image because it resembles a merry-go-round and a child-like event. One easily imagines the model being perceived as a theatrical prop, especially with a little boy turning the wheel at its base, instead of a serious architectural proposal. In reality, if it was built according to the scale it was imagined, the movement would be too slow for the naked eye to perceive; however, the building would sustain a constantly varied appearance. With the rotation and inclined angle, the projection, the height, the overall scale, and more importantly the propagandist function of the structure were extended further. From the outset, Western reception of the Tower continues to conflate it with Constructivism and this movement into a homogeneous single- minded group with Tatlin as its leader. Little actual evidence seems to support this. In fact, many accounts suggest the opposite, contradicting first that Tatlin could be considered a leader and even seriously undermining the very existence of any such easily defined movement as Constructivism. For example, records of immediate reactions to the Tower show them to be varied, similar to the subsequent accounts. Evidence suggests that

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 many of Tatlin’s fellow artists (including supposed members of the same movement) were far from enthusiastic towards the Tower. For example, Malevich initially formed a friendship with Tatlin, but then criticised the Tower before even seeing the monument: ‘Tatlin [who] wants to receive the sums for the invention of a utilitarian monument not offering any new meaning’.7 According to Darran Anderson, Tatlin’s Tower was dismissed by the political leaders, most pertinently, Lenin and Trotsky: ‘Lenin agreed with Trotsky who dismissed Tatlin’s Tower and had his 28 The unbuildable monument studio forcibly closed’.8 However, little evidence supports that either of them disliked the Tower itself, and Tatlin9 continued in fact to work in his studio until his death. It is more likely, as Lynton has suggested, that the political leaders Lunacharsky and Trotsky may have been against the rotation on the basis of cost and practicality; however, they were generally in favour of the modernist design.10 Trotsky11 indeed wrote that the Tower resembled scaffolding, which, judging from the photographs of the model used in the street demonstrations, was a fair observation. Evident in his records, Trotsky’s support for the Tower, in general, was clear. However, Trotsky disliked the scaffolding and the heavy structure required to support the Tower in order to make it rotate: ‘we would probably accept the cylinder and its rotating, if it were combined with a simplicity and lightness of construction, that is, if the arrangements for its rotating did not depress the aim’.12 Long after Trotsky, Boym13 developed this notion further, proposing that the Tower continues to be symbolically used as scaffolding, with different, often contradictory, meanings easily attributed to it. However, it seems clear that an unfinished structure or a structure that required strength and excessive support to stand up would have been considered to be an inappropriate attribute for the symbol of revolution. Incomplete, still in anticipation of the final image, the Tower can continue to inspire a full range of interpretations, including the opposite ones. If we refer to Benjamin’s pictorial detour, which privileges ‘architectural’ structure over a mere picture, Tatlin’s unbuildable form seems to convert an excessive, unnecessary structure into a pure picture. This could be why it is so readily accepted as a plausible, even technologically, innovative architectural proposition. Influences on Tatlin also seem to be conflicted. Lodder suggests the strong impact of traditional Russian woodcuts and the icon painting, citing Punin who said ‘the influence of the Russian icon on Tatlin is undoubtedly greater than the influence upon him of Cezanne or 14

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Picasso’. In that sense, Tatlin’s Tower has been read as the reassertion of Russian tradition. The first reactions towards the monument were mixed. For example, Groys noted criticisms of an art critic Viktor Shklovsky, ‘Shklovsky objected with a call for purity, universalism, and the rejection of political commitment’.15 An influential account was written in 1922 by Louis Lozowick, based on information by Tatlin’s most ardent supporter, Punin, who claimed that this monument was of highly international Tatlin’s Tower 29 importance. According to Lozowick, Tatlin and his assistants took a year to produce the model and the drawings, the result of which caused considerable controversy.16 Many fellow ‘constructivists’, including Gabo17 and Lissitzky, were noted to have been critical of the monument. In contradiction to this, other records18 showed how Lissitzky praised the Tower as a triumphal combination of technical innovation and art. Evident from his collage, Tatlin at Work, Lissitzky wished that the monument would become more connected with his own ideas relative to a Constructivist agenda. However, as Lissitzky used Tatlin’s image and not that of the model of the Tower, perhaps he did have some reserva- tions regarding the Tower. Despite all this, the power of this unbuildable structure seems to stem from its ability to avoid definition, defy interpretation, and inspire many opposing, even contradictory, accounts. As stated at the outset, my interest is not to find the most likely interpretation but to establish the many mechanisms through which it may continue to inspire so many. The Tower apparently resembles many different forms, yet there happens to be always something different, one could even say, crucially different about it. It seems as though every time one tries to establish something about the Tower, at least two, often confusing, contradictory facts occur. Not only does this make the Tower hard to interpret with any accuracy but it also enables it to function like an absent original, with an infinite number of copies. Although several individuals have argued for the Tower to be understood as an organism or even a human body, John Milner proposed it to be more like an instrument than a building:

It seems as much related to the sky as to the earth as it screws out of one and the other. In this respect it is instructive to note that the spirals enter the ground in the elevation diagrams and the base under the model in the photographs, without interruption, implying that 19

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 the monument continues below the surface of its visible base.

This perspective implies a much-wished for infinity of the structure both at the ground and top levels. One can easily imagine how a powerful lighting display would extend the Tower’s highest point, bringing it literally closer to the sky. Symbolically, this purpose seems connected to the function attached with the use of compasses in the Constructivist’s hand; i.e. to construct the vision itself and enable the ‘new’ people to 30 The unbuildable monument see beyond all conceivable boundaries, literally into space. The structure cannot only be limited to the physical object but also encompasses the audience, the people themselves. Ever since its conception, Tatlin’s Tower continues to be a symbol that invites constant comparisons. Margit Rowell has plausibly argued that the spiral is related to the first-hand experience of seeing Baku oil derricks and skeleton masts for battleships before 1914.20 References have been taken both from the past and the future: among the most audacious was the comparison21 with the three-legged alien monsters from the Hollywood blockbuster, The War of the Worlds. Although several comparisons may be ridiculous, the fact that the Tower remains a constant benchmark is connected to a mode of operation instigating repeated returns, which leaves the unbuildable open as a point for comparison, controversy, argument, and discussion. If a new tower of any form is being proposed, at some point, it will inevitably be compared to the Third International one. For example, recently it was compared with the CCTV building by Rem Koolhaas in Beijing. However, in every case, the Tower remains similar, and despite that, it is always essentially different. Lynton suggested that if constructed, the clouds would often be covering the top, making the monument appear to be endless: ‘When clouds cover the city, as they often do, Tatlin’s Tower would seem to disappear into the sky’.22 In such a way, the height would extend infinitely, perhaps even literally resembling a stairway to heaven. This relationship with the sky brings us back to the initial discussions of perspective and visual perception. If the Tower was, as several sources have indicated, built on the river Neva in St Petersburg, mist above the water at the bottom of the Tower would create the same effect on the ground level, making the Tower connect two clouds continuing the visual effect of the Tower extending towards infinity.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Curiously, despite being designed and named after the Third International, the Tower often tends to be perceived without an obvious ideological function. Initially designed in 1919, it was first dedicated generally to the revolution, and only later, after Tatlin personally become directly involved with the monumental propaganda, to the Third International. Tatlin’s leading role in the conceptualisation of Lenin’s monumental propaganda often tends to be forgotten and overlooked. Similarly, there is a strong tendency to ignore clearly propagandistic features of the design itself, including the planned agitational apparatus and Tatlin’s Tower 31 a gigantic screen showing ‘the latest news in the cultural and political life of the whole world’.23 In addition to the radio station, telegraphic and telephone exchange, the design included a projector for literally ‘throw- ing’ messages onto the clouds. Here is a clear intention to augment the visibility of the political message and expand its size to the extent of the sky itself. So, not only would the clouds obscure the beginning and end but also the sky itself was an important and functional part of the design. This pertinent function of the Tower, increasing the scale of the ideological message to that of the sky has been utilised on many occasions. Even the large streets and boulevards were deemed to be too small to demonstrate the power of the regime. On many occasions, the airplanes were used to write Lenin’s name embedding it in the clouds. Although photographs picturing the ‘drawings’ of Lenin’s name by airplanes flying in the sky were difficult to find, the images of ‘sky’ writing the name of his successor, Stalin, were many. In a way, this could be the beginnings of a particular type of Soviet ‘copy and paste’ where an actual image is re-used and accentuated so many times that it becomes accepted as real. Partially given that their own personal experiences of technological advances and socio-political changes within a short period of time made most people believe that although it may not be true, it is certainly more than likely. Related directly to controlling and manipulating the spectator’s vision is the dominance of the photo-montage and photographs in drawings during this period. As this citation from LEF shows,

By photomontage we mean use of the photographic print as a figurative means. The combination of photographs changes the composition of graphic images. The meaning of this change is that the photograph is not the drawing of a visual fact but the exact fixation of it. This precision and documentary give the photograph a power to influence the viewer that the graphic image is never able 24

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 to attain.

It seems that the primary traits identified in the previous discussion of perspective become valid in relation to this new technique; similar to the previous perspective, photomontage is observed to be intrinsically realistic. However, as with perspective, dual, in fact contradictory, qualities are also inherent in photomontage. One quality associates it with precision and realism, another with the opposite, i.e. manipulation and deception. Photographic image and photomontage had an obvious 32 The unbuildable monument appeal to the artistic practices in this period, often opposed to the idea of a unique work of art and the individuality of the artist.25 Through photomontage, theatre and mass street celebrations, the monumental is thus raised to a different level. For once in the Soviet Union, arguably never to be repeated, it seemed likely that the new socio-political system would enable the birth of a new artistic expression. This quest is utopian in the sense that the ‘new’ can never be appre- hended but remains in anticipation, in the process of becoming. It is, however, associated with the general belief in human progress and is thus positive. It is also related to a suspension of time, the delay between anticipation and realisation and, in turn, the memory of the future. From this point on, time appears to have been stalled, as though suspended in perpetual delay. Initially, the works of architecture were hurried and make-shift, with the more substantial monumental expressions captured in a prolonged process of anticipation. Such images were clearly visible; however, they never materialised. In fact, Tatlin was directly involved in the Five-Year Plan of Lenin’s Monumental Propaganda26 from the outset and appropriated The Tower as his personal contribution. The monumental propaganda needs to be noted as an attempt to forge the future, and even memorise it before it had a chance to happen. In this purely imaginary process of remembering not what really did happen but what could have happened, visual appearance was paramount. Several responses to Tatlin’s Tower encapsulate the feeling that the entire idea may have been too premature: connecting the monument with the finality, when Revolution was considered to be still in its initial stages. One such response is Viktor Shklovsky’s27 reaction: ‘It seems the Revolution hasn’t died yet. It’s somehow strange to build a monument to something still alive and developing’.28 Shklovsky pinpoints the problem the Tower faced in this complex period, where the notion of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 time became intertwined with the function of the monument. To create the space for the new symbols, a quick and complete, often visually spectacular destruction of what was observed as the ‘old’ had to occur. Numerous sculptures and buildings were hastily destroyed. This process of forcible erasure was intended to produce a future, which in many cases failed to be realised. The destruction itself, often literally ‘cloud making’, constituted a backdrop upon which the image of the ‘new’ could be projected. This explosive cloud or writing in the sky did not endure; it was only fleeting Tatlin’s Tower 33 and, as such, created an emptiness. This absence produced a space for the imaginary to reside in, which gradually led towards the realisation that there may be no need for replacing the old with the physical structure after all. Images, in particular perspectival drawings and paintings, and later on photo collages were more than sufficient. Additionally, at times, as in the example of the Tower, they became more evocative and enduring than many actually constructed ones. The title of Lenin’s decree ‘On the Dismantling of Monuments Erected in Honour of the Tsars and Their Servants and on the Formulation of Projects for Monuments to the Russian Socialist Revolution’29 readily betrays the priority in this process, i.e. to get rid of the old. However, it also marks Lenin’s awareness of the historical need for a radical, albeit temporary, transformation of the urban environment through art. It seems unsurprising, given the shortage of time and haste characterising the entire period, that the monuments produced were not well conceived or well-executed works of art. Instead, they have often been described as slogan monuments, akin to the political poster, and agitation art. That was partly due to the poor economic situation Russia was in, for it was not only a matter of shortage of time but also of durable materials. Steel and stone were too precious and expensive to be used, so the structures erected often resembled temporary prototypes, making cities appear to be more like theatre sets than real, inhabitable spaces. Inexpensive and fast ways of transforming the urban landscape, at least visually, had to be used in a prolific manner. The effects of the simple use of colour and written slogans were further amplified by the mass parades and street celebrations, which transformed public spaces daily. Although it must be noted that Tatlin was not involved in the selection of the list of ‘distinguished persons’ to whom the monuments were to be dedicated and that he introduced a very novel and positive aspect, involving new

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 and unrecognised artists, the fact still remains that the Tower became appropriated as Tatlin’s personal contribution towards Lenin’s programme, thus, making it a vital part of the quest for the idea of the ‘new monumental’ and the ideology of the new. An often cited proclamation by Mayakovsky is that the Tower is hailed as a piece of engineering art that he hailed as ‘the first monument without a beard’ and ‘the first object of October’. This reference is likely related to the majority of the sculptures produced within the Monumental propaganda consisting of figurative sculptures of political 34 The unbuildable monument leaders, mostly of Lenin himself, of course, with a beard.30 However, the way the Tower fits within the existing framework does not seem to really differ from that of the previous era. In many ways, ‘new monuments’ appears to be a term with an inherent paradox, a practice that still goes on and that could be described as purely a ‘formal procedure’ where the names and faces of the persons depicted may have changed but the essential nature constituting the monument remains exactly the same. It should be noted that Tatlin did resign from the Collegium and was not there to see the final outcome of the programme, yet his leading role and contribution in the initial stage of this process should not be forgotten.

Tower of contestation: multiple locations, the absence of plan, and variable scale Even elemental particulars continue to be disputed, with frequent contradictions of the few known basic facts. The function as monument of the new era is enhanced not only through its unbuildability and the material absence of the final product but also through the lack of physical traces of the process of creation. This absence opened up a space enabling the Tower to endure as a paradigm, a register, and a constant point of architectural reference. The only two known drawings of the Tower, titled ‘Facades’, do not correspond to one another. They were drawn neatly and are large in size (more than 10 feet, or 320 centimetres high), which I would say implies they were designed for an exhibition. Indeed, one of the elevations is shown in the photographs of the building in the original model in 1920. When Tatlin initially conceived it in 1919, there was no reference to any particular location. Supported enthusiastically by Nikolai Punin, Tatlin moved to St Petersburg in 1920 where he built the first model, and this same model was said to have been later exhibited in Moscow. Similar to

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 the model, the Tower itself kept moving between the two rival cities. At the same time as Punin wished to build it in St Petersburg, other supporters argued for the Tower to be built in the industrial areas of Moscow, where the factory workers lived and worked. Due to Tatlin’s temporary move, one of the suggested locations for the Tower came to be on the Neva River in St Petersburg. For example, Lynton suggested:

It is almost certain that the Tower was intended for that city and not, as sometimes has been said, for Moscow. Lenin had moved the Tatlin’s Tower 35 capital back to Moscow in February 1918, but Petrograd was proud to have been the Revolution’s birthplace. 31

Similar to its dislocation from time, the Tower got caught up in between the two rivalling cities, Moscow and St Petersburg, never fully belonging to either. In a sense, I would say, this unbuildable still keeps moving between the two cities. Similarly, the few original representations of the Tower remain divided between the two cities. The only two original drawings are in the Punin archive in St Petersburg. The original model Tatlin himself constructed was built in St Petersburg, moved to Moscow, and since has been lost. A smaller model, built subsequently, is currently in Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Other copies of the model are scattered in different locations across Europe. Consequently, the Tower has no fixed single location. Instead, it moves from one site to another, existing in two places at the same time and in multiple sites. This is more significant than it may seem at first. It implies a fundamental shift in considering the basic terms of an architectural proposal, completely dispensing with the necessity of a fixed site, and it opens the likelihood of having multiple ones. This perspective renders the unbuildable Tower location-less, existing simultaneously in two or more sites. Not only is there a serious lack of facts, but the few existing, such as the series of photographs of the building of the model of the Tower, have become distorted and misplaced over time. Oddly, in her survey of Constructivism, Lodder32 stated that the two well-known photographs of the Tower were taken of the same model in two different cities, Moscow and St Petersburg. The same is the case for Margarita Tupitsyn’s El Lissitzky Beyond the Abstract Cabinet,33 which places the model of the Monument for the Third International in Moscow. In his more recent study, Lynton34 also located those same photographs of the model in two different cities and included it on the back cover, incor- Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 rectly placing it in Moscow. When we review all of the photographs together, it is clear not only is this the same model, but all of the photographs must have been taken in the same location, i.e. in the mosaics studio of the former fine arts academy in St Petersburg,35 only from different angles. It seems as though Lodder, Tupitsyn, and Lynton fell victim to the persistent wish for the Tower to continue to be split between two rival cities. This view extends to a desire for all of the models, especially 36 The unbuildable monument the ‘original’ one made personally by Tatlin, to be shared by the two capitals, despite it evidently not being the case. Here again, we find little, almost no physical, evidence remaining, because the original model(s) itself became lost. This duality of the site of the original model’s construction, shared between St Petersburg and Moscow, is symptomatic of the desire for this particular object to exist in different locations and in different sizes and forms. For me, this can only have one consequence: Not only should this make us question everything else written regarding the Tower but also legitimatises doubts that more than one original model ever existed. Noting the scant visual evidence and possessing the knowledge of several negative reactions it received, we could justifiably suspect that the larger better model was simply never built. The photographs of the original model in St Petersburg in 1920, shown in Figure 1.1, demonstrate a skilled use of manipulating perspective, making the model appear bigger and disas- sociated from its surroundings. However, because no models survived (neither this original one, nor the simplified one used in street demonstrations, nor the one made for the Paris exhibition), one can speculate that perhaps the original model never moved to Moscow and that the one that was exhibited Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

Figure 1.1 Photographs of the original model in St Petersburg in 1920. The photograph on the far left was wrongly claimed by Christina Lodder and Norbert Lynton, as recently as 2009, to have been taken in Moscow; however, when viewed together with the third photograph on the far right, it becomes clear that they were all part of the same sequence taken in St Petersburg during the construction of the original model in 1920. The sequence shows skilled use of manipulating perspective. Additionally, this evident mistake is symptomatic of the wish for the same model to have been transported between two cities, Moscow and St Petersburg. Tatlin’s Tower 37 (the simplified one) was not deemed to be sufficiently well made to be officially recorded. The persistence of the idea of the owerT being divided between two cities is shown through two depictions in the twenty-first century films. Although Takehiko Nagakura in 2000 places the Tower in St Petersburg, Michael Craig’s film from 2007 locates it in Moscow. Evidently, the pictures of the imperfect, inadequate, small one were manipulated and ‘wished’ into existence across the scales and in multiple rival locations. The ‘third’ model was built faster and better36 in 1925 for the Paris Exhibition where the shapes were lit from the inside. There is little evidence that, in any of the cases, the forms could rotate. Tatlin planned a far more ambitious model at a height of 20 metres; however, this model was never realised.37 In a more recent model-making account according to architect Chris Cross, the London model was 13 metres high, created by a team of seven to eight architecture students using red painted plywood, with the plywood base painted purple. Despite promises at the time, no detailed drawings ever came from Moscow, which resulted in the model building being described by Cross as ‘ad hoc’. After the exhibition, the structure was moved to the courtyard of the London Polytechnic (now University of Westminster) and then disassembled after being weather damaged. Regardless of speculation from several sources, there is little evidence that the London model was ever exhibited in any other location, namely, the Architectural Association. All accounts clearly suggest that both the original model and its copies involved little planning, no precise design, or drawings, as well as moving locations and perceptions of presence despite evidence to the contrary. Absent from all38 of the model-making process is any type of plan or planning, suggesting that each drawing and model could be considered to be a variant of a continually evolving design, rather than

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 a fixed formal outcome.

Questionable scale Another basic characteristic of the design remains unclear, i.e. how tall the Tower was actually supposed to be. The height of the original model is also questionable. According to Lodder, the Tower ranged from 5 to 25 metres;39 however, Lynton records the same 38 The unbuildable monument model to be 5 metres tall.40 Represented in the photographs41 of the construction process is a strategic placement of the model on a pedestal. The positioning of the people in front of it makes the model appear to be higher than the people looking at it, with the angle of the photograph exaggerating the perspective, resulting in the model’s scale being very difficult to judge. This view reveals another important trait of the unbuildable – the ‘continuous process’ as opposed to the final precisely defined outcome of building. A mass spectacle accompanying the construction of the model gave the Tower additional potency, namely, a theatrical event on a large scale, a mass demonstration in which every individual plays a part in the collective creation of the ‘new’. Similar to the problem of the model’s scale, the Tower’s intended height is open to speculation. Some claim it was supposed to be higher than the Empire State Building, the tallest building at the time, whereas others argue that it was supposed to be of a more modest height, slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower. In any case, the Tower was intended to be of colossal scale, a giant singular structure. This large, even gigantic scale was made possible by the complete nonexistence of a precisely drawn material. The Monument for the Third International only existed in drawings and modelled form, and yet the two sole original drawings, two elevations,42 did not correspond to one another.43 Revealingly, there was no plan in any of the documents. Because the original models were all lost, apart from the nonmatch- ing elevations, the only other visual documentation consists of a photographic series recording the process of the model-making. Significantly, one photograph shows an elevation on the side wall next to the model. The original models of the Tower appear to have been made intuitively, with little preparation and planning, denoting the practice of an individual artist, a sculptor, who believed in the intrinsic powers of the materials as opposed to the precise technologically motivated vision of an

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 architect-engineer. Given the lack of planning here, Anatolii Strigalev argued: ‘The composition of space in Tatlin’s realistic architectural plan is very similar to those irrational space-constructions which cannot be described in terms of orthogonal projection and which one often encounters in iconic depictions of architecture’.44 The two elevations depict the inclining side and the front view of the structure. Obviously seduced by the idea of the Tower, Strigalev writes about Tatlin’s drawings as follows: ‘Yet these Tatlin’s Tower 39 are not conventional works of draughtsmanship but rather artistic free drawings, which aim at an increasingly expressive outline of the whole building and its individual parts’.45 Substantive evidence shows that the first model, created by Tatlin and his team of assistants46 in the mosaics studio of the former Academy of the Arts in Petrograd in 1920, took eight months to build because there were no preliminary sketches. The plans for precedents of the Tower, which include Shevchenko’s Experimental Design for the House of Soviets from 1920 and Rodchenko’s Experimental Design Variants for the House of Soviets, clearly show the difficulty of manually drawing such forms. In Shevchenko’s example, there is a composite plan, which I would argue in fact demonstrates the irrelevance of orthogonal drawing, such as plan. In Ilya Golosov’s design for an observatory in 1921, inscriptions were made with the aid of a mirror, with the reversed writing. Again, the plan is a mere diagram with the entire design becoming explicit in the two final perspectives. Despite being carefully drawn, the two drawings betray a lack of consistency required for a serious intention of building. The closest Tatlin’s drawings come to represent the Tower is in the side elevation. It becomes conflated with its orthogonal projection, curiously reducing what would have been a dynamic structure to a logo. There is no clear indication which of the elevations came first; thus, one must conclude that both drawings and models were produced in close succession. However, given their large size, Lynton suggests they were made to be exhibited: ‘Certainly these two well-known drawings were made for display, as their size (more than 10 feet, or 320 centimetres high) and their neatness suggests’.47 This view supports the idea that Tatlin aimed at creating an exhibition and not so much an actual construction. So, without a plan and no ‘proper’ drawings, it seems that all we have is an exhibition sequence. Not only do the elevations not match but also none of the subsequent models follow precisely either of the drawings. According to

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Strigalev, the drawings lack consistency because of the variants:

These are not simply projections but two variants of a form, different in detail. Because of these differences one cannot reconstruct the exact plan of the building on the basis of these two façade drawings. The same applies to some of the details which are fairly clear on the drawings. The pyramid and the cylinder, for example, as shown on the side view, could not possibly revolve inside the trellis support shell.48 40 The unbuildable monument The absence of plan49 could suggest hastiness in Tatlin’s endeavour, or as Strigalev has argued, an inappropriateness of a plan (a horizontal section) to represent such a structure. Indeed, it seems that if conventionally drawn, we would learn little from a projective cut. However, all of these absences, the plan, the location plan, and the sections or any details, support the trait underpinning the unbuildable, and Tatlin shows no interest in resolving the technicalities of such a complicated structure. It seems that Tatlin was intent on an image, a dynamic suggestion of the appearance. This perspective undermines the representations and I would argue utter misconceptions of his work as works of engineering and products of a machine-like mind. A primary example of such misinterpretation was an article by Umansky in 1920 equat- ing ‘Tatlinism’ with ‘Machine Art’, and describing it as a radical new movement through the statement ‘Art is dead—Long live art, the art of the Machine’.50 This image of the ‘new man’, the ‘mechanised’ or ‘met- alised’ superman originated earlier, in the pre-war manifestos and writings of the Italian Futurists.51 The lack of reliable factual information, few measured drawings, writings about Tatlin’s Tower and misleading depictions of Tatlin himself, such as Hausmann’s portrait, contributed to German Dadaists, Georg Grosz, and John Heartfield, later posing with the slogan: ‘Art is dead—Long live the new Machine Art of TATLIN’.52 Because Tatlin was misunderstood as the leader of Constructivism, Dadaists wrongly identified with him. Among others, K. Michael Hays confirmed this misapprehension when he argued that in Hausmann’s view, Tatlin, or the new artist, is a Monteur of the new Maschinenkunst. Such misinterpretations aided Tatlin’s Tower to be misconceived as the pioneering example of the machine art – Constructivism – and firmly asserted Tatlin’s leading position within this movement. Given all of the contradictions, public rows, and inconsistencies, this misconception is in the very least questionable.53 One of the consequences is that Tatlin’s

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 practice is described in a variety of ways ranging from an artist, collagist, or even simply as a painter. For example, Tatlin was called a ‘collagist’ in History of Collage by Wolfram,54 whereas in Andrei Ikonnikov’s Russian Architecture of the Soviet Period, he was referred to as a painter.55 Such varied associations and misconceptions could be, in part, attributed to Hausmann’s56 portrayal. Despite this portrait obviously being an inaccurate depiction on so many levels, what seems pertinent is that Tatlin, like Constructivism, was conflated with a technological utopian Tatlin’s Tower 41 image in the eyes of the international community. Once this oversimplified, even misguided image had been formed, not enough information was released from the Soviet Union with an ability to change this. The photographs of the model-making process of the original model indicate, as is documented elsewhere, that Tatlin operated in secret, similar to a master artist. His assistants were used only for manual work and were not involved in the design process. This approach had little to do with a collective way of working. Still, outside of the Soviet Union, the Tower and its creator continued to be perceived through the machine- like image of Constructivism. It is clear to me that as the symbol of motion, obsessively associated with technology, the Tower is, at best, unconvincing. In a way, the Tower can be understood as a collection, a sequence of repetitive copies. So, our initial question of how it can sustain such a permanent and wide-ranging influence, when the drawings showed very little suggestion of how the project would work or even appear, may actually be part of the answer. All of the initial exhibition was immediately published in a book by Punin addressing the international audience. This process culminated in a mass street performance, moving from one city to another. Let’s turn away from the unbuildable Tower itself and look closely at its counterpart, a tower built in the same historical period.

The built monument A particularly relevant example of the structures built in the same period is the Shukhov broadcasting tower,57 also known as Shabolovka, built in the outskirts of Moscow in 1918 and completed in 1922. Structurally very innovative, its light lattice beam construction achieved a great height with the minimum of material. Based on completely new structural principles, the Shukhov Tower was commissioned by Lenin to transmit and communicate his speeches. Despite its technical ingenuity, this tower

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 failed to reach the intended height, as it was supposed to be higher than the Eiffel Tower,58 due to the acute lack of steel at the time. Crucially, it used three times less steel than the more famous Parisian counterpart. Another piece of evidence testifying to the extraordinarily technical quality and efficiency of this design is that in its nearly hundred-year history,59 the Shukhov Tower never needed to be repaired and did not sustain any significant damage. However, in early 2014, it showed signs of rusting and was purportedly to be in danger of collapse. Declared 42 The unbuildable monument unsafe recently, the current plans could even see it demolished to make room for a new development. Currently, it seems that this tower will at least have to move from its location to make room for a more lucrative development. One can only hope that in this process, it does not become completely destroyed. Still, authoritative sources claim that due to the way it was designed, if anything was to fall off the structure, it would collapse inside, towards the centre of the structure, and as such should not be considered to be as dangerous as originally perceived. Obviously, one has to question how this tower, a technologically effi- cient and innovative structure, can remain less known than the unbuildable one. It could be because it failed to reach the originally intended height or because it did not have the same international prominence. Its location on the periphery of the city is far less pertinent and central, making it physically and visually less accessible. The tower is invisible from the middle of Moscow, and the structure is closed to the public. Finally, without the presence of Lenin’s voice and communist symbols, the Shukhov Tower has lost its all-important symbolic and rhetorical power. The drawings of this tower at the time show its construction process and, of course, the comparison in height with the Eiffel Tower, with Shabolovka’s height both as built and as intended. During the Soviet times, the star frequently installed on top made the structure resemble a Christmas tree, recreating a very inappropriate religious image of the past era they were trying to annihilate. A combination of all these different reasons may likely explain why this tower remains comparatively little known. Shukhov’s elevations have a very static appearance, in some ways making it hard to describe them as elevations as they strongly resemble sections. In contrast to Tatlin’s Tower- Image, this one is a pure structure. Referring back to the discussion of ‘pictorial detour’ and the importance he attached to the structure, it 60

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 seems unsurprising that in Moscow Diary, Benjamin does not mention any other piece of architecture apart from the Shabolovka. It may be that the Shukhov Tower’s primary failure is in the very fact that it was actually built. By being materialised, this structure does not allow for enough ambiguity and leaves little room for debate. In contrast, for the unbuildable, everything still remains open: The location, the views, and the scale can be changed and appropriated. Arguably, if Tatlin’s Tower was erected, many would find it easier not only to Tatlin’s Tower 43 criticise but also to overlook and ignore. The unbuildable does not seem to age, at least not in the same way that physical structures do. This quality seems like a useful trait especially in a society where gradual decay was deemed to be an unworthy end. Spectacular explosive destruction was a preferable finish. Few clues apparently indicated what may follow, i.e. ideally a complete physical absence. The built structures, such as the Shukhov Tower and the London Olympic Tower shown in Figure 1.2, seem to become encased within a particular time and location, although the unbuildable cannot be ‘betrayed’ by the particulars of the period, which made it material. By resisting fabri- cation, the representations of the unbuildable not only avoid decay but also manage to continually remain perceived as ‘new’; i.e. images

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Figure 1.2 Built towers: Shukhov Tower (left) and London Olympic Tower (right). Shukhov Telecommunications Tower, located in the outskirts of Moscow, completed in 1922, uses pioneering lattice beam technology. This tower was supposed to surpass the Eiffel Tower in height but never did due to the acute shortage of steel. Similar to other built structures, through exaggeration of perspective, this tower is developed to appear more dynamic and to resemble Tatlin’s Tower. A recent comparison with Tatlin’s design included the Olympic ArcelorMittal Orbit tower built in 2012 for the London Olympics, designed by the British artist Anish Kapoor. This sculpture seems to be built simply because it can be. 44 The unbuildable monument suspended outside time, outside scale, and beyond physical location and form. In contrast to the static elevations, Alexander Rodchenko’s photographs of this and the Eiffel Tower appear to be imbued with dyna- mism, distorting the perspective and even creating an illusion of the loss of gravity. Rodchenko tilts the viewpoint, making it appear more dynamic and visually evoking Tatlin’s monument. Indeed, it is hard, if not impossible, to take a photograph of this structure that does not appear skewed and diagonal. Again, Tatlin’s unbuildable is being wished and recalled into existence, only this time, through a built structure and in a different location. Such two-dimensional images of a tall three-dimensional structure can create a more powerful impression than the built structure itself. Additionally, when photographing the built towers, Rodchenko and others were actually attempting to visualise the unbuildable one, so eagerly awaited. Examples of such a visualisation of the Tower are aplenty; for example, the red colour and the fragmentation and distortion of perspective in Robert Delaunay’s 1910 series of paintings of the Eiffel Tower make them reminiscent of Tatlin’s Tower. Another example includes László Moholy-Nagy photographs of the Eiffel Tower, implying that Moholy-Nagy’s camera wanted to see and indeed did visualise Tatlin’s Tower when photographing the towers that had been built. Moholy-Nagy’s photographs of the Radio Tower in Berlin in 1928 resurrect the unbuildable through images of the built one. Thus, in addition to the scant direct image production, Tatlin’s unbuildable becomes visualised through photographs and paintings of various competing built structures. Evidently, other monuments attempted to combine the ideological and the artistic new.61 However, it does not appear to be the case until Tatlin’s Tower that any of the designs were able to combine successfully the apparently novel form with a monumental purpose. The fresh

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 configurations of the visible formed an entirely new topography in the city.62 In a culture that valued technology so highly, as a prime example of the ideology of the ‘new’, in addition to all of the other attributes, the Tower had to be portrayed as a technological innovation. However, it seems obvious that Tatlin’s design was at best technologically inefficient and at worst completely illogical and impossible to build. This is why it is important to dispel the myth of Tatlin’s Tower as a technologically advanced structure. As in many other parts of the world, the belief in Tatlin’s Tower 45 technology as a universal cure for all of the social and political problems seems to resonate throughout the history of the Soviet Union.63 Although it may be true that this belief has been equally strong if not stronger elsewhere, the scale of technological ‘backwardness’ of Russia of the pre-Soviet Union and its astonishingly high development rate during this period resulted in an unprecedented belief in technology.64 This obsession with technological solutions resulted in the proliferation of the so-called hero-projects of colossal size, where the technology and gigantic scale were strongly and directly connected. Yet, we often encounter statements referring to the Tower as ‘a machine-like building’. Following the literal description of ‘a monument for the revolution must revolve’, the Tower users were supposed to be in constant movement, i.e. rotation.65 There was no logical and certainly no technical reason for the platforms of the Tower to be rotating other than for a symbolic reason. Given that one of the original models contained a small box with a little boy who turned the wheel to make platforms rotate, one has to doubt the technical likelihood of this type of structure on a gigantic scale. If even a small model could not have been developed to rotate without recourse to such a primitive technology, it would have been far less likely that it could ever have been successful on a colossal scale of 400 metres. As a poetic metaphor, ‘rotation’ (just like revolution) can be evocative, and if applied literally, it becomes absurd. Even if all of the other factors were favourable and without the rotation, it is most likely that the scale in itself would have rendered the Tower unbuildable. Paul R. Josephson has argued the following:

The style of Soviet technologies was characterized by an aesthetics based on two concerns: an exaggerated interest in mass production owing both to egalitarian ideological precepts and resource scarci- ties that was accompanied by premature fixing of parameters, and the gigantomania that grew out of the fascination and commitment Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 to a technology of display.66

Josephson’s term ‘technology of display’ suggests a different focus, one on the visual appearance and display of scale, and is key here. It is important to distinguish between technology in general and technology of display; in the quest for nature and people to be transformed and tamed, large- scale projects always seemed to be the answer. Convincing arguments 46 The unbuildable monument have been proposed, suggesting that each Soviet Leader might have had a different obsession with the technological utopia, e.g. light for Lenin and water for Stalin. Nevertheless, a technological utopia seems to be too simplistic an answer for the utopia of production. In the case of Tatlin’s Tower, it seems evident that it had little to do with the belief in technology; however, it offered enough to those who wished to see it as such. If we make Josephson’s terminology operative, the obsession in this project is clearly not with the technology itself. Instead, we are dealing with the construction of the imagery, the augmentation of scale, the technology that at times may have been overly exaggerated, even completely false. Although it may be preposterous to suggest that Tatlin’s Tower was technologically innovative, it has been undoubtedly extremely successful as an emblem of a particular type of technology, i.e. the production of the visual, the display on a gigantic scale. This reason could explain why the Shukhov Tower, a technologically superior structure, failed in comparison. Its purpose of transmitting Lenin’s voice soon ceased. Its capacity for display and exaggeration of scale were limited. If technological utopia was the dominant force, then structures, such as these and other purely utilitarian structures, would have triumphed. As it turned out, the opposite happened. Evidently, Tatlin’s project, technologically problematic to say the least, seems to have an almost limitless capacity for image creation with the ability to depict nearly any fantasy one may wish to project. This is how the myriad of different interpretations and revelations continually occur. These visual constructions at times are not only different but also diametrically opposite: A technological machine for some is a poetic sculpture for others. Tatlin’s Tower could become so pertinent because it contained something more important than efficiency or technological innovation. It opened a space malleable and ephemeral like a cloud, a projection backdrop for

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 powerful poetic ideas. Lynton claims that the figure of John the Baptist, a highly important Russian Orthodox religious figure, resembles the form of the monument to the Third International. Given the imprecise nature of the Tower’s design, I would confirm Shklovsky’s suggestion that we are dealing with a poetic structure and multiplicity of meaning:

One approaches it, he implies, as one would a poem. The word in poetry is not just a word, it produces dozens and thousands of Tatlin’s Tower 47 associations. A literary work is permeated with them as Petersburg’s air is permeated with snow in a blizzard.67

Tatlin’s Tower has gained all the power of a poem, enabling this ‘unbuildable’ to function as a persistent point of reference. Any glimpse of it, even just a hint, a logo, a black and white photograph of a lost model or of a built structure, has the ability to signify a time of immense possibilities. Related to this idea is the concept of poetic justice. A poetically correct solution would be a conclusion that literally takes the form of a perfect circle, and as such brings the ending of the narrative back to its beginning, to the point of origin. This circulation and scattering of meaning can work on different levels, be it materially, formally, or conceptually. The continuous circling back to the beginning structurally forms a spiral. Thus, not only formally but also conceptually, the Tower becomes a poetic depository that easily collects a myriad of different ideas. This perspective offers a counter-intuitive proposition that the unbuildable functions similarly to the monument; however, because of the lack of materiality, the image remains fresh and cannot be rendered invisible like built monuments can. Robert Musil68 argued that no buildings are as invisible as monuments, which we may see but fail to actually perceive, appreciate their presence, or even register them. Instead of being reminders of powerful events and historical figures, built monuments are often rendered irrelevant and invisible, becoming reminders of the inevitability of human forgetting. With Tatlin, the opposite happens. Despite being impossible to build or even because of it, this unbuildable monument is highly visible. Visual presence through scaled models and drawings in exhibitions, publications, and mass street celebrations, made this monument not just present but also accessible and influential. Simultaneously, each copy, each reference, diminished even more the prospect of construction. The more successful the Tower became as Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 an image, the less likely it was to be built. A structure or a building that was not physically present could not be accessed. It could not be viewed from up close or at a distance, could not be photographed, criticised, or destroyed. It could not decay disgrace- fully. The drawings and models suggested enough and left much more open for speculation. This is how the unbuildable becomes highly visible – through its absence. 48 The unbuildable monument New urban topography: light is not the opposite of heavy As often remarked, each Soviet leader had an obsession with a particular technology.69 Specifically related to the technology of display and the creation of the monumental imagery, Lenin’s obsession was with the process of electrification and light. A perfect illustration of this is Gustav Klutcic’s collage, ‘Soviet Power = Electrification of the whole country’, that appears to be as though moving from elements of Tatlin’s Tower towards a more realistic use of photography, with Lenin’s silhouette comparable to those found later in Socialist realism. The future of the Soviet Union was literally and metaphorically based on the distribution of electricity and light. In his paper on the art of the Socialist city, Lenin used the citation of Companella’s ‘City of the Sun’ in Monumental Propaganda. Frequently cited is Lenin’s slogan from his report to the 7th Congress in 1920: ‘Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country’,70 which testifies to his belief in the power of literal and metaphorical enlightenment, after which the plan for the electrification of the Soviet Union became adopted. He entrusted to electrification the power to change the factories into ‘clean bright laboratories worthy of human beings’, and he believed that household electric light would ease the life of ‘domestic slaves’. Electricity, according to Lenin, would lead to agricultural modernization and would eliminate the massive cultural and economic differences between town and country, transforming peasants into full members of the socialist state. Although each subsequent Soviet leader may have had a different ideological perspective on technology, sufficient evidence suggests that the primacy of light continued considerably after Lenin’s death. Arguably, it could be said that this obsession did not become fully manifested until Stalin came into power. Catherine Cooke71 talks about the entire period of the Stalinist Soviet Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 architecture in terms of ‘radiance’. In ‘Beauty as a Route to “the Radiant Future”’, Cooke presents the aesthetic principles of socialist-realism. Curiously, Cooke does not mention Lenin’s cult of electricity in relation to ‘radiance’, which she uses as a translation of the Russian word for light. A more direct translation of this word, ‘light’ or ‘shining’, prob- lematises Cooke’s title. Notably, the word light in Russian does not share the double meaning in English – the opposite of heavy, which may be Tatlin’s Tower 49 why in Russian architecture, the two can often be brought together – well lit, but also heavy, solid structures. Obsession with light has also been interpreted as a direct replacement for religious light, actively discouraged during the Soviet times. In any case, I associate radiance with the belief in the display of technology and the production of ‘light’ imagery. This emphasis raises several questions. Because enlightenment72 has a metaphorical meaning in the context of education,73 in these terms, light became an important means of augmenting the ideological status of the monumental. Education of the new people, the Soviets, was manifested through literacy programs, with written slogans displayed wherever possible and at times literally written in light on the building facades. Repeatedly, light was equated with reading and education, such as in the poster ‘Literacy is Light – Illiteracy is Darkness’ by Popova.74 Perfectly lit facades of the Metro stations in Moscow were commonly displayed long before the stations themselves became functional. Political slogans were regularly written in light on the building facades. Architectural models started using light to suggest ephemeral qualities of the buildings conceived. Lion Feuchtwanger speaks in awe of an elaborate model of the future Moscow, which he saw at the unfinished Agricultural Exhibition in 1936:

One stands on a small raised platform before the gigantic model which represents the Moscow of 1945 – a Moscow which bears the same relationship to the present-day Moscow as the latter does to that of the Tsars, which was little more than a large village. The model is electrically lit, and the increasing number of blue, green, and red lines show the course of the streets, underground railways and motor roads and demonstrate with what devotion to system of housing and communications the great city will be constructed.75 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 The fact that the model was lit electrically must have been deliberate, promoting an image of the future city. Evidently, whether this future may or may not actually come to fruition was irrelevant. Such elements, building facades constructed out of light, political slogans written in light, and lit architectural models combine in the creation of an ‘enlightened topography’ of Soviet cities, and Moscow in particular. Unsurprisingly, one of Tatlin’s models of the Tower was displayed in the Moscow house 50 The unbuildable monument of the Trade Unions during the 8th Congress of the Soviets, which discussed the plan for the electrification of Russia.76 The question of utopia reappears. The belief in education seemed so unconditional and limitless to the point that all problems are claimed to be resolved once everyone is educated and technology reaches the high level demanded. In the end, I would associate this utopia with the simultaneous belief in human progress and the suspension of time, which in turn relates to the memory of the future. This is how Tatlin’s Tower became the centrepiece of the new urban topography, visible as the light image, even more than if it was actually constructed. In this process, it acquired powerful, even mythical qualities, as an integral element of the time yet to come, the future, clearly visible yet completely immaterial. Within this context, the new media – photography and cinema – became entrenched as intrinsically belonging to the future. Lenin was often cited as stating: ‘the cinema is for us the most important of all the arts’.77 Paradoxically, both photography and cinema, thought of as intrinsically realistic, were used to powerfully amplify the ‘technology of display’ and in this way create imagery often far from reality. The new modes of reproduction became particularly important because traditional art and artists came to be easily dismissed as the product of the bourgeois culture and individual whims. Akin to an earlier perspective, the camera as a technical device was assumed to possess qualities opposed to the highly impulsive individualised artistic practice, instead deemed as objective and truthful. Closely connected with repetition and reproduction of images on a massive scale, photography also comple- mented extremely well the utopia of production, and its call for ‘objective and realistic’ representations of the world. Hence, not in the physical buildings but in temporary manifestations, such as endless slogans, street parades, mass celebrations, light facades, scaffoldings and urban stage sets, light-imagery came to be realised to the full extreme. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

Planning the memory of the future In the pictures of the simplified model in street demonstration from three different angles, as seen in Figure 1.3, we come across different sources placing the images in various locations. The same images are placed in St Petersburg in 1925 and in Moscow in 1927. Additionally, all of the Tatlin’s Tower 51 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

Figure 1.3 Simplified model in street demonstration photographed from three different angles, clearly at the same time and in the same city. Eventually, all of the models built during this period were lost or destroyed, allowing room for speculation. 52 The unbuildable monument models built during this period were swiftly lost or destroyed, allowing even more room for speculation and imagination. Between 1923 and 1930, Tatlin worked on numerous designs for everyday objects,78 rejecting utilitarian aesthetics. In Tatlin’s biographical story, an underlying utopia of weightlessness and flying takes on a literal conclusion. The final years of his creative career (1930–32)79 were spent working on a single-person glider. The name ‘LeTatlin’ fittingly combined the word ‘Letat’, in Russian meaning to fly, and Tatlin’s last name. Despite having produced it relatively early on in life, according to many sources,80 artistically he ‘died’ two decades before his actual death. This project came to be accepted as the last significant example of his creative pursuit. The soft rounded forms of this unmotorised single-person flying machine remain incredibly seductive despite or perhaps because of the fact that it never actually flew.81 Akin to Leonardo’s flying machine, Tatlin developed several prototypes and produced detailed drawings. One cannot help but relate this final work to the myth of Icarus, to which the artist himself referred.82 The story of Icarus is well known and has been often used as an analogy to an artistic endeavour. This myth folds neatly into Tatlin’s life narrative because he was a sailor trapped in earth-bound Moscow, within a controlling totalitarian state dictatorship from which he metaphorically and literally tried to fly away. It only appears odd, given the image of the mechanistic utilitarian appearance Constructivism was said to symbolise, that the last piece by its ‘so-called father’ could be so absurdly useless and hopelessly romantic. I would suggest that it is not odd at all; in fact, a logical conclusion of Tatlin’s romantic side is present in the Tower from the start. The significant difference could be the time surrounding his first work, when optimism and excitement for the revolution prevailed, intended for the collective, on an international scale. The glider was conceptualised at the time when the Soviet state closed in on itself. There seems little doubt 83

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 that articles, such as ‘Off With Their Wings’ by M. Gorskii although directed at Leonidov, attacked the idea of ‘fantasy’ in architecture saying it should not be ignored as innocent, calling it dangerous. Although the Tower was initially given the cumbersome name of the Monument to the Third International, its creator’s name was the one that came to be remembered and registered in the collective memory. A singular gigantic, monumental sign became equivalent to the artist’s name, in fact his signature. The name of the flying machine, LeTatlin, makes this assertion of the personal authorship even more explicit. In Tatlin’s Tower 53 more recent remembering, Yuri Avvakumov’s work, Red Tower 1986– 89 (60 × 42 cm) (see Figure 1.4) combines the idea of Tatlin’s Tower and LeTatlin. Designed for Gorky Park in Moscow, it includes scaffolding, fire escapes, and crane boom, which the author states would be for ‘risk- free testing of manned flying devices’. Too often, Constructivism is conflated with the Tower and Tatlin is hailed as the father of this movement. Describing himself as a difficult character, Tatlin would most likely deny any direct connection, even more so any belonging to the constructivists or any other movements. No doubt, Tatlin would have reacted to this categorisation just as he did to any other: ‘I have not belonged and do not belong to Tatlinism, Rayonism, Futurism, Realism, or any other group’.84 Apparently, not Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

Figure 1.4 Yuri Avvakumov, Red Tower, 1986. Drawing on the ‘Culture’ page of the national newspaper Pravda in the decade before the fall of the Soviet Union, Avvakumov assembles two of the most powerful projects from Tatlin’s opus: Tatlin’s Tower and LeTatlin. The Tower strongly resembles scaffolding, on top of which many figures are climbing, with pertinently not one but two LeTatlins. 54 The unbuildable monument only was Tatlin’s relationship with Constructivism a difficult one, but the movement itself was so complex that one has to doubt whether it is plausible that we continue to understand it as such.85 This oversimplified technological image not only of the Tower but also of Constructivism itself still dominates the architectural discourse. In her survey, Lodder86 proposed that this movement contained two different currents, one associated with the work of Tatlin, and the second one produced by the artists who literally entered mass production in factories, using predominantly right-angled, mechanistic, and utilitarian forms, naming the first form as organic and the latter form as productivist. Lodder wrote as follows:

It has always been assumed that Constructivism consisted entirely of those works inspired by the forms of contemporary machine technology which have usually been associated with the term. In this study I will put forward the hypothesis that in addition to this mechanical dimension there is a phenomenon that I have chosen to call Organic Constructivism. Rooted in the work of the pioneering figure Vladimir Tatlin, it derived its inspiration from the organic forms found in natural phenomena.87

Oddly, Lodder accepts that there are fundamental differences in the work of Tatlin and other Constructivists yet does not question Tatlin’s ‘pioneering’ role:

Tatlin who is credited with being “the founder of Constructivism”, has a dual claim to this title. Not only did he play a decisive role in the development of Constructivism proper after the Revolution of 1917 with his Monument to the Third International, of 1920, but he also undoubtedly initiated the work on non-utilitarian constructions which preceded it.88 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 The more one discovers about Tatlin’s Tower or Constructivism, not only does his leading role become unconvincing but also the very idea of the existence of a movement, which can be neatly labelled as such, becomes questionable. In fact, what is being evidenced here is very disparate groups and individuals, full of contradictions and problematic relationships.89 For this reason, I would suggest we cease using terms, Tatlin’s Tower 55 such as Constructivism, as an overarching label for the entire period, and even more problematic, for the entire practice of the avant-garde. Instead, I would assert that not just different artists and architects, but each of their projects, should be judged on an individual basis and on their own merits. This is why it seems implausible that a complex movement, such as Constructivism, can have a singular or a clear beginning in Tatlin’s Tower or in any other single project, and just as unlikely that the avant-garde practices could have been ceased altogether by the reactionary Soviet regime. The predominant historical accounts would have us believe this and precisely this simplistic conflation should be questioned.

The singular monumental Tatlin’s Tower has become conflated with its image, functioning outside of time, scale, and location. It works through copies, precedents, and built structures alike. However, in the manner in which it represents the notion of monument, it remains conventional. As the structure representing the collective international movement, the Tower became reduced to a singular ubiquitous sign, in fact a personal signature. The term monumental, instead of a monument, is deliberately used to emphasise how it became reduced to the more general notion of monumental, a noun becoming a mere adjective. In contrast to the singular presence of Tatlin’s Tower, another type of public memory started to emerge through the mass urban celebrations. Streets and buildings, and the audience became part of such practices. Temporary elements of architectural production, models, and drawings were obtained from buildings onto theatre stage and streets; most importantly, this included the design of the people themselves. One of the most notable examples was by Popova and Vesnin, a mass-scale event titled ‘The End of Capital’,90 intent on combining military parade and theatre.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 This dramatised procession, planned for May 1921, included thousands of ordinary people cast to move from the ‘Fortress of Capitalism’ to the ‘City of the Future’. The planned mass celebration was cancelled due to lack of funds, and instead Popova collaborated with Vesnin on a smaller celebration for the delegates attending the third congress of the Comintern on Red Square. Notably, however, the very approach to the idea of a monument is in stark contrast to that of Tatlin’s. In the 1919 56 The unbuildable monument article ‘The First Result’, Vsevolod Dmitriev described such attempts as underwhelming:

First of all – a purely visual experience: the very counter-reliefs and structural combinations of surfaces and materials seem sharply revolutionary in exhibitions. When taken out on the streets and squares they seem inadequate and too individual, resembling easel paintings hung in the air.91

Not only were these events temporary, but the drawings, photographs, and other ephemera associated with them either never existed or quickly disappeared. Because there is little or no visual material showing the designs for the revolutionary festivals, they are difficult to judge. Conceptually, this expression of the monumental is fundamentally different from the Tower. Dispersed, collective celebrations on a massive scale were taking place outside on an urban scale, becoming part of everyday life. Other authors, including Sigfried Giedion and Siegfried Kracauer,92 discussed collective celebrations as forms of symbolic expression; however, the mass celebrations in Soviet Russia developed on a more exceptional scale. Those on the outside were not able to directly witness the magnitude of the experience, and those on the inside had little or no physical record. Consequently, these celebrations could and did achieve an almost mythical scale. Turbulent political times needed to visually mark the ‘achievements’ of the new system. The new system craved for the monumental expression of accomplishments of an era, which was still in the making. As if this was not ambitious enough, the entire period came to be marked by an apparently more utopian endeavour. We seem to be dealing with an attempt to emboss the future into the public consciousness, to ‘memorise’ it before it has even happened, making the issue of monument and monumental expression pertinent. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 As though the Soviet leaders came quickly to understand how absence can be more powerful than physical presence, any eventual construction of Tatlin’s Tower became even less likely. Conceived at the time when the likelihood of the international socialist movement seemed real, Tatlin’s Tower still manages to capture the imagination worldwide. It gives visible form and signifies a particular nostalgia for the time when a realisation of the worldwide utopia still could have happened. Not just Russians but also the world itself never before or since experienced Tatlin’s Tower 57 such a mass belief that anything was likely. On an ideological and artistic level, Tatlin’s Tower remains a symbol for those who believe that a fusion of political revolution and an architectural/artistic revolution is likely. The distinction between work and art becomes erased, swinging back to the utopia of the production of imagery. Tatlin’s Tower appeared to have been designed for the future as though it was still happening, the time that seemed imminent, yet never completely divorced from the past. After all, the monument dedicated to the Third International was conceived at a time when the Soviet Union still welcomed international architects and the idea of international worldwide communism was deemed not only to be likely but realistic. The combination of a sudden emergence of the likelihood for the truly new socio-political system compounded with the unprecedented rate of industrialisation created a state where apparently the future arrived too soon, generating a magnitude of contradictory and incompatible requirements for the ‘new’ monumental. This is how, despite being designed at the beginning of the last century, what should have been a long forgotten past, Tatlin’s Tower skipped to the present and permanently fixed itself as a visual symbol of the future. By being outside of architecture proper, outside of the ‘normal’ architectural process, the ‘unbuildable’ monument gets caught up in the paradox of trying to memorise the future while staying paradoxically outside of time. Visualised through many copies, the original stays elusive and the copies are highly visible, and each time apparently different. Copies of Tatlin’s Tower have been and continue to be built in smaller versions and in different locations. One such fragment is depicted in Figure 1.5. Even now, there is an attempt to build Tatlin’s Tower in fragments93 scattered across the globe, never intended to come together. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first fragment was not built in Russia, or in one of the former Soviet republics, but in Serbia, formerly Yugoslavia, in 2007,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 in front of the Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade. Currently covered in graffiti, without any signs, the 1:1 fragment of a mighty structure is unrecognisable as such. The logical conclusion of an absurd idea that the unbuildable has been built would be that the unbuildable can be so far from the unbuilt, so frequently copied and referenced, that in fact it can be observed as the most built of all. Whether this can be understood as an architectural series or as a mere repetition will be discussed later. Tatlin’s Tower in many respects opened up the possibility for the new, representing a future that could not materialise. With perspective 58 The unbuildable monument

Figure 1.5 The first fragment of atlin’sT Tower, built in former Yugoslavia, in front of the Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade. The image on the left shows a clean fragment, and the image on the right shows it once it was graffitied over, shortly after its erection in 2007. For more information about the rest of the fragments, see Henry VIII’s Wives Artists Collective, Glasgow.

complicit in this process, we return to the notion of utopia, more precisely the utopia of the production of images. In these terms, this Tower can be proposed both as the symbol of not just the beginning, but also the end of the avant-garde projects. Only a very short period of time separates Tatlin’s monument and the Palace of the Soviets. Both projects tried to tackle the impossible task of constructing an image of the future. Tatlin’s monument captured the moment when this possibility existed. The case of the Palace of the Soviets, as the next chapter will show, is different. Although many will still openly admire Tatlin’s Tower, the Palace of the Soviets tends to be deliberately forgotten, hidden as an embarrassing public secret.

Notes 1 Wolf D. Prix (Ed.), Unbuildable Tatlin? Springer, Vienna, 2013. The book contains studies testing whether the Tower would be technologically Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 possible both in post-revolutionary Russia and in today’s Vienna. 2 V. E. Tatlin, T. Shapiro, I. Meerzon and P. Vinogradov, ‘Nasha predstoyash- chaya rabota’ VIII s’ezd sovetov. Ezhednevnyi byulleten’ s’ezda VTsIK, No. 13, 1 January 1921, p. 11. 3 ‘How is it that Vladimir Tatlin installed his studio in, of all places, the bell-tower of this convent? (On the second floor to be precise) perhaps art historians can demonstrate an inner connection between the structure of his projected Tower for the Third International and the architecture of this Russian bell-tower’. Karl Schlögel, Moscow, Reaktion Books, London, 2004, p. 305. Tatlin’s Tower 59 4 Unfortunately, Schlögel’s suggestion denotes a tendency prevalent in western writing on Russian culture, in general, to oversimplify and often sacrifice historical accuracy for the sake of ‘evidencing’ a particular line of preconceived thought. 5 Revolution is derived from the Latin word revolutio meaning ‘a turnaround’. 6 Svetlana Boym, ‘Tatlin, or, Ruinophilia’, Cabinet, Issue 28, Bones, Winter 2007/08. Available online at www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/boym2.php. 7 Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, New York, 2009, p. 104. 8 Mayakovsky’s funeral procession, attended by a group of over 30,000 people, was designed by Tatlin. Darran Anderson, ‘Van Gogh’s Ear III – Mayakovsky Lives!’, 3:AM Magazine, April 2009. Available online at www.3ammagazine.com/3am/van-goghs-ear-iii -mayakovsky-lives/. 9 However, it should be noted that one of Tatlin’s greatest supporters, Nikolay Punin, was imprisoned in 1948 and died in a gulag, which undoubtedly would have had an impact on Tatlin himself. 10 Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, New York, 2009, p. 103. 11 Svetlana Boym quotes Trotsky writing about the Tower: ‘an impression of scaffolding which someone has forgotten to take away’. Svetlana Boym, ‘Tatlin, or, Ruinophilia’, Cabinet, Issue 28, Bones, Winter 2007/08. 12 Leon Trotsky, ‘Revolutionary and Socialist Art’ (Chapter 8), Literature and Revolution (1924), Red Words, London, 1991. 13 Svetlana Boym, ‘Tatlin, or, Ruinophilia’, Cabinet, Issue 28, Bones, Winter 2007/08. Available online at www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/boym2.php. 14 Nikolay Punin, ‘Obzor Novykh Techenii v iskusstve Peterburga’, Russkoe Iskusstvo, No. 1, 1923, p. 18. 15 Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1992, p. 24 16 Louis Lozowick, ‘Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International’, Broom, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1922, pp. 232–4. 17 ‘Gabo attacked the Tower as “a ‘medieval’ idea … [like] the Tower of Babel”, new only in its incorporation of moving parts and certain never to be realized’. Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, New York, 2009, p. 170. 18 Lissitzky refers to Tatlin’s project in his essay, listing achievements in conquering gravity and liberation of the ground. 19 John Milner, Vladimir Tatlin and the Russian Avant-Garde, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1983, p. 154. 20 Margit Rowell, ‘Vladimir Tatlin: Form/Faktura’, October, Vol. 7, Soviet Revolutionary Culture, MIT Press, Winter 1978, p. 104. 21 This comparison made by Owen Hatherley was presumably based on Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 V. Khlebnikov’s ‘The Trumpet of the Martians’. Owen Hatherley, ‘Delirious Moscow’, Archinet, 3 October 2007. Available online at http://archinect.com /features/article/62725/delirious-moscow. 22 Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution,Yale University Press, New York, 2009, p. 99. 23 Nikolay Nikolaevich Punin, ‘O Pamyatnikakh’, Iskusstvo Kommuny, No. 14, 9 March 1919. 24 ‘Fotomontazh’, LEF, No. 4, 1924, p. 41. 25 Ibid, p. 296. 60 The unbuildable monument 26 Tatlin was one of the two people closely involved with drawing up the ‘Monumental plan’ and specifying its contents. See Vladimir Tatlin and Sofia Dymshits-Tolstaia, ‘Memorandum from the Visual Arts Section of the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment to the Soviet of People’s Commissars: Project for the Organization of Competitions for Monuments to Distinguished Persons’ (1918), in John Bowlt (Ed.), Design Issues, Vol. 1 No. 2, Autumn 1984, pp. 70–4. 27 Viktor Shklovsky (1893–1984), writer and literary critic. The title of one of his works, Nothing Is Over Yet, alludes to the impossibility of ending the revolution. ‘Еще ничего не кончилось – ’ Пропаганда, 2002. 28 Cited in James von Geldern, Bolshevik Festivals 1917–1920, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993, p. 196. 29 The decree was issued on 12 April 1918. 30 In some ways, this was a very risky statement by Mayakovsky because others who had made similar comments were imprisoned, namely Tatlin’s biggest supporter, Nikolay Punin, who was arrested in 1949, based on accusations of ‘anti-Soviet’ activity, for stating that many thousands of Lenin’s portraits were tasteless. 31 Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, New York, 2009, p. 94. Interestingly, several Russian writers, including Nikolay Gogol and Yevgeny Zamyatin, describe Moscow as ‘she’ and Petrograd as ‘he’. Zamyatin also wrote that ‘Petersburg is all straight lines, all geometry and logic’. Yevgeny Zamyatin [translated by Mirra Ginsburg], A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970, p. 69. 32 Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983. 33 Margarita Tupitsyn, El Lissitzky: Beyond the Abstract Cabinet, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1999, Figure 2, p. 10. 34 Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, New York, 2009. 35 The similarity between the images in the supposed two locations first became apparent after looking at them side by side and trying to work out the wording of the political slogan above. Then, it became clear from the details of the room and Tatlin’s clothing in the photographs that these were both taken at the same time, in the same place, and on the same model. This is corroborated by Larrisa Alekseevna Zhadova (Ed.), Tatlin, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988. 36 After Petrograd, the original model was exhibited at the House of the Unions, Moscow, at the end of 1920–21 in the GOELRO exhibition.The second model was exhibited in Paris at the International Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts, 1925.The model in Stockholm was reconstructed in 1968 and exhibited in Venice in 1970. In London, reconstruction occurred in 1970–71 and in Moscow, reconstruction began in 1976. Nikolay Nikolaevich Punin, O Tatline (Against Cubism) 1919, Lira, Moskva, 1994. 37 Larrisa Alekseevna Zhadova (Ed.), Tatlin, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988; Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Anatolii Strigalev, ‘From Painting to the Construction of Matter’, p. 32. 38 I discussed his account in an interview in 2009 with Chris Cross, who partici- pated in the building of the Tower in London as part of the Hayward Gallery exhibition, ‘Art in Revolution’ in 1970–71. 39 Lodder gives three very different height estimates: Anatolii Strigalev and Nikolai Khardzhiev estimated 7 metres; in Object it was given as 5 metres; and Ilya Erenburg gave it the height of 25 metres. Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983, note 106, p. 277. 40 Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, New York, 2009, Figures 58 and 59, pp. 100–10. Tatlin’s Tower 61 41 All of Tatlin’s drawings, the photographs of this, and subsequent models, together with the photographs depicting the process of the model’s construction, can be found in Nikolay Nikolaevich Punin, O Tatline, (Against Cubism) 1919, Lira, Moskva, 1994. 42 For original drawings and photographs of the models’ construction, see: Nikolay Nikolaevich Punin, O Tatline (Against Cubism) 1919, Moskva, Lira, 1994. 43 The fact that the two facades do not correspond to one another was also pointed out by Anatolii Strigalev in ‘From Painting to the Construction of Matter’, p. 30, in Larrisa Alekseevna Zhadova (Ed.), Tatlin, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988. 44 Ibid, p. 29. 45 Anatolii Strigalev, ‘From Painting to the Construction of Matter’, p. 30, in Larrisa Alekseevna Zhadova (Ed.), Tatlin, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988. 46 The first model of the owerT was built in the mosaics studio of the former Academy of the Arts in Petrograd in 1920. There has been much debate about Tatlin’s assistants, who were his students at the Academy in Petrograd. According to Strigalev: ‘Assistants were required to do manual tasks, in the course of the building of the monument, like bending, […] they complained that they did not learn anything and wanted to transfer to the academy of arts’. Ibid, p. 29. 47 Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, New York, 2009, p. 134. 48 Ibid, p.30. 49 Similar to Piranesi’s Carceri, which will be discussed later. 50 Konstantin Umansky, Der Ararat, No. 4, January 1920, pp. 12–3. 51 Especially of Marinetti, as conceptualised and visualised in Boccioni’s great sculpture, Unique Continuity of Forms in Space, 1913. 52 ‘Die kunst is tot. Es lebe die neue Maschinenkunst TATLINS’. Dada Messe (Dada Fair), Berlin, 1920. 53 John Bowlt cites from Tatlin’s Otvechaiu (1915) frequent proclamations of independence from art movements: ‘I have not belonged and do not belong to Tatlinism, Rayonism, Futurism, Realism, or any other group’. Vladmir Tatlin and Sofia Dymshits-Tolstaia, ‘Memorandum from the Visual Arts Section of the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment to the Soviet of People’s Commissars: Project for the Organization of Competitions for Monuments to Distinguished Persons (1918)’, in in John Bowlt (Ed.), Design Issues, Vol. 1 No. 2, MIT Press, Autumn 1984, pp. 70–4. 54 Wolfram describes Tatlin as a ‘Russian collagist who made “collaged-reliefs” from scrap materials like wood, metal, paper, glass and plaster’, referring to his Picasso-inspired 3-D sculptural reliefs. Tatlin At Home, collage of pasted papers and gouache, National Museum, Stockholm. Eddie Wolfram, History of Collage: An Anthology of Collage, Assemblage, and Event Structures, Macmillan Publishing, New York, 1975, p. 54. 55 Andrei Ikonnikov, Russian Architecture of the Soviet Period, Raduga Publishers, Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 London, 1988, p. 83. 56 Hausmann’s own practice was varied, including countless collages, photomon- tages, and sculptural assemblages. 57 As discussed by Vladimir Paperny, Andre Gide, a disillusioned communist who travelled to the Soviet Union and who disliked Moscow’s architecture intensely expressed the following: ‘The buildings, with a few rare exceptions, are ugly (not only the very modern ones) and take no account the one of the other’. One of the rare exceptions was the Shukhov Tower, which Gide admired. He was impressed with the beauty of St Petersburg. We note the rivalry between the two capitals, with St Petersburg and the Shukhov Tower; therefore, the foreign, copied, and technologically advanced on this occasion is valued more highly than the old, more established, and likely more ideologically imbued Moscow. 62 The unbuildable monument 58 It only reached 148.5 metres. 59 Recent controversy surrounds the fate of Shukhov Tower – plans for it to be demolished and/or moved by developers have been resisted so far. A preservation order that prevents its demolition was placed in 2014, following an outcry by local and international architects. For more information, see Shukhov Tower Foundation. 60 Walter Benjamin, ‘Moscow Diary’, October, Vol. 35, MIT Press, Winter 1985, p. 112. 61 Iosif Chaikov’s Tower of October (Moscow, 1927), Ilia Chasnik’s design for a speaker’s platform (1919), Ivan Kliun’s design for a monument to Olga Rozanova (1918–19), Georgii Yakulov’s and Vladimir Shchuko’s design for a Monument to the 26 Commissars (1923) all related to this conviction. 62 The development of display technology was made accessible on a massive scale through the use of photography and cinema, which will be discussed later. 63 For an in-depth account of the connection between the power and technological projects in USSR, see: Paul R. Josephson, ‘“Projects of the Century” in Soviet History: Large-Scale Technologies from Lenin to Gorbachev’, Technology and Culture, Vol. 36, No. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, July 1995, pp. 519–59. 64 Paul R. Josephson has argued in ‘“Projects of the Century” in Soviet History: Large-Scale Technologies from Lenin to Gorbachev’ that this techno belief, techno-utopia is not essentially different from the Soviet context; instead, it is a question on a grander scale. Ibid, pp. 519–59. 65 Rather than letting users move freely through the structure, Tatlin’s rotation is controlled by measures of time. This may be related to the idea of constructing the vision and creating panoramic city views. 66 Ibid, p. 524. 67 Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, New York, 2009, p. 133. 68 Robert Musil, ‘Monuments’, in Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, Marsilio, New York, 1987 (originally published in 1932), pp. 64–68. 69 Paul R. Josephson connects each of the Soviet leaders to a particular technological obsession in this remark: ‘Constructivist visions of the communist future found expression in Lenin’s electrification, Stalin’s canals and hydropower stations, Khrushchev’s atomic energy, and Brezhnev’s Siberian river diversion project’. Paul R. Josephson, ‘“Projects of the Century” in Soviet History: Large-Scale Technologies from Lenin to Gorbachev’, Technology and Culture, Vol. 36, No. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, July 1995, p. 519. 70 This was echoed visually in Gustav Klutsis’s two collages (1920 and 1930) under the same title. 71 See Catherine Cooke, ‘Beauty as a Route to “the Radiant Future”: Responses of Soviet Architecture’, Journal of Design History, Vol. 10, No. 2, Design, Stalin and the Thaw, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 137–60. An actual term used, ‘svetloe’, could also be translated as light or shining. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 72 The governing bodies formed after the revolution in 1917 included People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narodny kommisssariat prosveshcheniya, usually known by its abbreviation Narkomrpos) under the direction of Anatolii Luncharskii, responsible for the administration of education and the arts. The word ‘enlightenment’ is included in this title. 73 In this sense, Lenin’s message to the Communist youth is revealing: Learn, learn, and only learn. 74 Another problem with translation occurs here. The title of her design was translated by Lodder as ‘literacy’ instead of the higher level of the original meaning, i.e. education. ‘Literacy is Light – Illiteracy is Darkness’ (Uchen’e svet – neuchen’e t’ma), 1921. Tatlin’s Tower 63 Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983, p. 52. 75 Lion Feuchtwanger, Moscow 1937: A Travel Report for My Friends, Moscow, 1937, p. 52. 76 (GOELRO). Andrei Ikonnikov, Russian Architecture of the Soviet Period, Raduga Publishers, London, 1988, p. 87. 77 G. Boltyanskii, Lenin i kino, Moscow, 1925, p. 19. 78 For more about this, see: Laurel Fredrickson, ‘Vision and Material Practice: Vladimir Tatlin and the Design of Everyday Objects’, Design Issues, Vol. 15, No. 1, MIT Press, Spring 1999, pp. 49–74. 79 Lodder dates this project to an earlier time, 1929–1931. Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983. 80 Margit Rowell has argued that although Tatlin lived until 1953, his actual creative work spanned only 20 years and stopped with LeTatlin in 1932. Margit Rowell, ‘Vladimir Tatlin: Form/Faktura’, October, Vol. 7, Soviet Revolutionary Culture, MIT Press, Winter 1978, p. 84. 81 Yuri Avvakumov argued that the testing of the glider was never conducted properly and produced a number of projects as a homage to LeTatlin. Yuri Avvakumov, Interview with the Author, Moscow, 2008. 82 Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983, p. 213. 83 С Горский Отрубите ей крылья. № 180, Февраль, 1931, CMEHA, Moscow. 84 Vladimir Tatlin, ‘Letter to the Futurists’ Anarchy, No. 30, 29 March 1918. 85 Reflecting precisely this point of Constructivism being much looser and more complex than is ordinarily perceived, Lynton included an entire chapter titled ‘Constructivism in Inverted Commas’ in his study of Tatlin’s work. Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower Monument to Revolution, Yale University Press, 2009. 86 Curiously, Lodder does not mention Lenin’s tribune by Lissitzky and does not write about the intended projections of the political messages from Tatlin’s Tower. Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983. 87 Ibid, p. 5. 88 Ibid, p. 7. Lodder cites her sources as: A. Kemeny in ‘Protokol zasedaniya IKKhUKa’, 8 December 1921, MS, Private Archive, Moscow; Camilla Gray, The Great Experiment: Russian Art, 1863–1922, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1962, p. 140; and subsequent commentators. 89 Denying being part of Constructivism was common, as we have previously seen Tatlin himself strenuously rejecting belonging to any ‘isms’. As another example, Lodder quotes from Alexei Pevsner’s A Biographical Sketch of My Brothers, ‘in Moscow … at the time neither Antoine nor Gabo called themselves Constructivists. I know that Gabo protested strongly against any “isms” and Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 that Antoine agreed with him. Gabo called the ideas he was standing for in art “constructive ideas” or “ideas of spatial constructivism”’. Cited in Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983, p. 39–40. From Alexei Pevsner, A Biographical Sketch of My Brothers: Naum Gabo & Antoine Pevsner, Ursus Books, New York, 1964. 90 Alexander Vesnin and Liubov Popova, Project for a theatricised military parade for the Congress of the Third International titled ‘The End of Capital’, May 1921, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 91 This passage is translated in Lodder as: ‘Those very counter-reliefs and constructed combinations of planes and materials which seem so acutely revolutionary at 64 The unbuildable monument exhibitions, appear inadequate, too individual and even painterly when they are taken out onto the streets and squares. They seem like paintings hung out of doors’. Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983, p. 51. From Vsevolod Dmitriev, ‘Pervyi itog’ (‘The first result’). Iskusstvo kommuny (Art Commune), No. 15, 16 March, 1919, pp.2–3. 92 Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995. 93 Available online at www.tatlinstowerandtheworld.net/index.ht. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 2 The unbuildable tomb The Palace of the Soviets

The Palace of the Soviets, in the majority of Western accounts, has been poised and accepted to be the complete opposite of our previous example. My intention is to show how the two may be more similar than they initially appear. Similar to the case of the Tower from the beginning,1 we find a multitude of many likely narratives for what turned out to be one of the most famous Soviet architectural competitions of all times. However, it is important to stress that this is not an attempt to find the single most plausible narrative but to evaluate how the category of the unbuildable operates in this particular example. I will include many possibilities, the presence of the Palace through paintings, models, and other imagery, the reception by its audiences, and the reactions by the international modern architects, together with the 1934 variant formally resembling Tatlin’s. Although the Tower tends to be perceived as a ‘utopian’ but ultimately a positive and even poetic structure, to which many eagerly return, the Palace is often ridiculed or simply forgotten.2 The underlying question here will be whether the two unbuildables, the Tower and the Palace, are really as different as they initially seem. Previously, the notion of the ‘cloud’ permeates disparate accounts, including, of course, an only apparently absurd suggestion that the Palace may actually have been built after all. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Contested chronology Although the narrative of this competition is officially confined to 1929– 1937, as evident from different, even opposing, records, it is complex and drawn out. For example, the number of the competition stages could be understood to vary from three (spanning over three years) to four or even eight years (spanning more than 30 years 1922–1959). I will focus on the short period of time in the early 1930s (1931–1934) because 66 The unbuildable monument this period tends to be accepted as the phase during which the most extreme changes occurred. However, an earlier competition in 1922, albeit under a different name of the Palace of Labour and on a different site, conceptually opened up a space for the formulation of the Palace brief. You may question the placement of Konstantin Melnikov’s entry, combining contrasting elements of pyramid and coliseum, in a narrative of the Palace of the Soviets. The reasoning is simple and is corroborated by several authors because all of the necessary conceptual elements for the Palace have been created earlier and in multiple locations than it was officially recorded. Additionally, it seems that Melnikov had a good sense of which competitions were going to result in an actual commis- sion and used this particular one as an opportunity for exploring more abstract architectural ideas. The widely accepted view is that the evolution of the architectural competition for the design of the Palace of the Soviets became the register of socio-political changes, marking the beginning of the marginalisation of the avant-garde and the official acceptance of socialist-realism as the artistic and architectural norm. The Constructivists and other avant-garde practices became side-lined within the architectural production; however, their contribution in terms of set, product, and most importantly, print design continued. Paradoxically, in the context of a utopia of production, ‘constructors’ seem to have been left out of the production of buildings. Although, I would argue, by working outside of architecture proper, their impact became more far-reaching and influential than it would have been otherwise. The more plausible course is the more convoluted one, where no practice or movement could have likely ended in such a small time- frame; instead, they continued to develop in a far less tidy fashion. This makes it important, even necessary, to consider separately not just the work of each architect but also every piece in their own right. Contest stages vary in length and character. Initially, several stages

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 consisted of open international competitions, attracting modernist architects globally, most notably Le Corbusier. In Boris Iofan’s entry of 1931, all constituent elements of the ‘winning’ design, selected three years later, are already present. The basic elements are present; however, the scale and composition differ. In the first design, a figure although present is very small and abstract, ‘proletarian’. This design is in stark contrast to the final design where the building (gigantic in scale) became literally a mere pedestal to the colossal statue of none other than Lenin. The unbuildable tomb 67 In 1931, Iofan gave the sky a sepia colour and left it empty, similar to that of Moscow. In contrast, Shchuko and Gelfreikh’s entry from 1931 shows a clear deep blue sky, airplanes, and mass audience. In a process that demonstrated every element to be exaggerated, the intense colour, airplanes, and the mass audience were later added. Iofan was given no choice but to collaborate with the other two architects, Shchuko and Gelfreikh, and the final selection of design elements were assembled in 1934. The figure of an anonymous person was replaced by Lenin and put on top of the structure itself. The sky became deep blue and a mass audience was added to create an enhanced impression of the scale and grandeur. Although the first part of the competition was open to international modernists, towards the end of 1934, the competition became closed not only to those outside the USSR but in effect to the architects themselves. The final design, announced in 1934, was selected by a jury of politicians, chaired by Stalin himself. In ‘Quest for an Image to Serve a Revolution: Design Competitions for the Palace of the Soviets’, Peter Lizon3 suggested as many as eight architectural contests as constituent stages of the Palace competition. Arguing that they all share the same aim of finding a representational image embodying artistic aspirations of the new socio-political order, Lizon groups together the earlier Palace of Labour competition (1922– 23), the three (not four) stages of the Competition for the Palace of the Soviets of the early 1930s (1931–34) and the most recent series of three competitions under the same name (1957–1959). Lizon rightly suggests that these competitions coincided with the important changes in Soviet History, and at the same time registered the accompanying alternations in architectural style. In Lizon’s conclusion, the first one, the Competition for the Palace of Labor,4 marked the beginning of Constructivism; the second one marked the marginalisation of the avant-garde and the rise of socialist-realism; and the final three registered the end of the domina-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 tion of the socialist-realist style. I will argue that such a clear-cut division may be useful in general, but it has more to do with the perception of the Soviet production by the West than an accurate interpretation in itself. However, irrespective of which, how many, and what combination of stages one interprets to be the accurate account of this contest’s history, the trajectory is consistent only in one sense, and it has always been complicated. No matter which stage we observe, they all involve hastiness, a lack of planning 68 The unbuildable monument and constantly changing and often contradictory requirements.5 Such characteristics could be said to reflect the struggle with the future that arrived too fast, surprising even those who initiated it. The competition’s criteria and aims evolved in an apparently chaotic fashion, creating many different stages, under various titles, and numerous locations. Concentrating on the three phases of the early 1930s, this chapter aims to question the widely accepted account that the design finalised in 1934 registered the rise of Socio-Realism and in effect put a stop to avant-garde practices. During the competition time, additional aspirations were created without disposing of the ones already formed, which were occasionally in direct contradiction. At least in the beginning, the aim was a physical embodiment in the form of building. Only initially did this search focus on the users of the Palace, the Soviets themselves. However, at some point in the formulation of the aims of the competition, this fundamentally changed towards ‘constructing’ not a physical building but an image and the intended mass audience, the Soviets. The competition requirements continued to change throughout this period. At the outset, the concept of the Palace was an ideological absurdity, which included Lenin and Stalin’s clear preference for the ‘old’ style, although simultaneously proclaiming a commitment to the revolutionary ‘new’. At the end of this initial stage, it seems that the architectural domain, just like all others, had been taken over by the politicians. The same pattern of hasty destruction, characteristic for the beginnings of the monumental propaganda in the 1920s, followed. The largest church in Russia, Christ the Saviour Cathedral, located prominently in the centre of Moscow, was disposed of in a spectacular fashion. The church had to be obliterated to make room for the Palace, long before the design became finalised. After the remarkably rapid demolition, seemingly all the right steps were taken to erect the new building just as swiftly. Eventually, however, its quickly constructed

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 foundations became no more than the world’s largest open-air swimming pool. An official explanation of the acute shortage of steel at the time seems unconvincing. The swimming pool, a gigantic circular mirror reflecting the sky, according to many, marked the end of the grand era of Stalinist architecture.6 Although certainly the largest and one of the most brutal examples, the Palace of the Soviet’s swimming pool is not by any means the only case of appropriating church buildings for leisure use. Many church buildings during the Soviet period were used as The unbuildable tomb 69 ice skating rinks or swimming pools. Curiously, in this case, not only a large church that preceded it had to be destroyed in rapid and spectacular fashion but also 50 years later, an exact replica of this building was re-built in the original location. To repeat, in the initial stages of the monumental propaganda, the destruction of the symbols of the ‘old’ were more important than planning what was to come in their place. This very logic culminated in the case of the Palace of the Soviets, which presupposed the destruction of Russia’s largest church.7 The process of the actual destruction was a spectacular event: After the gold was removed, the remaining structure was exploded using dynamite. Notably, the cathedral builders had destroyed earlier structures in this location, dismantling and moving an old monastery to make way for the cathedral. Nonetheless, all of the structures subsequently built on this location, i.e. the original cathedral, the foundations of the Palace, the Moscow swimming pool, and the newly rebuilt cathedral, continue to suffer from frequent floods. This event keeps on fuelling rumours that the site may be cursed. Perhaps the water has been part of the destruction of the cathedral because its presence contributed to the unbuildability of the Palace of the Soviets. The world’s largest open-air swimming pool was created in the 1950s, a giant liquid mirror reflecting seven distant replicas. The destructive cloud created a huge shadow, a ghost-like presence, meaning the structure that would come to replace it could not be any less ‘grandiose’8 than the church itself. The task of filling this gap was undoubtedly underestimated, and yet the official appearances had to continue. This is why, after the final approval of Iofan’s design, everything seemed to move towards the swift construction process, with the Palace foundations poured shortly after the destruction. During World War II, construction ceased, apparently only temporarily. However, we now know that this process will never continue again. The poignant

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 image of absence endured through this time: first, as a large explod- ing cloud; subsequently, as a giant circular swimming pool/mirror, to be finally duplicated. All of these ‘absences’ provide a backdrop onto which the unbuildable can be projected, escaping definition, finalisation, but importantly also annihilation and forgetting. This transition from utopia and the optimism of the early revolutionary days turned quickly into pessimism and dystopia, as though nothing is possible. The narrative of the Palace was paralleled by many examples in literature, such 70 The unbuildable monument as novels like The Foundation Pit by Andrei Platonov9 written in 1930, which mirrored the story of the Palace so closely that they were banned and their authors were prosecuted. This prompted various formulations of the concepts of ‘Russian utopia/dystopia’ and ‘fantasy’. However, instead of suggesting the simplistic yet nearly universally accepted equiv- alence of Tatlin’s Tower, utopia, and Constructivism on the one side and the Palace, dystopia, socialist realism, and the end of Constructivism on the other, my argument will be less polarised. Rather than being contrasted and in opposition, the two notions – the positive and negative, utopia and dystopia – are intertwined to a great degree. Perhaps the term ‘hybrid utopia’ comes closer, with the two opposites present in nearly equal measure.

The unplanned plan: contested chronology and the palace for the masses Despite being one of the great Soviet architectural competitions recognised worldwide, the chronology and details of the actual contest for the Palace design remain far from clear. This could, in part, be due to the quickly formulated initial ideas and shifting aspirations, including the secrecy that continually increased in the Soviet state. The majority of publications include the three stages of the competition of the early 1930s under the title of Palace of the Soviets. Scholars, such as Sona Stephan Hoisington, convincingly argue to consider the competition for Dom S’kzdov (House of Congresses)10 from 1931, as the first stage of this competition, albeit under a different, more modest name and pertinently in a different location. The immediate post-revolutionary years in the Soviet Union’s First Five-Year Plan11 involved programmes of Monumental Propaganda similar to the Reconstruction of the City of Moscow. The First Five-Year

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Plan itself became increasingly concerned with the appearance of the cities, stipulating the following: ‘a consistent architectural organization of squares, highways, embankments, and parks, utilizing the best examples of both classical and new architecture, as well as all the achievements of building technology, in the design of residential and industrial buildings’.12 This short paragraph already contains the areas of potential conflict and contradiction. Apparently, the new system needed to appropriate ‘old’ architecture (at least in the beginning) until the ‘new’ one The unbuildable tomb 71 could be tested and the ‘best’ examples could be selected. The trouble seemed to be that the ‘new’ was needed already (it couldn’t wait), and quickly got caught up in the contradiction of wanting to completely break away from, yet to improve upon, the old. Another important feature of the First Five-Year Plan was the absence of any actual planning.13 Instead of making considered and calculated proposals, this plan and many subsequent ones kept putting forward completely unrealistic targets. This plan is connected with a particular way of thinking, whereby the unrealistic goals and grand scale projects serve to perpetuate the collective belief that everything may be possible. Arguably, this method can and has been effective. By projecting more than what may be considered to be likely, and continually pre- senting inflated results as actually within reach, one may achieve, if not the result that was inherently unrealistic, still more than by following a more reasonable and limited programme. Grand-scale projects already started, such as the Moscow Metro14 and Moscow-Volga canal, inevitably continued to fuel this belief. Similar to the First Five-Year Plan, the competition for the Palace of the Soviets displayed a lack of planning and changeable, contradictory requirements at the outset.15 This first chosen location, Okhotnyi riad, in the centre of Moscow was carefully considered and was more feasible than the one ultimately selected. A sudden decision was made to move from this location to the more prominent one, as Hoisington indicates, with a clear absence of planning and no feasibility studies. Undoubtedly, this new location by the Moscow riverside was considerably more prominent with a higher political significance. Crucially, the new location conveniently enabled the prime piece of architecture of the previous era, Christ the Saviour Cathedral, to be destroyed in a spectacular fashion. The choice significantly altered from the no-fixed location to a feasible location that implied the removal of a few small houses, finally settling on an unfeasible, technically difficult

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 riverside location. The destruction of the cathedral in itself was evidently something that needed to be done urgently, regardless of what was to come in its place. By being moved to this new prominent location, the Palace of the Soviets becomes not just ideologically but literally and geo- graphically the central feature of Moscow. Only this centre was empty. The aspirations of the Palace competition initiators grew constantly and eventually achieved mythical proportions. From a building that would house the party congresses, consisting essentially of meeting and 72 The unbuildable monument debating auditoria, it became the Palace of Soviets, thus suggesting the diminishing concern with the function, and the shift of focus to the monumentality, the ideological and political symbolism. The change of the word ‘house’ to the word ‘palace’ registers the shift of scale from that of a modest structure to a more ambitious one. In the last competition stages, any pretense of functionality seems to have become subordinate to the gigantic monument for Lenin. Frequently published images showed the aspirations of the Palace to be the tallest in the world, often also referred to as ‘the most beautiful building in the world’. The plan for the reconstruction of the city with the strategic positioning aimed to reassert Moscow as the new Soviet Union’s capital. The move to the more prominent location by the river was also justified by Stalin’s obsession with water, reflected in the fact that one of the major themes of the General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow was water.16 The tallest and the ‘best’ buildings, therefore, had to be located in close proximity to the river. Despite its inland location, Moscow developed a complex system of rivers and canals connecting, at least in theory, the city to the open seas. This forced creation of ‘proximity’ to water achieved a utopian character. Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtaradze cite from Iofan’s memoirs that Stalin personally selected the final site for the Palace.17 Naturally, ‘the grandest building in the world’ had to be located by the river to support the impression of closeness of the Volga-Moscow canal18 and sea. Unfortunately, just as the Five-Year Plan lacked any actual planning, its centrepiece was never to be realised. Instead, it literally exposed a massive hole in the ground, only to be filled almost a hundred years later by the cathedral’s exact replica. Although in contrast to the case of Tatlin’s unbuildable, the actual drawing plan is not completely absent in the Palace. However, the domination of perspectival representation of the Palace shows that the emphasis remains on creating an image and not planning an actual

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 construction. Even the very initial formulations of the competition embody contradictory ideas. The name itself, the Palace of the Soviets, is a paradox, as palaces tend to be built for royalty, the elite few, and not for the ordinary masses, the equal, i.e. the Soviets. This may, at least in part, be explained by the fact that the very people this was intended for, including some of their leaders, were mostly semi-literate workers and peasants. Many in pre-Soviet society associated the idea of beauty with the splendour of the The unbuildable tomb 73 Royal Palaces. Lenin himself was very outspoken about his distaste for modern movements within art and architecture and his preference for the old aesthetics.19 Others similarly argued that palaces should be built for the working class, that the Soviets should live in palatial splendour, and not in buildings resembling machines and factories. In this sense, the Palace of the Soviets could be understood as the mark of the end of the initial success of avant-garde architecture and the gradual rise of those against it. Or perhaps the name, Palace, was far more appropriate than one might initially assume. Evidently from the development of this competition, the Palace gradually became the complete opposite from what it set out to do: Instead of expanding the horizons for the ordinary masses, the Palace became a symbol of the vision by the elite few. The first stage of the architectural competition in 1931 was for invited participants only.20 The aesthetic requirements for this stage stated that ‘The Palace of the Soviets’ must be a monumental structure, outstand- ing in its architectural features and fitting in artistically with the general architectural scheme of Moscow. The first contradiction is obvious already: The structure should be exceptional, yet at the same time blend in with its urban surroundings. Of even greater importance was the additional requirement, associated with scale and visibility, that it be ‘a monumental form … built on a scale that will permit its being seen from the furthest outskirts of the city’.21 Monumental seems to be completely equated with the massive scale, following the assumption that gigantic scale can only be fully appreciated from a distance. Karl Schlögel traces the roots of this connection between the large scale and powerful architectural expression in the writings of a canonical Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol.22 So, it seems that although Communism itself is meant to be continually developing, its architectural monumental image remains static and unchanged from the previous era. Importantly, the collective audience is made to amplify this image,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 kept at a distance and in an orderly fashion. The Palace design included the Palace avenue, extending further the urban perspective that would involve yet more demolition of the existing buildings. One of the reasons for the Palace’s unbuildability seems to have already been noted here: Any building in such a densely populated location would have to be of a considerable scale; that fact alone would make it impossible to build. For such size to be fully appreciated, it would require destruction not only of the church, which stood in its place, but of a much wider 74 The unbuildable monument surrounding area to accommodate the planned grand approaches. This also proves how the focus later expanded and gradually shifted from that of a gigantic building to include the spectators, mass parades, and collective audiences. The first stage only served as the testing ground for the criteria of the next phase, the international part of the competition, when a large number of designs were considered. The jury awarded the first shared prize to a British-born New Jersey architect, Hector O. Hamilton, and two Soviet architects, B. M. Iofan and I. V. Zholtovsky.23 The submissions at this stage included some of the world’s most famous modern architects, most notably, Le Corbusier.24 The fact that none of the modern architects were awarded major prizes provoked an outcry in the West: The Soviets were accused of betraying modern architecture. However, as Hoisington25 argues, if there was a bias in the jury’s opinion, it was on the national basis, not specifically against modern architects. Seemingly evident in the majority of the modernist designs is the failure to address two fundamental requirements, which despite any other changes remained constant, i.e. monumentality and scale. The competition requirements continued to evolve, even after the designs were apparently chosen and publicly announced. In 1933, the design by Iofan was accepted, comprising the two key elements, the auditorium and sculpture. At only 220 metres in overall height, it was deemed to be insufficient. The required elements seemed to be there; however, their expression did not appear to be sufficiently strong according to the eminent jury. The height was deemed to be not substantial enough, the sculpture of the ‘liberated proletarian’ was too abstract, and the pedestal, the auditorium itself, as it was circular, lacked clearly defined sides. However, by accepting it only as a working design, the chosen architect was obliged to include the amendments under the notable jury’s direction. Their decision proposed that the top part of the Palace of the Soviets was to be completed with an immense26 sculpture

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 of Lenin. This enlargement would in effect make the Palace of the Soviets merely serve as a pedestal for the statue. Iofan was helpless in trying to resist this inclusion; allegedly the architect claimed that no one would look at his building, only at the statue of Lenin above. In his article on the newly selected design, Anatoly Lunacharsky27 identified a ‘bold striving upward, a proportionality, a simplicity, and an openness to the masses’28 as the requirements that were met by this architectural monument. Lunacharsky saw the sculpture crowning the edifice as expressing the idea of socialism, as placing man above all else. Iofan’s building The unbuildable tomb 75 was made much taller and Lenin’s statue was placed on top, adding to the total height of 400 metres, in accordance with Stalin’s suggestion. If built, a structure of this height would still be among the tallest six in the world. Given little choice but to accept the compromise or risk being taken out of the process altogether, the three architects Iofan, Gelfreikh and Shchuko released the final plans in March 1933. A final composed design by Iofan-Shchuko-Gelfreikh in 1934 combines colossal scale, birds, airplanes, massive audience, and an imported, foreign colour of sky. The blue of the ‘borrowed’ sky (from Venice or St Petersburg?) travelled from the 1931 entries to the finally accepted versions of 1934. The final representations included a carefully choreographed mass audience, kept at a distance, and in an orderly fashion.

Conceptual predecessors and the end of modernism as perceived by the West Despite a different name, there are strong reasons for including the Competition for the Palace of Labour29 as the first stage of the Palace of the Soviets competition. According to Lizon, it marked the beginning of Architectural Constructivism.30 However, I would suggest that the conceptual opening for the Palace was created earlier, with Tatlin’s Tower in 1919. This competition was conceived at the time when the new socialist system was in urgent need of making its history physically evident. The problem seemed to be that this history was not only very ‘short’ but still in the process of completion. To accompany the fast pace of the industrial development that ensued, there was a need to create physical proof of the dramatic change in their surroundings. This architectural competition became the marker of change from an initial embrace of the ‘new’ in architecture and art as represented by Tatlin’s Tower towards its ultimate rejection. However, who rejected the ‘new’ needs to be disputed, as

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 I would argue, was not the mass audiences but the Soviets themselves. The reactions to the final design by Iofan in the West were mainly negative. The New York Times called Boris Iofan’s winning scheme ‘a wedding-cake stacking of Greek, Roman and Egyptian conventions topped by a statue of Lenin … the epitome of Soviet architecture at its most grandiose’. Frank Lloyd Wright condemned it at the First Congress of Soviet Architects in 1937. Giedion, then president of the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), wrote to Stalin accusing him of a betrayal of modern architecture, resulting in the cancellation of 76 The unbuildable monument the CIAM meeting scheduled to take place in Moscow and its relocation. Le Corbusier31 sent Stalin a personal telegram stating how the Soviet regime betrayed the aspirations of modernism. Contemporary western visitors to Moscow also reacted negatively. Notably, French writer Andre Gide, who was in support of the USSR before his visit to Moscow in 1938 wrote the following:

What is to be thought when, during a period of such dire distress [the money] goes to erect a Palace of Soviets (of the defunct Soviets) [...] A monument 415 meters (about 1,260 feet) high, surmounted by a statue of Lenin, 70 or 80 meters in height, made of stainless steel, one of those fingers is ten meters long [...] a finger ten meters long for a total height of 70 to 80 meters?... Let’s hope at least that Lenin is seated.32

Paperny wrote how, despite the Soviet press discussing this 10-metre long finger, no journalist ever dared to question this anatomical absurdity.33 One rare positive reaction was by Lion Feuchtwanger,34 who visited Moscow at the same time as Gide, and continued to write in support of the USSR, in awe of the Palace foundations. Feuchtwanger wrote the following:

There is still a rubble and unsightly scaffolding everywhere, but the outline of the mighty building is already rising up pure and clear. It is a true Tower of Babel, but one which aims not to bring human beings closer to heaven, but heaven closer to human beings. And the enterprise is succeeding, they have let no one bring confusion into their language, they understand each other.35

However, the verdict by the West had apparently been made: From this point in time in the Soviet Union, modern architecture including

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Constructivism, had been abruptly halted. I would suggest that although this, undoubtedly, dealt a major blow to the Constructivists, it certainly did not stop the avant-garde practices altogether. Many prominent Constructivists successfully continued to work in different and arguably more influential areas, such as stage, press, and exhibition design. Lizon has argued that ultimately the Palace of the Soviets registered the rejection of Constructivist aesthetics by the very people for whom it was intended, i.e. the uneducated masses who associated ideas of beauty with the old idea of the magnificence of royal courts. The unbuildable tomb 77 This does not seem to be completely accurate because it was not the masses who chose the final design but the person at the very top of the political elite, namely, Stalin. So, if it was avant-garde aesthetics that were discarded, this was done by the political leaders, with the masses, including the architects, given little choice but to follow them. Judging by the unflattering comments by the visitors to the exhibition of Iofan’s design, it seems clear that the intended audience did not indis- putably support the project. There were objections to the height of the structure. One Soviet citizen wrote the following:

At a height of more than 400 metres, the Palace will not be visible in Moscow proper; one will have to go to Sparrow Hills to see it. Therefore, the building will not produce the appropriate impression on the masses demonstrating in front of it.36

Visitors commented on the lack of harmony between the sculpture and the building, likened by one to ‘a cork in a bottle’; to the location ‘given the increase in the proportions of the Palace of Soviets the location planned for it is unacceptable, for the Palace will crush the surrounding buildings’; and finally to the design’s theatricality:

This is not an edifice but a theatrical pedestal for a monument to Lenin. The significance of the leader of the masses, ascending into the clouds far from the people, is utterly lost here. What is more, Lenin is depicted in the pose of a provincial actor. Unbelievably inflated and banal. Why does such excessive theatricality pervade the entire design? It lacks profundity; there is nothing serious or convincing about it.... Down with this theatricality, this operatic quality, this interpretation of Lenin as actor.37

Hoisington attributes, in part, such negative comments to the lack of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 power of the model on display: ‘That the model exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in March and April 1934 lacked this power is evident from the disparaging comments written by visitors to the exhibition, which are preserved in the archives’.38 This could, in part, be accurate; however, it still shows that the final Palace design was at times as fiercely criticised and rejected at home, as by the Western audiences, if not more so. These written impressions show that the final design was not as widely accepted as one may be led to believe; although once it had the official stamp of approval, few dared to publicly criticise it. 78 The unbuildable monument Constructing effects In Gavriil Nikitich Gorelov’s painting, the Party and government leaders examine the model for the Palace of Soviets at the Museum of Fine Arts. The perspective has been strategically used to represent the impact of the model more powerfully than it was reported in reality. Similar to Tatlin’s Tower, a simplified model of the palace was frequently used in mass street celebrations and demonstrations. It seems that only the drawings, as opposed to the model, had the power to inspire the audience:

Significantly, it was the drawing and not the model that was pictured in Pravda in February 1934 together with the council’s official decree. The dramatic qualities and persuasive power of this depiction convinced viewers that the future had come to pass and that the Soviet Union had “outstripped America”.39

In only the paintings of the period, the model does not appear to possess the requisite power, as in the painting by Gavriil N. Gorelov where the leadership is depicted looking somberly at the model during its unveiling in February 1934.40 Hoisington concludes the following: ‘Film footage shown in the documentary “Vremia i zodchii” by Nikolai Blochkin and Segal indicates that the event was far more casual and prosaic than this painting would lead us to believe, however’.41 This indicates that even after Stalin’s intervention and the final announcement, the ‘design’ in the film, print and painting continued to be altered. Stalin was literally referred to as an architect in many paintings and was pictured holding architectural drawings in his hands, as in K. I. Finegonov’s paintings titled The Great Architect of Communism, Stalin in a Kremlin Office at Work on the Plans for the Great Building Sites of Communism, 1950s, and in another painting titled Long Live Stalin, Great Architect of Communism.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 A sense of an increasing power of the visual was created, i.e. an awareness that appearances can be more effectively altered in a two- dimensional representation, namely, through the distortion of perspective in photographs and painting, rather than in a physical form. Pictorial images, as shown in the careful framing and emphasised perspective, in essence, could have greater symbolic and potentially persuasive power than three-dimensional physical artefacts. This type of image continued to be used, in fact, to evolve the design; in this way, the project was reaching stages that not only could it not possibly be built but also it did The unbuildable tomb 79 not need to be built. Once the primary elements of the monument were clarified, i.e. once the pedestal and Lenin’s figure were established, only the mass audience and the overall perception needed to be constructed. The architectural image, in the shape of a clearly identifiable, singular and monumental sign, becomes augmented through images aimed not at the construction of a building but at the construction of the audience themselves, the viewers. The audience, always represented en masse, never as individuals, had to be kept at a distance to complete the idea of grandeur and the sense of admiration. Held outside, ordinary masses were used in the same way one would streets or landscaping, i.e. to increase a sense of grand approach and to produce a visual impact over great distance. This is why in an already mentioned example, Gorelov’s painting or perspective became adjusted so that the model appears to be more imposing than it could possibly have been in reality. Perspectival effect becomes that of manipulation and deception, making an exaggerated scale appear real. Similarly, the final perspective of Iofan’s Palace design is a carefully constructed montage. With the gray colour of Moscow’s sky replaced by the deep blue, a flock of birds and an airplane were combined to add more poetic details and emphasise the scale. The image was given additional power by the strategically placed mass parading in front. In a sense, the space around the building, the image of the background, became just as important, if not more so, than the building itself. Carefully constructed masses of people augmented the sense of awe at this ‘magnificent’ sight. The enormous size of this gigantic structure of two halves would dwarf all of the surrounding buildings. This effect was emphasised and further extended when shown in relation to the audience: The Soviet people were depicted as orderly masses strategically placed to extend the ‘pedestal’ and thereby produce the effect of infinity. In street celebrations, which can be ephemeral and powerful, the simple form of the Palace was frequently

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 mirrored with body formations, making its form not only present and familiar but also accessible, even democratic. Here, we42 come across an obvious question that perhaps nobody at the time dared to ask: How inappropriate would it be for Lenin to have been hidden by clouds for most of the year? This simple factor may constitute yet another reason why the palace itself was never built, and why none of the seven copies along the Moscow garden ring have statues on top. As Moscow’s climate43 is dominated by long cold winters with only six hours of daylight, this would render the statue itself, if not the entire 80 The unbuildable monument upper part of the building, invisible most of the time. Schlögel is not the only one who saw a cloud obscuring Lenin. Ikonnikov before him wrote the following:

At the same time the figure placed at such an enormous height would be wanting visibility, being hampered from points close to the building, and by low clouds which could obstruct the figure – partially or fully – for a large portion of the year. And the very positioning of the sculptured image of Lenin, literally above the clouds, could hardly be described as a good artistic tribute to the founder of the Soviet State.44

In reference to this and the visual representations of the sky, it is important to discuss that publicity at the time described the palace as an ‘assault at the skies’.45 As in Tatlin’s Tower, the monumental image aims at being as expansive as the sky itself, but what use can it possibly be if it is rendered invisible most of the time? Or let us imagine an even worse case, Lenin, not obscured, but with a cloud behind his head, apparently being given a ‘halo’ (as seen in Figure 2.1), an utterly inappropriate religious symbol for the revolutionary leader.

Negative cast: the unbuildable as the most built of all Schlögel refers to a platform46 on the Lenin Hills, high above the Moskva, as the place from which the Kremlin had been bombarded in the past. This gives us yet another reason, this time, a military, strategic reason, for the Palace not to be built because a single centre can be easily tar- geted and destroyed. Related to the connection between an architectural plan and property, as soon as a piece of land becomes clearly defined, it also becomes owned and contested. In contrast, a multiple, dispersed centre is obviously harder to annihilate. An immaterial one, consisting

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 countless images, may be impossible. A rare drawing of the plan of the Palace literally suggests a target. It is nearly absolutely centrally located and is proximal to the river. The perspectival shadows make the Palace resemble a target, further emphasising centrality. Could the underlying reasoning for this unbuildable be defence, the creation of imagery impossible to destroy? The Palace foundations became the Moscow swimming pool in 1951 and for more than 50 years, the largest open-air swimming pool in the world. Unintentionally, as a swimming pool, a public leisure facility, the The unbuildable tomb 81

Figure 2.1 Palace of the Soviets. Lenin with sky halo (image manipulated by the author). site came to be used for a purpose similar to the one the Palace was initially programmed for. In this case, even if unwittingly, the unbuildable created an opportunity for the social interaction of the ordinary masses. However, given its enormous size and Moscow’s cold climate, low misty clouds often hovered above the pool; with poor visibility causing a series of drowning, rumours that the location itself was doomed are unceasing. It soon became clear that the Palace would not be built; many different explanations and reasons were given, ranging from technical

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 impossibility, economic factors, or Stalin’s loss of interest. All of these reasons likely played a role in ensuring that the project remained unbuildable. However, it gradually became obvious that the Palace could be just as powerful, if not more so, if it remained an image. A picture can be easily altered with little effort: Scale, proportions, details, and any shortcomings or limitations can be easily corrected. An eternal sun shining,47 people forever smiling under a cloudless, clear blue sky48 scattered by triumphant airplanes, and any actual shortfalls were effortlessly made to disappear. That the various representational 82 The unbuildable monument techniques and perspective were used to distort and disguise the more realistic impact such buildings would have is testified by criticisms, such as the following by Lissitzky:

For the benefit of non-specialists the entrants have prepared “artists’ impressions” as large and striking as frescoes, together with celluloid maquettes standing on beautifully shaped bases. They look stunning, but create a completely false impression by placing these huge buildings on sites of unlimited size. The angle of view is totally misleading. The truth is that these colossi would make Red Square as crowded as Okhotny Row.49

Let us assume for a moment that the Palace was built. An aerial perspective of Moscow, with the Palace as a dominant feature, would never be appreciated by the masses, with only a few privileged people actually able to directly experience its material and spatial qualities. Corroborating this visual construction, architectural drawings of this period always depicted the Palace at its centre surrounded by seven of Moscow’s high buildings – absent original with seven replicas. As records of Stalin’s speech in 1947 have demonstrated, the Palace is still the central feature of the urban centre design, referred as the ‘future’ one.50 In a study analysing Soviet architecture and building of the late 1950s, an architect from the then Stalingrad was quoted as saying: ‘They used to tell us that the main thing was the outline of the building against the sky, and the sweep of a lofty design’.51 Clearly referring to the years of ‘heroic’ projects and the Palace of the Soviets, this architect testifies to the unambiguous primary focus on the visual appearance: the scale and the outline of the building against the sky. These qualities can only be fully appreciated from a distance, if one gets too close to the building, one would not be able to take in the immensity of the scale. After see-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 ing Iofan’s perspective, it seems easy to imagine being inside an airplane and physically close to Lenin. In many ways, this image is more vivid than trying to visualise a building as it would appear from the ground. Through paintings and images, this image became a more real and powerful symbol in people’s minds than a physical building ever could. Given the height of the building, people directly below it would not be able to see Lenin towering above. The only position from which one would be able to encompass the whole building would be from the distant hills surrounding Moscow. However, the great distance would also produce The unbuildable tomb 83 a reduced, model-like scale for the structure. The same view, graphically reproduced in paintings, posters and postcards, over the years, made this giant accessible and real. Although formally the Palace building may have been simple, the gradual stepping upwards of the pedestal would create a telescopic effect, further accentuating the verticality of the structure. With finely detailed vertical fins, this perception would have been made more intense. In the large perspectives of the Palace and in the paintings of the exterior, the ornamental façade detailing remains perfect and clearly visible. Additionally, many features of the building, precisely denoted in these drawings, would fade into insignificance if translated into the giant scale of the actual structure. In two interior drawings, the two versions from 1946 (circular and rectangular), the miniscule scale of the people inside reminds us of the famous Enlightenment drawings of Boullée’s library. The interior appears vast, lacking any functional detail. Perfectly framed circular openings with sky of a clear blue colour made visible in the section of the main dome was part of the quest to introduce as much natural light as possible and lower the horizon. Images can effortlessly ignore how unrealistic this may be in a building of such depth and size. In another interior perspective, the openings are blocked, the sky is replaced with a star and sickle motif. The message of these drawings seems to be at once frightening and affirming, giving a feeling, perhaps suggestive to an individual, that you are at once so small as to be almost imperceptible and yet part of a great nation capable of building something so imposing. A perfectly framed circular horizon could only have been replicated through a drawing of the unbuildable. Iofan’s Palace of the Soviets rare interior drawing from 1946 shows Order of Victory Motif in the Government Reception hall. The manner of the drawing, and more importantly, the ‘effect’ of the design is reminiscent of the older project by Étienne-Louis Boullée, Metropolitan

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Basilica. In the internal perspectives, the light comes from an undefined source above, with the centrally placed cloud further suggesting infinity. In the rectilinear version of the same interior space by Iofan of the same year, the Palace becomes completely enclosed with clearly defined sides. Only the blue colour of the sky openings from the previous version has now been filled with gold, a colour traditionally associated with palaces. That Iofan and his team continued to work on this project testifies to a problem almost constantly present in Soviet planning in general. Although the First Five-Year Plan failed due to its completely unrealistic 84 The unbuildable monument premise, the administration formed to service the same ‘Plan’ grew and became self-serving. Rather than involving better planning, a larger administration became an aim in itself and was ultimately unmanage- able. A similar process occurred in other spheres, including architectural production, where architects continued to produce drawings and endless project variants, not necessarily because they believed they would or could be built but because there was little else they could do. Moscow’s planners, i.e. its political leaders, seem to have understood that a singular monument, no matter how tall, would never be experienced as a continuous presence, and that instead, multiple copies would secure a panoramic experience. By attempting to destroy the visible markers of religion and Tsarist power, they may have also realised that a single building is not sufficient to transform the city’s outline. This action left the centre empty and necessitated a fragmentation of the artefact through its multiple copies. As the lack of detail in the interior of the building shows, the interior perspectives perpetuate this project as one of pure exteriority. Although I already proposed that Tatlin’s Tower-image was composed out of the unnecessary surplus structure, not only were details missing but also there were no interior perspectives; all images of the Tower were external. That the Tower’s elevations (appearance) closely resemble sections (structure) is directly related to its function in inspiring different interpretations, including contradictory ones. In the drawings of the Palace, like those of the Tower, clearly shown measurements appear to be mean- ingless, demonstrating a lack of understanding of material translation on such a large scale. Within a drawing or a model, one can appreciate the intended alignment of the Tower with the Earth’s axis and the speed of the movement of the rotating chambers; this becomes very abstract once the scale expands to gigantic proportions. Schlögel recounts how, in the case of the Palace, Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 what made little sense was calculated to have an impact, for in what direction could a revolutionary leader – positioned over 400m high, hidden from the eye of mere mortals by a blanket of cloud – point the way, other than onwards and upwards to the clear blue sky and the twinkling stars?52

Significantly, in the drawings illustrating seven of Moscow’s high buildings,53 the Palace of the Soviets continued to be drawn in its intended The unbuildable tomb 85 central location. The high buildings were consistently shown in relation to the Palace, as though they reference the centre that may be physically missing but keeps functioning symbolically, thus suggesting not only a counter-intuitive but even an absurd notion that the unbuildable can, in fact, be perceived as the most built of all. Additionally, the mark of what is missing, the negative cast, often seems to be more powerful than a physical building. The seven built towers still dominate Moscow’s skyline. Replacing a single focal point, now seven smaller replicas define the city’s skyline. Tellingly, all seven replicas have rectangular forms, as favoured by Stalin,54 instead of the round one preferred by the architect, Iofan. Hence, the primary structure of the palace was built not as a singular colossal target that could be easily destroyed but instead multiplied and scattered across the centre of Moscow in seven replicas, and even much further away, for example, in the Palace of Culture in Warsaw. But what happened to the statue of Lenin? First, as we are aware, the statue of Lenin has been replicated on an industrial scale. However, in recent decades, since the fall of the Communist regime, mimicking the haste in the early post-revolutionary days to destroy the ‘old’, a systematic attempt to erase socialist-realism has transpired in contemporary Russia. The majority of statues of Lenin and Stalin55 have now been either removed or destroyed, many in spectacular fashion. The rebuilding of Christ the Saviour Cathedral was an important step in this process of a forced abrupt ‘forgetting’. Contemporary visitors to the cathedral can easily remain unaware of this location’s turbulent history. This tendency to forcibly erase and ‘forget’ artefacts of the past that do not sit comfortably with the current version of history, I would argue, belongs to the same process of erasure in the many representations of the Palace. This perspective opens the pathway toward more speculations. For example, can we find Lenin’s statue on top of the Russian Antarctic Base at the Pole of Inaccessibility in 2007,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 which will gradually be completely enveloped by the cloud of snow and ice? Simultaneously protected and made inaccessible and invisible, one of the last remaining Lenin’s statues will be made to disappear completely. The snow cloud here at once serves to protect it from destruction and to preserve it for posterity. Other writers, Paperny and Schlögel among many, also suggest that the Palace of the Soviets exists through seven towers all turning towards a single point of focus. Schlögel describes it as a virtual image: ‘the seven High Buildings distinctly towering out of the sea of Moscow’s 86 The unbuildable monument architecture … which still dominate the Moscow skyline today … turn towards a single point of focus. This is not the Kremlin, but the Palace of the Soviets’.56 Oddly, Schlögel writes how Lenin was not replicated on top of Moscow’s high buildings, as there can only be one ‘original’. Tarkhanov and Kavtaradze wrote how the spire on top of the seven towers was used to distinguish the Russian buildings from their American counterparts. Curiously, they also said: ‘The American skyscraper is, ultimately, an expression of the high cost of land. In Soviet Russia, land was the property of the State and therefore cost nothing’.57 Although all the land may have belonged to the state, this does not diminish the importance of the location. The very centre of the capital will always have a higher value than anywhere else and needs to be heightened, ele- vated vertically, and expanded. Quite the opposite seems to be true, as monuments of Lenin were dispersed across the Soviet Union and in Communist countries worldwide. By splitting the functional part of the building from the monumental sculptural part of the figure of Lenin and scaling them down, multiple copies of the Palace of the Soviets were made possible. Arguably, this way the Palace was made accessible, even democratic, for more people to experience. Only a few of these statues of the ‘forcibly forgotten’ leader still remain. In the beginning of 2014, the sculptures across the Ukraine shared the fate of many before, toppled by angry masses, this time demanding closer ties to the European Union, and against Russia. In searching for the one from the top of the Palace of the Soviets, one sculpture stands out for the simple reason that it may be impossible to remove. Located on the roof of the Russian Antarctic Base at the Pole of Inaccessibility (see Figure 2.2), it cannot be moved or destroyed. It seems poetically logical to suggest that the most important element of the Palace, the statue of Lenin, unreplicated in any of the seven built towers,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 is actually located in the Antarctic. The same element erased from the depictions of the Palace made this sculpture difficult to access. Snow has not only made the station inaccessible, or unusable, but crucially Lenin’s statue itself has become indestructible. The cloud of snow has preserved Lenin’s head for posterity by gradually completely enveloping it. At once keeping all at a distance and protecting the statue, the snow cloud will eventually make Lenin completely invisible. Another option could be for the missing sculpture to actually be in England, planned for the social housing scheme, which intended to be The unbuildable tomb 87

Figure 2.2 Russian Antarctic Base at the Pole of Inaccessibility. The building and Lenin’s statue will gradually be enveloped by the snow and ice, completely made to disappear. The cloud of snow serves to protect it from destruction and preserve it for posterity by making it invisible.

named Lenin Court, and completed in 1954. The Cold War made the dedication of the Housing complex to Lenin impossible and the scheme was actually named as Bevin Court after an anti-communist politician Ernest Bevin. Lenin’s memorial was repeatedly vandalised until the architect Berthold Lubetkin personally buried it under the main stair- case of the estate. Let us assume for a moment that it was not the smaller copies but the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Palace itself that was built in its intended location. After the collapse of Communism in the late 1990s, Lenin’s statue would likely have been dismantled or given a less ideological status. The building itself would have been unremarkable in everything apart from scale. Would the statue of Lenin or the entire Palace itself be spectacularly disposed of in an explosive cloud? Or would the cathedral be built on top? One could continue to speculate. Schlögel observed that after its architecture was stripped bare of its Communist symbols, Moscow started to resemble Manhattan: ‘If all goes well, the next chapter of that text will be about 88 The unbuildable monument everyday sensations, the final victory of the banal over the sublime, and the transformation of Moscow into an ordinary, normal metropolis’.58 It seems, however, that in the early post-revolutionary days, a spectacular attempt was far preferable to an ordinary one, even if it was ultimately to result in failure. The previously discussed preference, which I do not think is specific only to Soviets, for spectacular destruction over gradual decay is closely related to this.

Cinematic image production In Dreamworld and Catastrophe, Susan Buck-Morss argued that the idea of a mass utopia was not solely the preserve of the Soviets but was in fact shared by both sides in the Cold War. Buck-Morss further suggested that utopia in the East lost the battle to the West, not because they were so different but because the utopia in the East too closely mimicked Western utopia. Buck-Morss alluded to the similarity between the two images, the final images of the Palace, and the striking poster for King Kong (created for publicity purposes, not a still from the film). As the film opened two months before the Palace of the Soviets competition concluded, Buck-Morss speculated on whether Stalin could have seen it before deciding on the final shape of the Palace. It is generally known that both Lenin and Stalin favoured film as the most powerful art form. In addition to this, Stalin saw many Western movies, which were later censored in the USSR. The suggestion that Stalin may have changed his preference from circular to rectangular to make it differ from the one he saw in the film may be farfetched. It is more likely, in my view, that he preferred the clarity of the rectangular structure, giving the building four distinct sides. However, the controversy of such an arresting similarity of two images initiated by such different intentions remains ongoing. Oddly, without any reference to Buck-Morss, Slavoj Žižek’s obses-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 sion with both film and high Stalinism prompted him to formulate a similar argument from a different perspective: ‘how the producers of King Kong (1933) stole the idea of a giant gorilla on top of a skyscraper from the futurist architects who wanted to place a giant statue of Lenin on top of the Palace of Soviets’.59 Here, architects such as Iofan and his team are mistakenly described by Žižek as ‘the futurist architects’. Another misinterpretation is in arguing that it was the architects who called for the giant statue of Lenin, when as we know now, it was the politicians, led by Stalin, who ultimately did. Crucially, by claiming The unbuildable tomb 89 that the Hollywood designers stole the design, Žižek proclaims it to be worth stealing. It is more likely, as Buck-Morss60 suggests, that these two images were influenced by each other, and were derived from similar sources. Still, the question remains how completely different intentions could have ended up producing such a striking resemblance: one was created for pure entertainment featuring a wild beast threatening urban life, and the other represented a symbol of the Soviets’ mighty power. Evidently, Stalin and other Soviet politicians looked at the world’s biggest cities and compared their buildings to Moscow, demanding that higher, bigger skyscrapers be built. It has been shown with substantial evidence that Hollywood frequently copied Soviet avant- garde61 projects. If and when images were taken from Soviet culture into Hollywood, they tended to be more exaggerated, even grotesque. It is crucial to note, here again, that we are talking about images and not physical structures. Therefore, there is a fundamental difference between the context: moviegoers watching King Kong are just seeing a film they know is a fantasy, whereas the Soviets were consistently told that these visuals were their immediate future. It seems evident that the spectacular Hollywood imagery further reduced the likelihood of the Palace as a physical structure. It is also plausible to suggest that Stalin may have understood, as early as the initial plans for the Palace, that the building itself should not be built and that instead the multiple visuals, e.g. the imagery, were sufficient to produce the desired effects. In Soviet Perceptions of the United States, Morton Schwartz writes that ‘Soviet attitudes toward the American socio-economic system reveal an odd mixture of respect and contempt. The Soviet leaders strive at once to “catch up” with the United States and “bury it”’, which sums up this contradictory attitude.62 I think this attitude is broader than just in terms of economics; it also enters architectural and cultural spheres,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 such as in the case of the Palace, which makes any project of great importance difficult to realise. The reasons for the unbuildability of this project are many. As already indicated in the wording of the very first stage of the competition, the gigantic scale was the most important one. In addition to this, there was a technical difficulty with the site, where the water table caused regular flooding. Another challenge was its cost; the Palace was a considerable expense for a country that had suffered destruction from war and was yet to develop economically. All of these and other factors made the Palace project extremely unlikely to execute. 90 The unbuildable monument Nevertheless, I argue that the Palace was unbuildable not because of any of the reasons above but because it became increasingly clear that it did not need to be built. Like Tatlin’s Tower, the Palace drew its power from the physical absence and the overwhelming presence of the imagery. Unquestionably, Lizon was right in identifying this competition as the search for an image to encompass the idea of the revolution but wrong to conclude that this intention failed. The project has succeeded precisely in the way Lizon formulated the ultimate aim to be; i.e. not by seeking a physical embodiment but by remaining as a pure image. It is no accident that the term commonly used to describe projects, such as the Tower and the Palace, is ‘disembodied’ architecture. Imagery was precisely what the Soviet people were given, becoming vividly present in their minds from paintings, architectural drawings, models, propaganda posters and increasingly film. One such example is Aleksandr Medvedkin’s film New Moscow (1939), where the images of the Palace were combined in real Moscow street scenes, thus making ‘future’ and present difficult to distinguish. This imagery was particularly so, for many who did not have access to Moscow (at some periods, you had to have a passport to be able to travel to this city from any other parts of Russia). The image of the Palace was just as vivid as other buildings, and more familiar than most. Although physical buildings had to be constructed at great expense, with much technical effort, by existing purely in the realm of the visual, this project had many distinct advantages over a material edifice.

Light is not the opposite of heavy The Palace has been accepted as ushering in socialist-realism, which according to Catherine Cooke63 should not be understood as a style but as a method of design. Against interpreting socialist-realism as a mere repetition of classical forms, Cooke wrote the following:

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Socialist Realism was not about regurgitation. It was crucially about the constant invention of new obrazy, new “images” to embody and transmit messages and myths to audiences who were themselves always “moving forward” as their political consciousness and aesthetic sensibilities developed. The role of the artist as vedyshchyi, as literally “leading forward” this mass consciousness, derives directly from this vision of art as “active” in this ideological advance. Such a The unbuildable tomb 91 role was sharply contrasted to the avant-gardist’s pursuit of personal whims.64

Cooke again implied that the avant-garde was one monolithic entity, wishing to fulfill only their own personal desires and drew a clear distinction between socialist-realism activating mass consciousness. This perspective seems to deny the active ideological role of Tatlin’s Tower and many avant-garde projects. As Figure 2.3 shows, at least some of the drawing variants of the Palace of the Soviets formally could be said to belong more to the avant-garde style than that of socialist-realism. One term, Radiant, seems particularly persistent in the Western narratives of socialist-realism in architecture. First, it was connected with the city of Moscow in Le Corbusier’s plans from 1924. Later, towards the collapse of the Soviet empire, it was also the title of the novel by the dissident, Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

Figure 2.3 Iofan, Shchuko, and Gelfreikh, Palace of the Soviets, 1934. More than any other, this spiral variant shows formal similarity with Tatlin’s design. However, as we know, the design finally chosen was rectilinear because this style was preferred by Stalin. 92 The unbuildable monument Aleksandar Zinoviev, from 197865 translated into English as either Radiant or Bright Future. Cooke wrote the following of Radiant Future:

In the standard phrase which encapsulated Stalin’s promise to his people, their labour would deliver a svetloe budushchee: a radiant future. It was a future of svet (lightness) in the sense of being without burdens and at ease with itself. It was a society comfortable with its historical legitimacy as well as its historical roots and its heritage, certain of its social priorities, confident in the power of its own efforts and the mastery of its territory and material resources.66

In her analysis, Cooke translated svetloe as radiant, and not light as it would be more direct meaning. The future at question has no burdens, but Cooke does not specify that ‘light’ in Russian does not have the double meaning,67 as in the English language, which could be why this ‘light’ quality was preferably translated as radiance or brightness. Fundamentally, the terms of the discussion here are in essence aesthetic categories and part of the visual creation – an image. In Russian, the word obraz has a double meaning: In addition to the definition Cooke used, ‘obraz’ also means face. This interpretation gives the slogan a more forceful and stronger meaning; for example, not just an image of the façade but the facing, the principal, main one. Our face, the ‘front image’, is the one we open to the view of the world. Architecture, dominated by ideology, is interested in controlling primarily this prime image, which must seduce and pass on a singular message. Finally, this takes us back to the idea of designing not simply images but the outward appearance and faces of the audience, the viewers themselves. The commonly accepted view would have us believe that from the point when the 1930s stage of the Palace of the Soviets competition was concluded, the avant-garde had become marginalised and the socialist-realist or Stalinist style in art and architecture ascended. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Such a simple linear demarcation of historical periods needs to be questioned. Tatlin’s Tower operated as a singular monument, easily conflated with utopia, in many respects confirming the traditional notion of the monumental. Through the following discussion of the two apparent opposites, I aim to demonstrate that more often than not, the examples from avant-garde and socialist-realism can share crucial traits, as illustrated in Figure 2.4, differing only superficially in appearance. The unbuildable tomb 93

Figure 2.4 The difference between the two projects, the Tower and the Palace, is not as fundamental as it may initially appear, at least not in the way they conceptualise the monumental – a singular gigantic structure. The image here, representing two formal expressions of the ‘monumental’, has been composed by the author.

Notes 1 Several authors have argued that an earlier competition under a different name should be considered part of the chronology of the Palace of the Soviets competition with two stages in the early 1920s and 1930s and another stage in the 1950s. The formal records are usually confined to the period between 1929 and 1937. 2 For example, prominent Russian architect and academic Yuri Avvakumov dismissed any mention of the Palace with these words: ‘It was a long time ago, I cannot remember,’ while happily engaging in long and detailed discussions of Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 older projects by Tatlin and others. Interview with Yuri Avvakumov, Moscow, September 2008. 3 Peter Lizon, ‘Quest for an Image to Serve a Revolution: Design Competitions for the Palace of the Soviets’, Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 35, No. 4, Design Competitions, Summer 1982, pp. 10–16. 4 The competition took place 3 years after Tatlin’s Tower, which many have argued as marking the beginning of Constructivism. 5 For example, Noi Trotsky’s design for the Palace of Labour in Moscow had contradicting requirements: ‘The basic requirements were quite inconsistent: on the one hand, it had to be a palace and thus to have “a rich appearance befitting the name,” embodied however, “in simple modern forms, not traceable to any 94 The unbuildable monument specific style of past epochs.” He produced an overwhelmingly grandiose building, whose monumental forms readily betrayed the sources of inspiration – etchings of Piranesi, shades of romantic architecture, designs from the time of the French revolution and Ivan Fomin’s “proletarian classicism”’. Andrei Ikonnikov, Russian Architecture of the Soviet Period, Raduga Publishers, London, 1988, pp. 87–8. 6 For example, Tarkhanov and Kavtaradze have written the following: ‘The grand era of Stalinist architecture reached its symbolic conclusion four years later, in 1958, when a huge open-air swimming pool, designed by Dimitri Chechulin and built on the foundations dug for the Palace of the Soviets, was opened’. Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtaradze, Stalinist Architecture, Laurence King Publishing, London,1992, p. 182. 7 ‘The Christ the Saviour Cathedral was the largest church in the whole of Russia, capable of accommodating 10000 people, and itself took half century to build. Christ the Saviour cathedral was denied any artistic value, branded as kitsch and pompous by the Soviet art historians. When in 1939 Christ the Saviour Cathedral was demolished in a spectacular fashion, in a very short time, this demonstrated according to Hannes Meyer, (who was staying there at the time) the superiority of the Russian state planning. Meyer commented how the choice of location in the Soviet Union was made in only four weeks, whilst for the League of Nations Building in Geneva it took four years.’ Karl Schlögel, Moscow, Reaktion Books, London, 2005, p. 75. 8 Grand in this context seems to be synonymous with gigantic scale. 9 Andrei Platonov, The Foundation Pit written in 1930, published in 1987 by Pushkin House. 10 Sona Stephan Hoisington, ‘“Ever Higher”: The Evolution of the Project for the Palace of Soviets’, Slavic Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Spring 2003, p. 45. 11 The decision to create The First Five-Year Plan was made in June 1931 at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. Moscow was to have a ‘serious, scientific, five-year plan for expanding and building of the city.’ L. Perchik, Bol’shevistskii plan rekonstruktsii Moskvy, Moscow, Partizdat, 1935, p. 42. 12 Ibid, p. 42. 13 For detailed discussion on the lack of economic planning in the Soviet Union, see: Moshe Lewin, ‘The Disappearance of Planning in the Plan’, Slavic Review, Vol. 32, No. 2, The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, June 1973, pp. 271–87. 14 For a more detailed account of the construction of Moscow Metro, see: Mike O’Mahony, ‘Archaeological Fantasies: Constructing History on the Moscow Metro’, The Modern Language Review, Vol. 98, No. 1, Modern Humanities Research Association, January 2003, p. 138. 15 Similar to the Plan itself, the Palace of the Soviets competition jury chaired by Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Stalin had an inbuilt contradictory requirement in the initial stages: ‘Without expressing any bias in favour of one particular style, the Committee considers that the solution to these problems should be sought in the use of modern forms together with the finest traditions of classical architecture, supported by the latest advances in contemporary architectural and constructional technique.’ Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtaradze, Stalinist Architecture, Laurence King Publishing, London, 1992, p. 29. 16 Water was often mentioned in reference to ancient Iran where underground canals were vital to the survival of the city. To assure the survival of Moscow, the Volga-Moscow canal was completed in 1937. The unbuildable tomb 95 As quoted in Vladimir Paperny, ‘Moscow in 1937: Faith, Truth and Reality’ from Sobranie zakonov i rasporiazhenii raboche-krest’anskogo pravitel’stva SSSR (1935), no. 306, pp. 537–47. Originally presented at the University of Bristol in 2002. Available online at www.unlv.edu/centers/cdclv/archives/ncs /paperny_moscow.html. 17 In 1931, Comrade Stalin, together with the Building Committee of the Palace of the Soviets, chaired by Comrade Molotov, visited the proposed site, namely, the ground of the church of Christ the Saviour. A large group of Moscow architects were in attendance. The choice of site was confirmed that same day. I believe Comrade Stalin was attracted by its excellent situation in the centre of the city, near the Moscow River and the Kremlin. Comrade Stalin carefully inspected the site and listened attentively to the views of the assembled architects. Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtaradze, Stalinist Architecture, Laurence King Publishing, London, 1992, p. 33. 18 Although eventually built, the Volga-Moscow Canal was never a commercial success and the aim of creating a network of canals as in St Petersburg was never fulfilled. 19 ‘We must retain the beautiful, take it as an example, hold on to it, even though it is “old.” Why turn away from real beauty, and discard it for good and all as a starting point for further development, just because it is “old.” Why worship the new as the god to be obeyed, just because it is “the new”? That is nonsense, sheer nonsense. There is a great deal of conventional art hypocrisy in it, too, and respect for the art fashions of the West. Of course, unconscious! We are good revolutionaries, but we feel obliged to point out that we stand at the “height of contemporary culture.” I have the courage to show myself a “barbarian.” I cannot value the works of expressionism, futurism, cubism, and other isms as the highest expressions of artistic genius. I don’t understand them. They give me no pleasure’. Vladimir Illich Lenin, ‘Art Belongs to the People’ cited in Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin, International Publishers, New York, 1934, p. 12. ‘Our opinion on art is not important. Nor is it important what art gives to a few hundreds or even thousands of a population as great as ours. Art belongs to the people. It must have its deepest roots in the broad mass of workers. It must be understood and loved by them. It must be rooted in and grow with their feel- ings, thoughts, and desires. It must arouse and develop the artist in them. Are we to give cake and sugar to a minority when the mass of workers and peasants still lack black bread?’ Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin, Klara Tsetkin Vospominaniya o Lenine, Moscow, 1966 p. 13. 20 Ten individual architects, among them Ladovsky, Nikolsky and Iofan, and five teams representing the associations OSA, ARU, ASNOVA, VOPRA, and SASS, were invited to enter this preliminary contest, in February, 1931. Ibid, p. 12. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 21 Antonia Cunliffe, ‘The Competition for the Palace of the Soviets 1931–33’, Architectural Association Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1979, p. 37. 22 Karl Schlögel, Moscow, Reaktion Books, London, 2004, p. 79. 23 TIME, March 1, 1932. 24 Le Corbusier sent a letter to Anatoly Lunacharsky in protest. For more details, including original letters sent by Le Corbusier to Stalin, see: S. Frederick Starr, ‘Le Corbusier and the USSR’, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, Vol. 21, No. 2, April–June 1980, pp. 209–21. 25 Sona Stephan Hoisington, ‘“Ever Higher”: The Evolution of the Project for the Palace of Soviets’, Slavic Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Spring 2003, p. 46. 96 The unbuildable monument 26 160 feet to 250 feet high (48.768 metres to 76.2 metres). 27 Anatoly Lunacharsky was Soviet Commisar for Public Enlightenment. Even Lunacharsky seemed to doubt that this was possible: ‘The task that now confronts us is … complicated: making the crowning figure harmonize with the total structure in terms of proportion and style.’ Lunacharsky did not live to see the final design; he died in December 1933. Nina Tumarkin has argued that Lunacharsky was one of the key people responsible for the creation of the cult of Lenin and God-like worshipping, and it was therefore not purely Stalin’s invention. Nina Tumarkin, ‘Religion, Bolshevism, and the Origins of the Lenin Cult’, Russian Review, Vol. 40, No. 1, January 1981, pp. 35–46. 28 Lunacharsky extolled Iofan’s design for being ‘everything that could be demanded from our first great architectural monument: strong and bold movement upward, light, proportionality, simplicity, openness to the masses, the absence of anything ominous.‘ Anatoly V. Lunacharsky, ‘Sotsialisticheskii arkhitekturnyi monument’, Stroitel’stvo Moskvy, 1933, no. 5–6, p. 9. 29 1922–23 An open national competition for the Palace of Labour, the predecessor of the Palace of the Soviets, was announced immediately after the congress. 30 Peter Lizon, ‘Quest for an Image to Serve a Revolution: Design Competitions for the Palace of the Soviets’, Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 35, No. 4, Design Competitions, Summer 1982, p. 10. 31 Le Corbusier’s letter has been published in the original in: S. Frederick Starr, ‘Le Corbusier and the USSR’, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, Persée Année 1980, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 209–21. 32 Andre Gide, Afterthoughts on the U.S.S.R., The Dial Press, New York, 1938, p. 55. 33 Paperny suggests: ‘Perhaps, in this phallic finger, Gide saw traces of the fertil- ity rites and the celebration of potency flourishing in the Soviet culture at that time – one can recall the gigantic sculpture Bull with hypertrophied genitalia at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, as well as the increasingly frequent use of the adjective sterile and impotent in architectural criticism. This sarcastic remark alone was enough to guarantee banishment of Gide’s book’. Vladimir Paperny, ‘Moscow in 1937: Faith, Truth and Reality’. Originally presented at the University of Bristol in 2002. Available online at www.unlv.edu/centers/cdclv /archives/ncs/paperny_moscow.html. 34 Feuchtwanger like Gide also sympathised with the USSR prior to his visit. 35 Lion Feuchtwanger, Moscow 1937: A Travel Report for my Friends, Moscow, 1937, p. 81. 36 TsMAM, f. 694, op. 1, d. 44, 1. 78, signed ‘architect-artist‘ and dated 10 March 1934. Sona Stephan Hoisington, ‘“Ever Higher”: The Evolution of the Project for the Palace of Soviets’, Slavic Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, The American Association Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Spring 2003, pp. 41–68. 37 TsMAM, f. 694, op. 1, d. 44, 1. 80, signed artist B. Cheryshev, Volkhonka 5/6, apt. 26 and dated 23 March 1934; TsMAM, f. 694, op.1, d. 44, 1. 67, signed and dated 5 March 1934; TsMAM, f. 694, op. 1, d. 44, 1. Ibid, pp. 41–68. 38 The model was pictured in Arkhitektura SSSR, 1934, no. 3:2 and 6 and in Stroitel’stvo Moskvy, 1934, no. 3:5, 7, and 10. For visitors’ comments, see TsMAM, f. 694, op. 1, d. 44, ll. 62-80; some of the comments are signed and dated; others are not. Ibid, pp. 41–68. The unbuildable tomb 97 39 The drawing, published in Pravda, 20 February 1934, was republished in Arkhitektura SSSR, 1934, no. 3:7, and in Stroitel’stvo Moskvy, 1934, no. 3:4. It was pictured in Shchuko’s, but not in Iofan’s, 1935 article, ‘Tvorcheskii otchet,‘ Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 6:21, 1935. Ibid, pp. 41–68. 40 Gavriil N. Gorelev’s painting titled ‘Rukovoditelipartii ipravitel’stva rass- matrivaiut maket Dvortsa Sovetov v Muzee izobrazitel’nykh iskusstv’, which translates to ‘Party and government leaders examine the model for the Palace of Soviets at the Museum of Fine Arts’. 41 Sona Stephan Hoisington, ‘“Ever Higher”: The Evolution of the Project for the Palace of Soviets’, Slavic Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Spring 2003, pp. 41–68. 42 The concept that one of the causes of the unbuildability of the Palace was to do with the simple fact that due to Moscow’s harsh climate, Lenin would be made invisible for most of the year, was generated early on and previous to coming across it in Schlögel’s, Ikonnikov’s, and several other publications. 43 This prompted an English architect, Will Alsop, to state that Moscow was built in the wrong place because it suffers from such a harsh climate and only 40 days of sunlight per year in average. Will Alsop, Lecture, UAL, 2007. 44 Andrei Ikonnikov, Russian Architecture of the Soviet Period, Raduga Publishers, London, 1988, pp. 199–200. 45 Karl Schlögel, ‘The Shadow of an Imaginary Tower’. In Helen Adkins (Ed.), Exhibition Catalogue for Naum Gabo and the Competition for the Palace of the Soviets, Moscow 1931–1933, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, 1993, pp. 177–184. 46 View from ulitsa Bolshaya Ordynka across the Moskvoretsky Bridge. 47 For a direct link between the fixation with sun and socialist-realist art and design, see: John E. Bowlt, ‘Stalin as Isis and Ra: Socialist Realism and the Art of Design’, The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 24, Design, Culture, Identity: The Wolfsonian Collection, 2002, pp. 35–63. 48 It has often been suggested that to anyone who has ever been to Moscow, it is clear how harsh its climate can be. Moscow is so different in the winter that many have argued that to truly get to know Moscow, you have to experience it when it snows. Predictably, there seems to be nearly no snow in the depictions of Moscow in socialist-realism; the sky is always blue and clear, without any clouds. 49 Cited from El Lissitsky, Forum Sotsialisticheskvoi Moskvi, Arhitektura SSSR, no. 10:5, 1934, in Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtaradze, Stalinist Architecture, Laurence King Publishing, London, 1992, p. 37. 50 Stalin said: ‘10. Establish that the design of high-rise buildings should be based on the following assumptions: (a) proportions and silhouettes of the buildings must be original, and its architectural and artistic composition should be linked with the historical architecture of the city and the silhouette of the future of the Palace of Soviets. The projected building should not repeat the samples known abroad, Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 e.g. multi-story buildings’. Translated by the author from J. V. Stalin, Chadaev Ya, USSR Council of Ministers, ‘On the construction in Moscow high-rise buildings,’ 13 January 1947. Source: J. V. Stalin Cochineniya. - T. 18. Tver: Information Publishing Center ‘Union’, 2006, S. 430–2. 51 The full paragraph reads as follows: ‘An architect from Stalingrad [V. E. Maslvavev. Chairman of Stalingrad Committee of Architects’ Union. SG December 1955] expressed some feeling of a prevailing opportunism among Soviet architects (and seems to have received the largest applause of the Congress for doing so): They used to tell us “Build lofty blocks of flats,” and we agreed. They used to tell us that the main thing was the outline of the building against the sky, and the sweep 98 The unbuildable monument of a lofty design. We agreed. Now they say that buildings with only a few floors are best. We agree with that too. (Laughter, applause). What’s it all in aid of? Why this instability? Should this important state matter of building and project- making, involving vast investments, depend on someone’s (lichnye) sympathies and tastes? (Applause)’. R. W. Davies, ‘The Building Reforms and Architecture’, Soviet Studies, Vol. 7, No. 4, Taylor and Francis, April 1956, p. 424. 52 Ibid, p. 74. 53 Completed one year before Stalin’s death. 54 As previously indicated, the Palace design continued to evolve beyond the officialannouncement in 1934, as evident from two designs in 1946 by Iofan. The architect, Iofan, was said to have preferred the circular version, as per the published version of 1934, whereas Stalin was said to have favoured the rectangular one. A rectangular option would have more clearly articulated elevations, distinguishing back, sides and accentuating the front entrance. My thanks to chief custodian, Irina Sedova, in the Schusev State Museum of Architecture, in September 2008. 55 The only remaining statue of Stalin was in his birth place in Gori in Georgia, until removed recently on 25 June 2010. The authorities in Georgia have taken down a statue of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, that stood in the central square of Gori, his hometown. The six-metre (20 ft) bronze statue was removed unannounced from its plinth in the middle of the night. The statue will be moved to a museum in Gori dedicated to Stalin, according to the head of the city council, Zviad Khmaladze. It will be replaced by a monument for the vic- tims of Georgia’s 2008 war with Russia. Available online at www.bbc.co.uk /news/10412097. 56 Karl Schlögel, ‘The Shadow of an Imaginary Tower.’ pp. 182–3. Helen Adkins (Ed.), Exhibition Catalogue for Naum Gabo and the Competition for the Palace of the Soviets, Moscow 1931–1933, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, 1993. 57 Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtaradze, Stalinist Architecture, Laurence King Publishing, London, 1992, p. 141. 58 Why one would prefer the banal over the sublime is a different discussion altogether. Karl Schlögel, Moscow, Reaktion Books, London, 2004, p. 341. 59 John Thornhill, ‘Lunch with the FT: Slavoj Žižek’, 6 March 2009. Slavoj Žižek made the same argument in a lecture at Sarajevo Film Festival in 2008. 60 Buck-Morss concludes that the connection and the resemblance between the two images must have been coincidental. She writes the following: ‘But even if the U.S. filmmakers knew about the Palace competition, the movie predated the announcement of the winner. And if Stalin had seen the movie, he would have had little motivation to place Lenin in the compromising position of the defeated Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 beast King Kong.’ Buck-Morss concludes the following: ‘It is likely that both the Palace designers and the moviemakers were influenced by another source, for which there were several possibilities.’ 61 Literally, this was the case with Konstantin Melnikov’s project for the Columbus Circus in the film Batman Returns and metaphorically implausibly, aliens from The End of the World with Tatlin’s Tower, and finally, King Kong with the ‘Palace of the Soviets’. 62 Morton Schwartz, ‘Economy and Society’, in Soviet Perceptions of the United States, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1980, p. 7. The unbuildable tomb 99 63 Catherine Cooke, ‘Beauty as a Route to “the Radiant Future”: Responses of Soviet Architecture’, Journal of Design History, Vol. 10, No. 2, Design, Stalin and the Thaw, 1997, pp. 144–5. 64 Ibid, p. 143. 65 Александр Зиновьев, Светлое будущее, Aleksandr Zinoviev, The Radiant Future, 1978. 66 Ibid, p. 147. 67 In English, this means the opposite of heavy. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 3 Tower and Palace Two faces of the gigantic monument

In 1908, Adolf Loos wrote: ‘Only a very small part of architecture belongs to art: the tomb and the monument. Everything else that fulfils a function is to be excluded from the domain of art’.1 Loos positioned functional and therefore non-monumental architecture outside the domain of art, elevating only the monument and tomb to this position.2 Although one can accept that its purpose may be different from that of a non-monument, Loos’s statement that a monument is without a function is easily disputed. A monument demands an audience outside of its present. Depending not on an individual but a collective reception, the role it fulfils is social. Loos operates within the logic of negation and binary opposites, contrasting architecture and art, function and monument. The ‘art’ continues the splitting into two, this time doubling, or dividing as either a monument or a tomb. Loos’s seminal statement will be used here to provide a theoretical framework and establish methods for registering the abrupt changes over a short time period from Lenin’s monumental propaganda and Tatlin’s Tower (1919) to the finally accepted Palace designs (1931). For Loos, only two types, Tomb and Monument, are within the domain of both art and architecture; all others are mere buildings. My reasons for using Loos’s terms is to reinforce the proposition that although there are

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 undeniable differences between the two, it is wrong to perceive them as the exact opposites. Their shared traits not only separate them from the rest of architecture but also bring them closer together. One could argue further that precisely this shared function of creating a memory for the future generations keeps them both unbuildable and immaterial. The Palace emerges from the same desire for monumentality, which created Tatlin’s Tower and many other related projects. This view also supports the previous argument that such unbuildable projects should Tower and Palace 101 not be understood in terms of either utopia or dystopia. Instead, the two concepts are interlocked. Arguably, it is too simplistic to suggest either as being a manifestation of a dream or fear, but rather both are simultaneously expressions of the two. The negative dystopian notion may have prevailed in the Palace, with the positive notion prevailing in the Tower. This, I would say, concerns more the historical circumstances surrounding the two projects rather than the architecture itself. Clearly affected by the tragic timing of Lenin’s death in 1924, dystopia prevailed in the Palace. As if the existing competition requirements were not complex and contradictory enough, the shock of Lenin’s death created an additional contributory factor. The design had to respond to this tragic event and commemorate Lenin. The conflict between the functional and the monumental already created a tension that was difficult to resolve, making a gigantic monumental structure also a tomb. Originally intended as a meeting place for the Soviet people and now subordinated to a monument for Lenin, the grand Soviet assembly had been reduced to no more than a pedestal for the gigantic statue above. The apparent paradox of a functional building versus a gigantic monument is actually common within this particular historical context,3 where an altogether different attitude towards memory and public space becomes evident. For example, the Red Square4 in Moscow was used simultaneously as a graveyard for fierce revolutionary speeches and mass celebrations. The same urban space provided a setting for commemorating death and cel- ebrating victory. Similarly, Lenin’s mausoleum was conceived less as a place for contemplation and reverence and more as a speaker’s platform. Many similarities, not only formal ones, connect Lenin’s mausoleum5 and the Palace; although the mausoleum stayed on the intimate scale of a body, the size of the Palace reached absurd, even mythical, proportions. The impact of Lenin’s death6 and the shock it caused, reverberating through all aspects of Soviet life, in my opinion, tend to be underesti-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 mated. In many ways, after Lenin died, every street celebration became, at least in part, a funeral procession, with images and sculptures of Lenin consistently present. Yakov Tugendkhol linked this to the turn toward realistic painting in the mid-1920s: ‘When Lenin died, everyone sensed that something had been lost, that now it was necessary to forget all “isms” and keep his image for posterity. All currents were agreed that it was desirable to preserve7 Lenin’.8 Statements, such as Lenin representing the model of the ‘new man’ and ‘the most human of all human 102 The unbuildable monument beings’, appear at the same time as Mayakovsky’s ‘Lenin is more alive than the living’. Paperny relates this time distortion to the ‘delay’ of the future,9 extending itself into infinity. We have revolutionary euphoria rendering everything possible on a monumental scale, and in contrast, we have the deceased leader’s human body, which is an obvious sign of mortality and ultimate powerlessness. Shared issues were addressed by Sigfried Giedion in a seminal essay, ‘The Need for New Monumentality’. Forty years subsequent to Loos, Giedion wrote the following: ‘According to the Latin meaning “monuments are things to be transmitted to later generations”’.10 As obvious from the title, not only does Giedion invest the concept of the monument with the quest for the new but he also connects it with the future. Two parallels between the practice of the unbuildable are evident here. By functioning outside the realm of building construction, the unbuildable shares the aim of addressing a future audience and, as such, acquires an important educational role.11 This could be why, perhaps more so than many drawings resulting in buildings, the drawings of the unbuildable, particularly monumental ones, have been pertinent in inspiring and edu- cating future architects. The discourse of a new monumentality within Modernism appears to have coincided with the moment that the ‘west’ started to perceive the USSR as the locus of many possibilities, including the new formulation of the idea of the monumental. This makes Giedion’s essay an important reference, situating Tatlin’s monument and Palace of The Soviets in relation to the wider architectural ambitions of modernism. Giedion argued that the need for the monumental has continuous historical presence and cannot be extinct, therefore requiring architectural and formal invention in ways appropriate for each historical period. Not only, as Giedion demonstrates, does the need for the monumental never disappear but also he suggests a continuity12 in the way it has been formally conceived.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Giedion rightly proposes the task for Modern architecture to be precisely that of finding new ways for engaging with the persistent need for the monumental. The ambition of Tatlin’s Tower to redefine the notion of monument seems deeply connected with these wider aspirations of Modern Architecture. In ‘Nine Points on Monumentality’,13 Giedion’s first point establishes monuments as human landmarks intended to symbolise their ideals, aims, and actions, with the intention of outliving the period that originated them and constituting a heritage for future Tower and Palace 103 generations. As such, they form a link between the past and the future. The two points – ‘link between the past and the future’ and the ‘collective force’ (second point), the forms of expression of a new community – become even more complex when transferred into the context of the Soviet Union. In a period that appeared to ‘skip’ the present, the new collective struggled to define what the monumental may be, making the very idea at times paradoxical. Most Soviets, including their leaders, associated the monumental with the grandeur of royal palaces, arguing for the workers to live in the palaces, not in housing resembling factories. To further complicate the issue, notions of monument and tomb and memorial and public speech platforms were often positioned side by side or completely intertwined. For example, the avant-garde architects, Vesnin Brothers, designed a necropolis with a speaker’s platform on top. The same arrangement was later used by Schusev for Lenin’s Mausoleum.14 In this way, we are returning to the initial Loosian notion of monument and tomb being separate from all other architecture. Loos keeps them distinct from one another; however, I would suggest that within this particular context, they tend to be actually conflated into one. Just as the pioneering role of Tatlin’s Tower needs to be questioned, it is wrong to simply assume, as it is frequently the case, that this design of the Palace of the Soviets marks the end of avant-garde practices altogether. In doing so, I do not wish to undermine the fact that the Palace marked the emergence of the officially recognised style, i.e. socialist- realism. Nonetheless, my argument is less straightforward, suggesting that just as no single piece of architecture or a fixed date can be equated with the beginning of any significant change, the end or reversal of the process of change is also more likely to be more complex, multi-lay- ered, and gradual. So, the avant-garde could not have started with a singular piece by Tatlin, but it happened earlier, in multiple beginnings.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 The so-called modernist practices continued and in many ways were strengthened after the Palace design, during the socialist-realist period. This notion of the absence of a singular point of origin, being replaced by a multiple one, is very important for the category of the unbuildable. The result of this may be, as indicated previously, that the Tower and the Palace, the Monument and the Tomb, can be more similar than one may anticipate, particularly in the way they formulate the idea of the monumental. 104 The unbuildable monument Tatlin’s monument was designed for the future as it was still happening, for the future that not only seemed possible but imminent. Dreamed of at a time when the Soviet Union still welcomed international architects and the idea of international worldwide communism seemed realistic, the final designs for the Palace coincided with the truth concerning the dark side of the Soviet regime that began to emerge. As foreign architects started to be deported, the USSR in general began to close in on itself. Despite being designed at the beginning of the last century, in what should have been a long forgotten past, this is how Tatlin’s Tower skipped the present and permanently fixed itself as a visual symbol of the future. The unceasing interest in this project, the Soviet avant-garde (often taken as synonymous with Constructivism) is connected to this powerful notion of nostalgia, not for the past but for the future that could have been. This nostalgia refers to the real likelihood of ‘a new social and political order’ on an international scale. Remaining outside of architecture proper and outside of the ‘normal’ architectural process, the ‘unbuildable’ in this case became a monument of the future, with an everlasting vision of what was to come. The final Palace design seemed to have concluded that ‘new’ history can be forged by reiterating past conceptualisations of the monumental, only this time on a gigantic scale. With the quest to truly redefine the monumental ceasing, outdoing the advanced capitalist countries in scale became sufficient. Although one came to represent a future that never happened, the other reflected the future that actually did take place. Like the Tower, the Palace was intended for the Soviet people. However, in a short time, it ended up as an over-scaled tomb, a tomb for the Soviets, for Lenin, but also for the communist revolution. Within this short period, the quest to define an image for the revolution appears to have ended. As an image, the singular gigantic artefact established through Tatlin’s Tower was confirmed with the design of the Palace.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 With this image fixed, attention turned towards ‘constructing’ not a physical building but the intended mass audience, i.e. the Soviets themselves. Created with the purpose of committing the immediate to memory, the drawings of the Palace of the Soviets prioritise its initial purpose to receive the Soviet people as the new national and political body. This function was shared by Tatlin’s Tower. However, in the Palace, Lenin’s monument superseded all of the other functions, rendering the final Tower and Palace 105 design into an over-scaled tomb. In simple terms, the Tower has been permanently embedded in the collective memory as an image reminiscent of times when everything seemed possible, and the Palace seemed to evoke the confirmation that nothing is possible. Masses painted as ‘human pixels’ aimed to create a sense of a collective mass as a physical and powerful but static force, in awe of the colossal building. Despite the fact that the two projects have several important differences in their composition, form and outward appearance, the manner in which these two projects conceptualise the monumental is equivalent. A so-called utopia of production, contrary to its ambitions, failed to produce new conceptions and expressions of the monumental. Both the Tower and the Palace came to represent the face of the future, nearly completely visual and immaterial. With a perspective complicit in this process, we return to the notion of utopia, only I would insert image here, making it a more precise term, i.e. a utopia of image production. In that sense, Soviet production of this period has been more than successful. The commonly accepted view is that the competition for the Palace of the Soviets in the 1930s, reflecting the political climate, marked not only the beginning of the end of the Russian avant-garde but also the start of the socialist-realist style in architecture. The same pattern ensued in the following period: the seven high buildings in Moscow, completed a year before Stalin’s death,15 generally represent the end of the period of socialist-realism. As an example of this, the commonly accepted view of Hugh D. Hudson, Jr16 is summed up in the following conclusion: ‘As in all areas of culture, the curtain had closed on the dreams of the revolution. Only the nightmare of Stalinism remained’.17 However, for the reasons already highlighted, I would argue that such a clear-cut division of periods seems superficial, ultimately revealing too many exceptions, as in the case of the Tower and the Palace. As images of the two

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 superimposed in urban contexts suggest, distance renders their appearance very similar. So, far from being opposites, as large objects that can only be appreciated in a state of awe, and at a distance, they function in an analogous way. By working towards the conflation of utopia with the unbuildable, they both paradoxically become signifiers of an ‘old’ notion of the monumental. Their presence is that of a singular mighty tower best observed from a great distance. The two apparent 106 The unbuildable monument opposites, in fact, have an equivalent function in conceptualising the shared notion of the ‘monumental’. Evidently, the two apparently opposite projects have joint concerns, rendering them more than similar in several important ways. Both the Tower and the Palace had the ambition and indeed inhabited the everyday through image production. Each involved a process of reduction, a radical attempt at annihilation of what was there before. The two were faced with the problem of this creation of the ‘new’ not simply being impossible but paradoxically becoming its opposite: repetition. Sharing an ambition of targeting a mass audience and the intention of creating the perfect image of the future, jointly shared concerns enabled them not only to avoid materialisation but to continue recreating a visual paradigm.

Socialist-realism as the radical continuation of the avant-garde project In The Total Art of Stalinism, Boris Groys makes an influential claim of a radical continuity between the early twentieth century avant-garde practices and the architecture of socialist-realism. In other words, Stalinist architecture for Groys does not represent a disruption but an extension or even the radical realisation of the avant-garde project. Given the evidence of terror in Soviet architecture (like in all other spheres of Soviet society and culture under Stalin), it seems shocking to even consider this argument. But let’s try not to be trapped in the same absolutist logic and reject Groys’s argument completely and instead examine specific details. By replacing the sweeping term ‘avant-garde’ with ‘some examples of radical practices’, several of which, but importantly not all, did use the banner ‘productivism’, we need to test Groys’s thesis through individual examples. As correctly observed by Groys and others, addressing a mass audience on a gigantic scale was an ambition shared by many artists Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 before and during the cult of Stalin. Art was taken out of the elitist spaces of galleries and museums and put outside, displayed not just on building facades but in squares and entire streets.18 So, like many modernist practices, Stalinist art abandoned museums and galleries and entered the everyday. Inspired by the words of Mayakovsky,19 many leading artists took to the streets and became actively involved in the design of political street spectacles on a mass scale.20 Vladimir Tolstoy noted how Tower and Palace 107 Under Socialism, Lenin had insisted, art would no longer serve the elite of society, that upper ten thousand suffering from boredom and obesity; it will rather serve the millions and tens of millions labour- ing people, the flower of the country, its strength and its future.21

This clearly resonates with Gan’s proclamation in Constructivism in 1922: ‘Constructivism arose in 1920 amongst the leftist painters and ideologists of “mass action”’.22 Several prominent figures including Tatlin became actively involved in the monumental propaganda, street parades, theatre sets and the production of useful objects, in everyday life. Other well-known designers, such as Stepanova and Vesnin, created mass-scale street theatre performances, with Lissitzky and Rodchenko prolifically engaging in propagating political ideology through printed media, including photography, advertising, and photo-montage. The wider context, the relationship between avant-garde practices and socialist-realism, needs to be more nuanced. Other authors, such as Lodder, have also suggested that Stalinist architecture did continue certain aspects of Constructivism but did not pursue this thought to the radical extent of Groys. The majority of writings concern art in general collapsing avant-garde practice into one without distinguishing between many disparate activities, making his argument extremely elegant and attractive, but ultimately too simplistic and general. In fact, to examine the continuity between the ideas of the avant-garde and socialist-realism, I think that such claims should be tested using specific architectural examples. The preceding statement should not be used to undermine the fact that many artists and architects who attempted to speak up against the Soviet regime were persecuted and even murdered. At the same time, it is undeniable that as many, including Lodder and Paperny, suggest, socialist-realism resonated with certain aspects of Constructivism more closely than it may seem. However, for Groys, the very project of the Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 avant-garde, ‘the total work of art’, was in fact realised through the art of socialist-realism. This is an elegant and radical thesis that we must examine more closely. Traces of a demeaning, almost dismissive attitude towards the Russian revolution, permeate Groys’s text: ‘Because it took place in a technologically and culturally backward country, the Russian Revolution was often viewed from rationalist Marxist positions as a paradox’.23 Yet, precisely because of this ‘backwardness’, for Groys, Russia 108 The unbuildable monument was ‘better prepared and open to embrace new forms of organization in all spheres of life’.24 The same argument could be interpreted in the opposite direction and could be even considered to be more logical to imply that ‘backward’ people would be less open to anything new. Groys writes the following:

Socialist-realism was not created by the masses but was formulated in their name by well-educated and experienced elites who had assimilated the experience of the avant-garde and been brought to socialist-realism by the internal logic of the avant-garde method itself, which had nothing to do with the actual tastes and demands of the masses.25

As described previously, the use of the socialist-realist style in the case of the Palace was, at least in part, chosen for, even imposed on to the masses, not just by the elite but also by the person at the very top. Equally, the majority of the Russian population were illiter- ate. The leading politicians, who often publicly rejected modernist movements themselves, were commonly from humble backgrounds with ‘simple tastes’. Stalin’s ambivalence towards painting was infa- mous; both he and Lenin praised the cinema as the highest form of art.26 The reason for this could be attributed to the fact that the experience of a painting, even in a public gallery, is an individual and private one, as opposed to the cinematic experience, which certainly in this period could only be shared. In his writing on the cinema, Benjamin pointed out that painting does not produce a collective experience in the same way that the cinema can, with a simultaneous collective reception and shared experience. According to Benjamin, when one tries to use this shared experience, to utilise the mass spectacle for political purposes, the only likelihood is war: ‘All efforts to aestheticize politics culminate in one point. That one point is war’.27 Benjamin’s conclusion seems to be Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 echoed by Groys, who said that by abandoning art galleries and literally entering the streets, swapping the artistic with the political sphere, avant- garde’s project had the potential to become as dictatorial as Stalin’s. The primary problem is that Groys sees both Stalinist and avant-garde art as a unified mono-practice:

Despite its thoroughly romantic insistence on the individuality and spontaneity of the artists, socialist-realism very quickly succeeded Tower and Palace 109 in unifying cultural life by fusing all hearts together with the same love and the same fear of Stalin. The discovery of a super-individual strata of the creative and the demonic in the individual destroyed individuality and with it classical realism, or naturalism, from within and in a certain sense forever. Stalinist art is an almost unbroken monolith. Especially in the later period, multi-figured compositions were like major architectural projects done by the “brigade method”. Just as the avant-garde had demanded, architecture and monumental art now moved to the centre of Stalinist culture, and the easel painting that was resurrected on the grave of the avant-garde consequently practically disappeared.28

It seems just as unlikely that such a diverse range of practices under the banner of the avant-garde could have altogether stopped and been replaced by a completely solid mono-practice. Groys continues:

There would have been no need to suppress the avant-garde if its black squares and trans-rational poetry had confined themselves to artistic space, but the fact that it was persecuted indicates that it was operating on the same territory as the state.29

Evidently, both socialist-realism and some modernist practices did inhabit the everyday. However, neither completely abandoned official exhibition spaces, museums, and galleries, as Groys would have us believe; in fact, urban spaces and the everyday became extensions, not substitutes. To suggest that it wanted to operate on the same territory as the state, in the state that wanted to be involved with all spheres, seems to ignore the fact that this would apply to all, including the most marginal of practices. However, in contrast to what Groys suggests, evidence shows that the works varied and many lacked an all-encompassing, totalitarian aspect: Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

The constructivists themselves regarded their constructions not as self-sufficient works of art, but as models of a new world, a labora- tory for developing a unitary plan for conquering the material that was the world. Hence their love of heterogeneous materials and the great variety of their projects, which embraced the most diverse aspects of human activity and attempted to unify them according to a single principle.30 110 The unbuildable monument Although it is clear that not all of the avant-garde has subscribed to this, there is substantial evidence that in fact ‘constructivism’ itself was far from a singular movement and any clear unified agenda. This appears to be so much the case that we should seriously doubt the usefulness of labels, such as ‘Constructivism’ and avant-garde, as well as question whether Tatlin really was the father of Constructivism as frequently proclaimed. In fact, they had many different principles and modes of working. Groys sees the avant-garde practice as a monolithic and a singular artistic expression, in complete contradiction to the evident variety of interpretations and frequent arguments within the ‘avant-garde’ themselves. Revealingly, apart from Malevich’s Black Square, an absolutist piece of work in itself, Groys does not present any individual art pieces or discuss them in detail. The lack of other examples could be deliberate to make his argument difficult and break it up into smaller, more precise parts. Additionally, Groys discusses the intention of the entire ‘avant- garde’ through a limited selection of aspirations by a few individuals. Apart from anything else, intentions often differ from what one may actually mean to what one may achieve. It seems that in mirroring the totalitarian nature of the regime that ensued, Groys forms his thesis in exactly the same way and becomes trapped within its logic, allowing no room for exceptions. In such a scheme, there is no room for less or more, imperfect, partial solutions, i.e. one either accepts everything or nothing. So, the only two choices are either to reject or to accept the argument completely. In reducing his argument to only two extremes, it seems that Groys himself became a ‘victim’ of what he claims the avant- garde project to be, i.e. ‘the radical interpretation of the complete and irreversible destruction’.31 By concluding that the avant-garde’s aim to distance themselves from the museums and art galleries to transform all aspects of people’s lives directly was realised during Stalinism, it seems to me as though in searching for the most radical interpretation, Groys

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 automatically disregarded looking at any individual pieces, perhaps fear- ing not all would support his argument. According to Groys, the avant-garde is still feared and resented both by the opposition and the political leadership:

It deserves to be noted that Soviet attitudes towards the avant-garde continue even today to reflect its dual isolation from both the state and the opposition.… The vindictive state still cannot forgive the Tower and Palace 111 avant-garde for competing for the leadership of the transformation of the country, and the no less vindictive opposition cannot forgive it for persecuting its “realist” opponents.32

It may be true that some avant-garde projects fixated on the ‘new’ and the idea of the original, making their projects highly individualised. The difference is that the idea of the new and the original were attempted to be reconciled with the socio-political system and mass audience in the Soviet context. There is evidence echoing mistrust of not just the avant- garde but also of art and architecture in general, which even now tend to be seen as ‘bourgeois’ activity, only belonging to either the very rich or the specialist. A complex intertwining of different currents is present, with elements of truth on both sides of the argument. However, in my view, each project should be looked at on its own and tested on a project- by-project, even drawing-by-drawing, basis. Following this absolutist logic, the majority of studies tend to focus on separating the ‘avant-garde’ from socialist-realism and studying one so-called movement in complete isolation from all others. The pure equation made by Groys is unconvincing, especially once we analyse it. The strict division and too readily accepted labels are reflected in much of the literature and studies of this period, in which one is either a specialist in Tatlin and thus, the avant-garde, or in socialist-realism; rarely are the two evaluated together. Any clear-cut division between an individual practice and its context seems not only far less straightforward than it initially appears but in fact impossible. If, as I argued, Tatlin’s Tower and the Palace conceptualise the ‘monumental’ in an equivalent manner, this actually confirms Groys’s thesis of continuity. After examining additional instances, many reveal evidence to the contrary. Ultimately, we find nearly as many exceptions to Groys’s thesis as those validating it. Neither Constructivism nor the ‘avant-garde’ can be easily defined. Nor can the formulation of socialist-realism be easily attributed to one Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 individual. Given that this is the case, it seems that the conclusion can only be more complex. There is evidence of targeting a mass audience both in examples of the avant-garde and socialist-realism; however, this evidence was not shared by everyone and certainly not to the same degree. Several examples have shown that the masses were consistently used as an active, symbolic, yet transformative part of the celebrations with the audience commonly 112 The unbuildable monument choreographed into symbolic shapes. An individual appears at once to be glorified and completely negated, drowned in the masses. The mass is featured regularly in the wording of Constructivist statements and pam- phlets. Constructivist theoretician Aleksey Gan declared

We should not reflect, depict and interpret reality, but should build practically and express the planned objectives of the newly active working class, the proletariat … the master of colour and line … the organizer of mass actions – must all become Constructivists in the general business of the building and the movement of the many millioned human mass.33

When several artists moved from Constructivism to Productivism, the production of utilitarian objects and ‘the organization of production and everyday life by artistic methods’,34 few literally entered factories and engaged in what today would probably be described as industrial design. The cyclical ritualistic of the avant-garde paradigm may not be new, but arguably, what made it different in this particular context was that it coincided with the Communist revolution on a world-scale. For a limited period, the revolution seemed to position Soviet Russia outside of history, almost as though they were truly placed, not at the new historical period but at the beginning of time itself. To address this apparent annihilation of historical time, both the state and the avant-garde favoured destruction. The difference was that the avant-garde appeared to speak in more radical terms35 when in fact it was self-destructive,36 whereas the state destroyed to strengthen itself, i.e. to protect the leading elite. The need for culture to be forged quickly resulted in the proliferation of imagery and temporary forms, such as theatrical performance, mass celebrations, and demonstrations. In ‘The Constructivist Engaged Spectator: A Politics of Reception’,37 Roann Barris describes the empowerment

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 of the spectator, beyond the formulaic tendency to depict it as a stage ‘machine’. Barris interprets constructivists’ stage designs as attempting to construct the viewer as an individual to make sense of the world, not of the collective. With a similar challenge to Groys’s monolithic understanding of the avant-garde entering the everyday sphere, Christina Kiaer38 argues in ‘Constructivist Flapper Dresses’ that the ‘productivist’ practice of Liubov Popova was, in fact, a source of empowerment and strength to the individual. Tower and Palace 113 Paperny’s thesis, as detailed in his book Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two, is important here. By identifying two opposites,39 culture one and two, Paperny suggests that there are two parallel pres- ences throughout Soviet Russia’s history. Underlining Soviet life, two cultures continue to constantly struggle against one another, although occasionally one may prevail, but not for long. What makes them at times difficult to distinguish is that they often look and even sound similar, but what they mean is in fact directly in opposition to each other. Crucially, Paperny uses the term culture, as opposed to different artistic expressions or movements, suggesting these have existed side by side, often sharing the same concerns and the same descriptions. The very term Paperny splinters in two indicates that Stalin could not have acted alone; however, the realisation of his project was supported by practices so widespread that they can only adequately be described not as one but two cultures. The two cultures alternated in dominance and the temporary victory of culture two during socialist-realism resulted in a shift away from the modernist practices of the 1920s. This shift is only ever so slight. Paperny persuasively argues that both competing ‘cultures’ still exist, just as the undercurrents of socialist-realism are still present, now that the Soviet regime seems to have faced its final demise. Pertinently, by calling them cultures, Paperny argues for a move away from relegat- ing the responsibility for what happened to any one individual, even one as powerful as Stalin. In fact, rightly suggesting the complicity of the broader spectrum of the Soviet, and once again Russian society. Therefore, the move towards socialist-realism was not entirely the result of Stalin’s, or any other individual’s will, but the broader spectrum of the society, the entire ‘culture’ can be deemed responsible. According to Paperny, these two cultures are full of contradictions, at times addressing the same issues under a different name, or vice versa; because the division between the two at times can be subtle, the real nature of either

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 culture can be difficult to detect. The fundamental difference between the two ‘cultures’, to use Paperny’s term, in understanding time and future, relates to the initial discussion of the monumental. This complex relationship with the ‘future’ helps us to understand how two projects, such as the Tower and the Palace, apparently so different, could be interpreted as functioning in a similar way. The future was present already for one culture, and for the other culture, it was always in a state of delay, an aspiration of 114 The unbuildable monument some time to come, although confusingly, often referred to as past. Both cultures shared a penchant for creating a perfect image at every stage of the process, even if the process itself changed or was altogether abandoned. The examples are numerous: They can be found in the process of the building of the Moscow Metro where the exterior facades were illuminated long before the buildings became functional inside.40 Soviet buildings avoided trusses and rivets through the mechanised manufac- ture of beams and girders that were electrically welded and then transported to the site in finished form.41 The unfinished imperfect parts of the construction were decorated and masked in mass celebrations, often using temporary structures, such as scaffolding, to display political slogans and political images. In the process of creating a perfect image of the ‘future’, which is expected to arrive, the pictures of the process of the making of the model of Tatlin’s Tower, the Palace, and many other projects were carefully staged. The records generated in this process, in essence perspectival images, exaggerated the perspective and the scale of the model, making its real size difficult to judge. Architectural models played an important part in street spectacles and exhibitions, which again created fleeting images. Such imagery eventually surpassed the real scale of the objects themselves and made any physical structure impossible but simultaneously unnecessary. A very similar argument could be made for the Palace, where the model itself was lacking; however, the drawings and paintings, again per spectival representations, far surpassed the insufficiencies of the physical form. The conceptual arrangement of the Palace, often derogatorily referred to as ‘wedding cake architecture’, had a long-lasting influence on the spheres of Paperny’s ‘culture two’, such as the dancers’ formations in mass demonstrations,42 film, and other fields. It seems ironic that in street celebrations, Tatlin’s Tower was used as a physical model akin to scaffolding, but the Palace was created out of people. Such con-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 tradictions and similarities between the Tower and the Palace could be explained using Paperny’s terms, where culture one may pervade in the Tower, but only slightly and marginally so. At the same time, when it appears as though modernism commences its reign, it has already started to decline. However, I would suggest the difficulty arises when Paperny equates culture one with avant-garde practice and when he equates culture two with that of socialist-realism. In this way, the idea of one practice associated with only one culture is maintained. To put it simply, Tower and Palace 115 according to Paperny, the cultures are intertwined, but avant-garde is only associated with one, and socialist-realism with the other. Still, I would say, the doubling, the splintering continues further, becoming at least double but often multiple. Perhaps we should leave out the banners of the avant-garde, Constructivism, and socialist-realism and instead understand this period as being influenced by multiple factors, with a more complex intertwining between them. This nuanced process involved splintering into binary opposites but also at the same time relentless copying and multiplication. The combination of fierce rivalry collided and combined with the ideas of shared work and working together, as well as the competition with the West, created a complex environment that cannot be reduced to labels, such as socialist-realism or constructivism or utopia, as is frequently the case. Lissitzky’s portrait of Tatlin (Figure 3.1) illustrates partly an attempt to ‘correct’ the misconceived machine-like impression created by the Western artists, namely German Dadaists, but also an effort to associate Tatlin more strongly with the Constructivist movement and his own work. The ideas of the continuity between any such classifica- tions, and doubling, multiplying of their traits, will be further tested using Lissitzky’s PROUN series and Iakov Chernikhov’s work in the following chapters.

Architectural series: drawing the infinitely changeable original The focus of Part II of this book will be on examples of a specific manifestation of the unbuildable, which I consider to be a counterpart to the singular monumental structures of the previous two chapters – the architectural series. In contrast to the prevalent approach, the understanding is that the serial production is not about the relentless production of a repetitive, precise, cheap copy but about an architectural project that is essentially serial. It seems inevitable that the theoretical point of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 departure is provided by Benjamin’s seminal ‘Work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’, which is likely one of the most quoted essays in architectural theory. The notion of the series will be linked with the mirror reflections, the origin of the copy, and will be related to the concept of the ‘new’ and already briefly addressed Wigley’s interpretation. An architectural series needs to be understood as the counterpoint manifestation of the unbuildable, and as such, intrinsically different from our two previous examples. In a series, an individual drawing does not 116 The unbuildable monument Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

Figure 3.1 El Lissitzky, Tatlin at Work, 1920. An image of Tatlin was literally pasted from the photograph of the building of the model in St Petersburg to Lissitzky’s collage, Tatlin at Work. This depiction came, in part, for Lissitzky to ‘correct’ the misconceived machine-like impression created by Housmann, and, in part, to associate Tatlin more strongly with Constructivists and with his own work, the PROUN series. Pertinently, Tatlin appears entirely human, but with compass ‘eyes’ and abstract mathematical thinking. Tower and Palace 117 and cannot exist in isolation. Instead, it always demands to be seen in the larger context. The basic notion of the series seems inevitably connected with the issues of original, copy, and repetition, which is why Benjamin’s influential piece on reproduction is an appropriate point of departure. That this text may be one of the most quoted of all of Benjamin’s texts, to the point of almost becoming a cliché, works in a similar way as the selection of the case studies here. The theoretical works, similar to the architectural examples, had to be not just famous but also iconic to justify the distinction of the unbuildable as a specific category. In other words, if they were less known, the fact that there are so many speculations and misconceptions would be far more expected. A plurality of not only meaning but also dissemination in Benjamin’s text starts with the title itself. In the German original of 1936, the term used was ‘technological’; in French and English translations of the same year, the term used is ‘mechanical’ reproduction. The fact that both terms clearly have different connotations in the two languages resulted in the use of both, mechanical and technological. I will use the term ‘technological’ instead of the equally and commonly present term ‘mechanical’ because ‘technological’ is more general and, as such, is more appropriate to our current age. ‘Mechanical’ appears to be superseded by ‘technological’, which is less relevant to now. A serial way of working is directly connected to the negation of the confinement of drawings within an architectural set; as in a conventional architectural project, drawings are produced as a fixed set, whereby the plan is one of the most important. In the unbuildable category, drawings tend to be produced with little planning, and with literally few drawings of the plan, with a proliferation of imagery, perspective in particular. There is no fixed set; there is no fixed number of drawings one can produce; in a particular series, each can be seen as the first and the last one. Before commencing the discussion of the serial in architecture, it

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 should be emphasised that Benjamin’s notion of reproduction in art and the notion of an architectural series are at no time interpreted as being the same because undoubtedly they differ significantly. However, they share several similar traits, which is why it is deemed useful, if only initially, to review them similarly. Benjamin argues that the technological advances with the invention of mechanical reproduction, particularly photography, have fundamentally changed our understanding of the ‘original’ in art. The notion of copying in art, in itself, seems far from being new, as 118 The unbuildable monument Benjamin acknowledges; however, the critical difference, according to him, is that with the technological reproduction, the images become easy to reproduce, demanding little effort and, some would argue, skill on behalf of the author. In opposition to the painstakingly hand-produced copies of the past, photographic and now electronic equivalents not only require little effort but tend to become impersonal and of a curiously similar appearance. The art series has long become established as a mode of production, unlike the architectural series. For Benjamin, ‘In principle the work of art has always been reproducible. But the technological reproduction of artworks is something new’.43 In other words, copying in art entered a completely new era with the emergence of photography, which was established at the same time as Socialism and the Soviet Union. Even the terms Benjamin uses to describe this process are the ‘socialist’ ones, calling photography ‘the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction’.44 Benjamin argues further

And the reproduction, as offered by illustrated magazines and newsreels, differs unmistakably from the image. Uniqueness and permanence are so closely entwined in the latter as are transitoriness and repeatability in the former. The stripping of the veil from the object, the destruction of the aura, is the signature of a perception whose “sense for sameness in the world” has so increased that, by means of reproduction, it extracts sameness even from what is unique. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing significance of statistics. The alignment of reality with the masses and of the masses with reality is a process of immeasurable importance for both thinking and perception.45

Benjamin invests in the special nature of an individual work of art, its aura, which seems to stand for the uniqueness of an individual work of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 art and its permanence, in contrast to transition or the repeatability of a copy. In photography, for example, according to Benjamin, it does not make sense to talk of an original print, not because each print is exactly the same as the original but because no print is any more or less original than any other. Here, I would propose, we seem to encounter a contradiction, whereby the constituent elements all may be slightly different, and considered to be original and at the same time perhaps none of them is original, only the negative one.46 Tower and Palace 119 It is important to clarify how the notion of the absence of the original and apparently endless reproducibility relates to the drawing production in architecture and to the unbuildable, in particular. In conventional architectural production, a drawing refers to a building. We could go as far as to suggest that the building is considered to be the singular original and that the drawings, which are previously architectural blueprints and now digital templates, are considered to be a copy. However, if the building, the ultimate aim of the conventional architectural production, is to be considered an original, any such original comes long after the copies, i.e. drawings themselves. Thus, the original is being produced through multiple copies without ever becoming a single entity itself. The same question becomes more complex when the category of the unbuildable is at stake. As such, it remains an image that can only refer to itself. In this sense, however, the image production is similar to that of the work of art, with the ultimate aim being the drawing, a book, or a model and not a full-sized building. In the case of the unbuildable, the sense of mirror reflection and duplicity combine together with the notion of seriality. Therefore, we need to interrogate what could be understood as the original and the copy in the architecture of the unbuildable, and how this changes when we address the unbuildable as a series. In simplified terms, reproduction is always related to the images of the unbuildable; without it, there would be no such category. However, the difference between the singular monumental projects, such as Tatlin’s Tower and the Palace and the projects with serial nature, is that the former involves repetition and copying of a single missing original. For the latter, the original is present but multiple at the outset, only not repeated but varied instead. For a copy to become a constituent of a series, it has to include an element of a variation, an improvement upon, to shift the series further. Benjamin also brings out the funda-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 mental change of scale in mass production paralleled by the emergence of a mass audience both in capitalism and socialism. Aided by the ‘new’ medium of cinema, a collective audience is passive, experienc- ing film seated in a dark room. Such an audience becomes very open towards a political message, as Benjamin rightly observed. However, there seems to be a confusion concerning the value in the original, where the ‘original’ is observed as worthy of being mass-produced, which at the same time diminishes its aura. Among others, Rosalind 120 The unbuildable monument Krauss wrote about how questionable it is to discuss authenticity in the cases of photography and other ‘inherently multiple media’.47 The drawing of the unbuildable, however, has an inherent seriality or multiplicity, but crucially without an original. Or perhaps, the original needs to be considered not as absent but inherently double or multiple. The unbuidable doubles up as a site, as a building, and finally it splinters into a physical artefact, drawing itself. Benjamin further indicated that the relationship48 between the cost of consumption and the production of film is fundamentally different from those of manually produced works of art. Here again, we have a conflict because success is not judged by the uniqueness of the work of art but by the size of the audience. Both are related to the cost of production, and each film must attract an audience on a mass scale not necessarily to be successful but simply to avoid accru- ing losses. Under socialism, however, the films that were generally closely aligned with the dominant ideology would by default command the largest audience because all of the films were free (although some were censored), but they would never be tested in the market itself. However, all of the films were free to produce and did not require the investors to recoup the production costs from the audience. Again, this understanding may be too simplistic because the socialist films may not be tested by the market in the capitalist sense; several films were still more popular than others, which cannot be completely explained by the lack of market.

Notes 1 Adolf Loos, ‘Architecture 1910’, The Architecture of Adolf Loos, An Arts Council Exhibition, Arts Council, London, 1985, p. 108. 2 It could be argued that this obsession with opposing art and architecture, function and meaning, leads to a false understanding where a functional building cannot mean anything, it simply fulfils its function, but ‘useless’ architectural objects, such as the tomb and the monument, have higher meaning, thus rendering them pieces of art. This, however, is part of a different discussion. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 3 For details of Lenin’s Mausoleum construction, see: Andrei Ikonnikov, Russian Architecture of the Soviet Period, Raduga Publishers, London, 1988, p. 173. 4 ‘Thus indeed, was the transformation of The Red Square in Moscow: its new social function as the chief forum of the people arose on November 10, 1917, when the workers of the city buried the fallen fighters for the revolution at the foot of the Kremlin wall. It was then that a necropolis became a tribute’. Ibid, p. 95. 5 Both went through long drawn out architectural competitions with different design proposals. The designs finally selected were conservative, even taking similar forms of a stepped rectangular structure. For Lenin’s mausoleum interior, the glass case in which Lenin’s mummified body still remains displayed was designed Tower and Palace 121 by Constantin Melnikov, to depict two different forms from different angles, an old pyramid and a modern form of trapezoid. 6 Lenin died on 21 January 1924. 7 Related to this are Soviet scientific studies of the sections of Lenin’s brain and the preservation and public display of his body. However, the support for this indefinite delay of the burial and preservation of the leader’s physical body was never unequivocal. Despite the frequent statement that they would close the mausoleum, the fact that it stays open to this date testifies to the continuity of the postponement, thus strengthening my suggestion that this is how some events and artefacts exist outside of time. 8 Yakov Tugendkhol, Iskusstvo oktiabr’skoi epokhi, p. 31. 9 Vladimir Paperny, Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. 10 Sigfried Giedion, ‘The Need for New Monumentality’, Architecture You and Me: The Diary of a Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1958, p. 28. 11 Architectural students spend substantial amounts of their time learning to draw, an important part of which includes looking at the drawings of the past. 12 The monumental expression transcends different historical periods and political divides. 13 Sigfried Giedion, Architecture, You and Me, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1958; J. L. Sert, F. Leger, S. Giedion, ‘Nine Points on Monumentality’, 1943, pp. 48–51. 14 Karl Schlögel, Moscow, Reaktion Books, London, 2004, p. 83. 15 The year before Kruschev denounced Stalin himself in a secret speech, he attacked Stalinist architecture and specifically Stalinist High Buildings, accusing them of overindulgence and wastefulness, quoting directly the cost of the decorative elements and energy consumption. Stalin’s successor’s attack on socialist-realism marked its end, leaving the architectural profession disoriented and subordinated to the construction industry. Catherine Cooke argued that socialist-realism should be understood as a method, not a style, and that this period produced more interesting examples in architecture than the subsequent one. 16 Hugh D. Hudson, Jr, Blueprints and Blood: The Stalinization of Soviet Architecture 1917–1937, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1994. 17 Ibid, p. 202. 18 ‘The development of the street procession is like much else in Russia, rooted in the religious practice’. Vladimir Tolstoy, Irina Bibikova, and Catherine Cooke (Eds.), Street Art of the Revolution: Festivals and Celebrations in Russia 1918–33, Thames and Hudson, London, p. 35. 19 Ulitslji nashi kisti, ploshchadi nashi palitirlji. Streets our paintbrushes, pavements our palettes. Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1919. 20 Tolstoy points out the lack of visual documentation of the festival and celebra- Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 tions of the first 15 post-revolutionary years, with only several films, such as the episodes from ‘Storming of the Winter Palace’ and Eisenstein’s film ‘October’ showing such events that were endemic at the time. Introduction Art born of the October Revolution, Vladimir Tolstoy. Vladimir Tolstoy, Irina Bibikova, and Catherine Cooke (Eds.), Street Art of the Revolution: Festivals and Celebrations in Russia 1918–33, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990. 21 V. I. Lenin, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii (complete collected works), vol. 12, p. 104. 22 Aleksey Gan, Konstruktivism Tver, 1922, p. 1. 23 Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1992, p. 5. 122 The unbuildable monument 24 Ibid, p. 5. 25 Ibid, p. 9. 26 The rumours were that Stalin never actually personally set foot in Tretyakov Gallery (or any other art galleries). 27 Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,, 2006, p. 41. 28 Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1992, pp. 70–1. 29 Ibid, p. 35. 30 Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1992, p. 22. 31 Ibid, p.15. 32 Ibid, pp. 30–1. 33 Cited in Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, pp. 98-99 and Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism,, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1992, p. 24. 34 Ibid, p. 24. 35 Paperny writes: ‘Maiakovsky allowed himself to say: “I like watching small chil- dren dying”’. Cited from Mayakovsky Polnoe Sobranie Sochineni, 1, str. 48. In Vladimir Paperny, Kultura ‘Dva’ (Russian Version), Ardis, Ann Arbor, MI, 1985, Zaklochenie, p. 251. 36 Mayakovsky committed suicide in 1920. Tatlin designed his funeral procession attended by hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of Moscow. 37 Roann Barris, ‘The Constructivist Engaged Spectator: A Politics of Reception’, Design Issues, Vol. 15, No. 1, MIT Press, Spring 1999, pp. 31–48. 38 Christina Kiaer, ‘The Russian Constructivist Flapper Dress’, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 28, No. 1, Things, The University of Chicago Press, Autumn 2001, pp. 185–243. 39 As evident from Paperny’s chapter titles, his thesis is based on a semiological analysis of the binary opposites: culture one: future/culture two: future postponed indefinitely; beginning/end; movement/immobility; horizontal/vertical; uniform/hierarchical; mechanism/ human; collective/individual; mechanical/living; lyrical/epic; mutism/word. 40 Vladimir Paperny noted that a book titled How We Built the Metro was published with such speed after its actual completion that it must have been written simultaneously, if not before, the construction process even started. This urge for displaying the perfect image was reflected even in architectural and construction detailing, where a tendency was towards prefabrication, to complete as much as possible in factories and then transport the product to the site for installation. 41 For example, Anderson writes: ‘What was more, the use of trusses and braces secured by rivets in American skyscrapers was evidence of cottage, manual, and technologically imperfect construction’. N. Kuleshov and A. Pozdnev, Vysotnye rdaniia Moskvy, Moscow, Moskovskii rabochii, 1954. p. 159. Of course, American skyscrapers had great display value. See Carol Willis, ‘Zoning Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 and “Zeitgeist”: The Skyscraper City in the 1920s’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 45, No. 1, University of California Press, Berkeley, March 1986, pp. 47–59. 42 Compositional devices of the Palace of the Soviets were almost immediately translated into other fields: for example, Песня Mолодёжи (The Song of Youth, 1938), a documentary film. 43 Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 3, 1935–1938, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002, p. 102. 44 Benjamin wrote: ‘For when, with the advent of the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction (namely photography, which emerged at the same time Tower and Palace 123 as socialism), art felt the approach of that crisis which a century later became unmistakable, it reacted with the doctrine of l’art pour l’art – that is with theol- ogy of art’. Ibid, pp. 105–6. 45 Ibid, p. 105. 46 The idea of a negative brings us back to the notion of a mirror reflection, duality, and opposites. 47 Rosalind Krauss, ‘The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition’, October, Vol. 18, MIT Press, Autumn 1981, p. 47–66. 48 ‘In film, the technological reproducibility of the product is not an externally imposed condition of its mass dissemination, as it is, say, in literature or painting. The technological reproducibility of films is based directly on the technology of their production. This not only makes possible the mass dissemination of films in the most direct way, but actually re-enforces it. It does so because the process of producing a film is so costly that any individual who could afford to buy a painting, for example, could not afford to buy a (master print of a) film. It was calculated that in order to make a profit, a major film needed to reach an audience of nine million’. Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 3, 1935–1938, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002, p. 123. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Part II The unbuildable series Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 4 Horizontal Skyscraper Series within a series

As previously discussed, particularly in relation to Tatlin’s monument, the currency of ‘new’ during this period was very high. Inextricably bound to old, unique, and original, ‘new’ is related to copying and repetition. Prolifically present in Lissitzky’s work, it was evident in many of the titles1 of the projects he engaged in. For example, in 1919, together with his teacher, Kazimir Malevich, he was involved with the UNOVIS group, which is an abbreviation for Affirmers (Champions) of the New Art. UNOVIS was also known as MOLPOSNOVIS and POSNOVIS, Young Followers of the New Art, or Followers of the New Art. The facts about this short but influential group, like most associations during this period, are still disputed. For example, in books on Lissitzky, you tend to find that UNOVIS was formed by him, yet publications on Malevich state that he founded it, with Lissitzky and others joining later. Lissitzky’s essay written in 1920 clearly illustrates his commitment to the idea of the ‘new’:

The artist constructs a new symbol with this brush. This symbol is not a recognisable form of anything in the world – it is a symbol of the new world, which is being built upon and which exists by way of the people.2 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 This is why an important example is the PROUN (Project for the Affirmation of the New) series, started in 1920. A part of a larger sequence, PROUN Room, originally built in Berlin 1923, and later recreated in Stedelijk-Van-Abbemuseum, in Eindhoven, Netherlands, contained precise instructions telling the visitors how to move and view the paintings and sculptures on the wall. While by no means did they all express a political and ideological message, some did, for example, Lenin Tribune, PROUN no. 85 (Figure 4.1). 128 The unbuildable series

Figure 4.1 El Lissitzky, Lenin Tribune, PROUN no. 85. The signature here is UNOVIS, the title of the studio Lissitzky was working with at the time.

Interestingly, with this example, PROUN no. 85 was produced by UNOVIS studio and then also used in the publication Lissitzky produced with Hans Arp titled Die Kunstismen, Les Ismes de l’Art: 1924–25. Lissitzky’s signature and photograph are featured on the page on PROUN, while the image with the Lenin Tribune (PROUN no. 85) is signed by UNOVIS, including Atelier Lissitzky, and the PROUN has an additional O in the title – PROOUN. This findingrepresents a contradiction where the architect’s signature and the collective production not only meet but also collide, and are inextricably bound. A particular focus will be paid towards the Horizontal Skyscraper Series (1923–25), the most explicit architectural series within the context of a large one. Adhering to the style of the previous chapters, Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 I will include speculations and many different, at times contradictory, suggestions. As has been widely noted, language and terminology were an important battleground in the post-revolutionary USSR dominated by the urgency of a complete reinvention. Consequently, Moscow’s seven built skyscrapers were not allowed to be called as such. To indicate how different they were from their American counterparts, they were officially Horizontal Skyscraper 129 referred to as ‘tall buildings’. In official justifications, their height was reiterated as one of many, and not the most important characteristic:

The multistoried buildings of Moscow are the tallest in Europe and as tall as the majority of American skyscrapers. But we do not call the tallest buildings of Moscow “skyscrapers” either officially, in mode of life, or even as a joke. The height of our buildings is in no way a goal in itself, and they themselves are not simply the piling of floors one upon the next.3

To differentiate them from their western counterparts, the language is nearly identical to the descriptions of the Palace of the Soviets. The American skyscrapers were derided for ‘having the height as their only goal’, whereas in contrast, Moscow’s towers were said to be clear in form, even optimistic and ‘aspirational upward’. This description seems to be similar to the tendency already evident in creating a finished image by hiding the constituent parts because they were perceived as signs of a technologically imperfect construction. The same applied to the overall appearance of the building where the form had to remain clear, simple, and strong. A stepped, tiered building form of the seven copies (derogatorily called wedding cake architecture) seems to have the advantage of emphasising perspective, making the entire building appear to be taller and literally ‘aspiring upward’ without confusing the simplicity of the rectangular form itself. In contrast, Lissitzky’s Horizontal Skyscraper Series (1923–25) was strongly named in connection with the sky from the start. Various names tended to be used, originally Wolkenbügel in German, and also including a ‘series of skyscrapers’, ‘sky-hook’, ‘cloud iron’, and ‘cloud stirrups’; interestingly, each title was always related to the word ‘sky’. I would suggest that because Lissitzky’s concept was fundamentally different from a conventional skyscraper type, it did not matter that it was called by Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 this name. The high-rise buildings were different only in their name; in other aspects, they remained conventional skyscrapers. In the Rendered Axonometric, the red colour on the black background emphasises the ideological message, and the prominent placing of Lissitzky’s signature strongly asserts the author’s individuality. As suggested by its name, the concept of the horizontal skyscraper attacks the core idea of the skyscraper – Lissitzky transforms a building 130 The unbuildable series type, which tends to be noted primarily and almost singularly as the symbol of verticality. He transforms, in fact, he splits it, not into a diagonal but into its exact opposite – the horizontal. Another obvious way of reading the difference between the two is through the names with which the two projects were referred to. Lissitzky’s project was given a number of different titles: originally Wolkenbügel in German, Cloud Iron, Sky Hook, Horizontal Skyscraper Series, and Cloud Stirrups. In Russian, it was only referred to as Horizontal Skyscraper Series, without its more poetic German or English equivalents. Certainly, one of, if not the most, internationally active of all the Soviet architects, Lissitzky always thought of the skyscraper series in an international manner. Disagreements over the ‘international’ character of this project still continue. Depending on which sources you consult, the Cloud Iron was conceived either while he was still in Moscow or in Switzerland, while working with a German or Swiss engineer or an architect4 on ironing out the technical issues. We saw how the Palace of the Soviets and Tatlin’s Tower confirmed Groys’s proposition that the avant-garde’s project became realised in a radical form through Stalinist art and architecture. Indeed, the two apparent opposites (one symbolises the avant-garde and the other symbolises the prime example of socialist-realism) support the same idea of the singular monumental. Additionally, many examples of the mass spectacles and street parades, an alternative to the singular monumental artefact, were initially used by the avant-garde and subsequently developed into their extreme form during Stalin’s reign. In this sense, the seven high-rise buildings should be considered to be fragmented copies of the unbuildable centrepiece, the Palace of the Soviets and its monumental double, Tatlin’s Tower. However, it is clear that often Groys’s equation does not work, and seems to be further complicated when we address the serial manifestations of the unbuildable. In his book titled Russia: An Architecture for World Revolution,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Lissitzky elaborated on the concepts behind the Horizontal Skyscraper Series. His privileging of the idea of the ‘new’ is clear; the Horizontal Sky scraper Series was designed in response to the demands of the ‘new’ times within the context of the old Moscow. Lissitzky wrote the following:

Moscow is a centralized city, characterized by a number of concentric ring boulevards connected by radial main streets emanating from the Kremlin. The proposal intends to place those structures at Horizontal Skyscraper 131 the intersections of the radials and the boulevards, where the most intense traffic is generated. Everything delivered to the building by horizontal traffic is subsequently transported vertically by elevator and then redistributed in a horizontal direction.5

This perspective is contrasted by Le Corbusier’s proposal for a Radiant City in which there is a rigid urban grid without consideration for the concentric nature of Moscow. In order to introduce the notion of the series as a counterpart of the singular monument, let me follow up a suggestion presented, not by Groys, but by Schlögel, that Lissitzky’s Horizontal Skyscraper Series was indeed realised through the seven Stalinist High Buildings in Moscow.6 Initially, one may be startled by the apparent similarity between the two projects. They both draw an expanded centre of Moscow in a ring-like form. After a more considered view, the similarities soon cease, and we find fundamental differences. When the plans for the two schemes for the centre of Moscow are laid one on top of the other, the locations of the buildings do not actually overlap. Lissitzky’s intention was to position his skyscrapers directly above traffic hubs, and the High Buildings were built some distance from the traffic. Another of many differences is subtle. Lissitzky’s series consists of eight buildings, whereas the High Buildings have seven. Crucially, seven high-rise buildings, I would suggest, are mere replicas of the missing centre, whereas each element of Lissitzky’s Horizontal Skyscraper Series is a variant in a series. Each Cloud Iron has a different version based on the same set of fundamental principles. The seven Stalinist buildings are copies or, to use Benjamin’s term, reproductions, mirror reflections of the repetitions of the ideal and unobtainable original (Palace of the Soviets), the Greatest Building in the World. With each copy nearly identical, in essence a smaller version of the original master one, they are conceptually directly opposed to Lissitzky’s design. Lissitzky’s series consists of eight variants with every element possessing Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 shared traits but different characteristics. Not only does each variant in the Horizontal Skyscrapers form a series, but as a whole they form an architectural set within a larger PROUN series of paintings and exhibition rooms. PROUNs are manifested on different sites, scales, and media. They also work on several scales, manifested as painting in the traditional sense, and full-room installations, which included choreographed access as well as graphic and architectural projects. 132 The unbuildable series In this powerful example of a series within a series, not only the notion of the original is multiplied from the outset but also all of the other elements, including site and technique, i.e. architecture/painting/ space, become plural and many. Thus, a variant in a series is given an arbitrary number; it can be a painting or a room, a piece of political propaganda, or even a building. Remaining consistent, individual authorship (perhaps counter-intuitively) becomes re-asserted and is the only singular persistent factor in the series production. This is how the signature and authorship, together with the hand production of drawing, become intertwined as one. The seven High Buildings reflect and point towards the absent centre. Rather than negating, the missing singular monumental structure (now replaced by a Church double-replica) strongly confirms the notion of centre. In direct contrast to this perspective from the outset, Lissitzky’s Cloud Iron (Figure 4.2) is the negation, expansion, multiplication, and finally even an explosion of the urban centre. The aim could not be more different, from encountering a singular monument in awe from a distance, with Palace and its copies, to separating the traffic from pedestrian movement. Each of the eight serial elements, positioned above a busy interchange, shares the type of location and addresses the traffic problem. Every variant of sky-hook is based on the same principle of separating car and pedestrian movements and yet should not be understood as copies. With each element based on the same rules, the transformation is being taken from a horizontal to a vertical movement and then back to a horizontal movement. However, in response to the specificity of the eight different geographic locations, the final form of each variant is differentiated. Interestingly, Lissitzky connects the notions of horizontality and verticality with the useful and necessary:

Compared to the prevalent American high-rise system the innovation consists in the fact that the horizontal (the useful) is clearly Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 separated from the vertical (the support, the necessary). This in turn allows for clarity of the interior layout, which is essential for office structures and is usually predicated by the structural system. The resulting external building volume achieves elementary diversity in all six visual directions.7

I would say it is also pertinent not only because any such construction would involve a great technical challenge, but also because he is committed to the international Communist movement, Lissitzky states Horizontal Skyscraper 133

Figure 4.2 Cloud Iron: Rendered Axonometric. The red colour on the black background of the original image would emphasise the ideological message. However, as it was mostly distributed in black and white, as shown in this figure, the ideological message loses its clarity. The prominent placement of Lissitzky’s signature strongly asserts the individual authorship. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 how this would require attention on an international level. The socialist system, which was necessary for the realisation of Cloud Iron, always had an important international dimension for Lissitzky, who declared:

The problems connected with the development of these building types, including the whole scientific organization of work and business, are being dealt with on an international level. In this field, as in others, our social system will open up new possibilities. In this field, as in others, reconstruction will pose new demands.8 134 The unbuildable series Finally, he reiterated the belief that the new socialist system will present new opportunities from within itself. Here lurks a desire to not just catch up with but overtake the rest of the world, as expressed in the following:

In these times we must be very objective, very practical, and totally unromantic, so that we can catch up with the rest of the world and overtake it. But we also know that even the best ‘business’ will not of itself advance us to a higher level of culture. The next stage of cultural development will encompass all aspects of life: human pro- ductivity and creativity, the most precious faculties of man. And this not in order to accumulate profits for individuals, but to produce works that belong to everybody. If we just consider all the accomplishments of our own generation, we are certainly justified in taking for granted a technology capable of solving all the tasks mentioned earlier.9

Here, it seems to me that Lissitzky had a belief, not completely base- less, that if a ‘backward’ nation could already have made such great achievements in a short period of time, the development of technology can and will be accelerated even further. I would link this to the dominant ideas of being in an exceptional time and the future that is imminent, but yet to come. The only adequate architectural response to such exceptional times is architecture that defies gravity and becomes one with the sky itself:

One of our utopian ideas is the desire to overcome the limitations of the substructure, the earthbound. We have developed this idea in a series of proposals (sky-hooks, stadium grandstands, Paris Garage.)10 The design of the Lenin Institute on the Lenin Hills in Moscow is based on this idea. [I Leonidov] The idea of the conquest of the substructure, the earthbound, can be extended even further

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 and calls for the conquest of gravity as such. It demands floating structures, a physical-dynamic structure.11

In this final paragraph, Lissitzky suggests the ultimate ambition: the loss of gravity and the realisation of the dream of flying. This desire is reminiscent of LeTatlin and of insertions of airplanes and blue sky to greet Lenin on top of the Palace. However, I would question whether this is unique to the avant-garde. In fact, the ambition seems to have been shared by all, including the socialist-realist designs. Horizontal Skyscraper 135 Lissitzky’s ‘utopia’, if one can describe it as such, stems from the belief in the inevitability of progress and the advances of technology. Lissitzky writes of an apparent ‘acceleration of the current time’ whereby five years in the current time are equivalent to five centuries in accordance with the pre-revolutionary one.12 In direct contrast, I would position the utopia of socialist-realism of the Palace of the Soviets and the seven subsequent copies. We deal with the earth-bound utopia, the confirmation of the centre, and the worship of an idealised leading figure.13 Through long awe-inspiring perspectival views, the concept of time has been presented in a perpetual ‘delay’. Cloud Iron’s axonometric and elevations show a close link with painting and rooms designed within the same series. Although Lissitzky actually wrote against the use of perspective, evidently in this series, he frequently resorted to its use with his signature prominently placed. In contrast, the Stalinist towers were placed at the end of the grand avenues, with the user encouraged to stop and gaze in awe at them from a distance. In Cloud Iron, time becomes an active agent of the design and its future. With its counterparts, time apparently stands still, as in the last centuries, viewers are held in anticipation and admiration of a distanced singular monumental image. Each Cloud Iron variant responds uniquely to its location; however, every replica of the Palace treats its context, no matter how different this may be, in exactly the same way. Although they both incorporate multiple structures, with copying clearly at stake, not each design forms an evolving series. With the Palace, there is no variation; instead we have a mere repetition of smaller copies of the same unaltered basic form – the original monumental structure. In Cloud Stirrups, every structure shares similar basic principles yet has a distinct structure and form. The Cloud Iron consists of an evolving series of a potentially infinite number of different variants. Indeed, as an architectural part of a larger PROUN

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 series, this series refers to the specific problems of transport and is located in Moscow. Also, like all other PROUNs, it deals with a larger and more fundamental set of ideas. These ideas concern shades of colour, shapes, de-centring, horizontality/verticality, loss of gravity, disorientation, and perception. Ultimately, it seems clear that with the seven Palace Towers, there is only repetition, without a production of difference. Apart from the change in location and a slight alter- ation in scale, they all share the same basic structure and exterior appearance, repeating and reinforcing the same monumental image. 136 The unbuildable series You could easily add the Polish version, Warsaw’s Palace of Culture, and nothing would change except the number. Therefore, they should not be understood as forming a series. Each copy of the Palace appears to be a solid monumental object, remaining a conventional skyscraper in form. Their overall appearance has only one aim, i.e. to emphasise the gigantic scale and distant view. At least one of the copies is clearly visible from a distance, as though the ghost of the Palace follows one’s every step. In Lissitzky’s project, seriality is its essential condition, i.e. it is innovative both in structure and form. Therefore, we cannot say that the ideas behind the sky-hooks were realised by the seven high-rise buildings. In response to Groys’s more general thesis of the continuation of the avant-garde project through Stalinist architecture, the answer would have to be, not in this particular case. If it was built, in part as a copy, one of the built examples strongly influenced by Lissitzky’s series was in Georgia, in a building for the Ministry of Transportation constructed in 1974. The fact that only one such building was built on the outskirts of the Soviet Union, and when it was already in decline, speaks volumes. If we return to the initial notion of centre and the problem of two capitals competing with each other, the centre had to be expanded into smaller fragments. Cloud Iron could not have been built in Moscow or St Petersburg, not even in Russia itself. Instead, it could be built in Georgia at the time when the centralistic powers of Moscow were diminishing and shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. It seems as though during this period of withdrawal of the Soviet power from its outer boundaries, of now largely independent states, there was a vacuum. Architecturally, it meant that architects may have had more freedom than in the Russian territory and were able to realise projects that others in the places of higher concentration of power could not. Tbilisi’s variant is interesting in many ways, as though housing the ministry of transport, its form and structure enable the building

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 to sit above the greenery and trees. It was designed by George Chakhava, who was the Minister of highway construction in the 1970s, and who was in a sense both the ‘client’ and the lead architect of this project. This project was rumoured to have been a copy of another unrealised project at this time, Karel Prager’s 1970–75 ‘City above the City’ for Prague. A more recent copy is Steven Holl’s building Art and Architecture Centre in Nanjing, China, again celebrated as a ‘green’ building. An even more recent realisation of the Cloud Iron project could be the CCTV building Horizontal Skyscraper 137 in Beijing by OMA, Rem Koolhaas. Curiously, OMA actually obtained a patent for it in a bizarre attempt to prevent copying. It seems odd because this project, due to its prominence, scale, and costs, would be hard to replicate. However, significantly, by being just a singular structure, the CCTV building and the other copies only begin to suggest the full potential of Lissitsky’s project. For Lissitsky, the serial nature is just as important as the notion of the vertical–horizontal reversal. This particular unbuildable as a series, conceptualised in the 1920s to be located in the centre of Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, was first realised in the fringes 55 years later, and then after another half of century, nearly 100 years after Lissitzky. The most recent iterations in post-Communist China were curiously designed by well-known Western architects. We return to the pivotal role of the unbuildable in education, whereby such drawings came to be perceived as permissible, even encouraged to copy. However unlikely, let us indulge in speculation that Lissitzky’s towers were not realised through copying but that they were realised in their actual designated central locations. If they were constructed, with the most substantial portions of the structure positioned high above the ground, Lissitzky’s Cloud would create an impressive bridge-like ring above Moscow’s city centre. The fragmentation and multiplication of the centre would have been created to be tangible. With this series, first the ‘old’ notion of the city centre is being exploded, as defined through the singular monumental into a fragmented ring. Subsequently, this expanded circular centre hovers horizontally, parallel to the ground. The fragmented ring-like horizon would be closer to the ground; similar to the sculpture of Lenin towering above the Palace of the Soviets, it would often be obscured by the low clouds and for most of the year it would be rendered invisible. In this sense, the horizontal skyscrapers place their main volumes close to the sky and can be swallowed up by the clouds and literally made part of the sky. If Lissitzky’s Cloud Iron were

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 realised, Moscow’s horizon would have been transformed in a unique way. Instead of a straight horizon, Moscow would gain a circular one, a halo, hovering above its expanded centre. It has been remarked that without their Communist ornaments, such as five stars, Moscow’s High Buildings would resemble any other ‘ordinary’ urban capital. Given the impact of just one CCTV building on our perception of the city of Beijing, if Lissitzky’s project had been constructed, Moscow’s centre would have been transformed in an extraordinary way. 138 The unbuildable series The Western perception of Lissitzky tends to be marred by the fact that he remained a life-long communist, despite the fact that he was the most international of the architects during this period, travelling and working in Germany and Switzerland, and making pivotal contributions towards not just the development of architectural ideas but also of the theory of avant-garde in general. An example in point relates to his famous portrait of Tatlin titled Tatlin at Work, which is also a part of the PROUN series. It seems possible that this may have been part of an attempt to correct the misinterpretations of Tatlin as the leader of Constructivism. He also introduced new aspects, such as images of fellow female ‘Constructivist’ and straight angular dynamic forms, which differed from Tatlin’s curve- linear forms. Lissitzky positions Tatlin within his particular understanding of the Constructivist movement, literally placing him within his own PROUNs. This is in stark contrast to Dadaist interpretations of Tatlin’s ‘machine-like mind’, and their mistaken identification with him. A black and white version of the same image was produced in 1922 as part of the illustrations for Ilia Ehrenburg’s 6 Tales with Easy Endings, this time using just a black graphic line without the photographs. The same photograph of Tatlin that was used in the portrait also features in Lissitzky’s and Arp’s The Isms of Art 1925 under the title Konstruktivismus, dated 1917. Here, we encounter another contradiction. It seems that Lissitzky is at least partly responsible for the way, particularly in Germany, Tatlin became considered to be synonymous with Constructivism. I suspect that neither viewpoint is more accurate than the other. Both interpretations should be considered to be inaccurate in the sense that neither reflects Tatlin’s method of working. It seems clear that Tatlin was far from having a machine-like mind; he was more intuitive and imprecise, akin to an artist and not an architect, even less so an engineer. Instead of neatly labelled movements, jealousy and criticisms, as well as open personal dislikes were frequent. For example, it has been widely docu-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 mented that Tatlin and Malevich were antagonistic towards each other, and Lissitzky publicly accused Moholy-Nagy of plagiarism. Evidently, from both examples, despite serious attempts at collective ways of working, both signatures and the names of the architects become reaffirmed. This perspective is contrasted by the case of Moscow’s High Buildings, where the architects themselves are less known than their design replicas. In previous cases, such as the Tower and LeTatlin, Tatlin’s name became literally embedded and preserved in posterity. In the case of Lissitzky, Horizontal Skyscraper 139 his signature is simplified and shortened, probably to be easier to pronounce and immersed within a graphic composition. Still, the architectural series Horizontal Skyscrapers became famous as such and named in different terms in several languages. The fact that the series was copied and even built in many different international locations could also be interpreted as a sign of a gradual movement away from the figure, authority, and signature of an architect.

Notes 1 Lissitzky was also involved with publications for Schroll-Verlag titled ‘New Building in the World’, for which he designed all front covers and wrote the first part about Russia. 2 El Lissitzky, ‘The Suprematism and Creative Work’, NEP, 1921. 3 Citation continues: ‘The architecture … differs by its supreme expressiveness, clarity of form, and life-affirming optimism. In distinction from American skyscrapers with their naked, joyless architecture, which is devoid of national style, in our multistory buildings the characteristic lines of Russian national architecture with its beauty and aspiration upward are reflected’. N. Kuleshov and A. Pozdnev, Высотныe здания Москвы (Tall Buildings of Moscow), Moscow, Moskovskii rabochii, 1954, pp. 10, 16–7. 4 Emil Roth was the Swiss engineer who collaborated with Lissitzky on Cloud Iron. 5 El Lissitzky, ‘Old Cities New Buildings’, Russia: An Architecture for World Revolution, Lund Humphries, London, 1970, p. 56. 6 Schlögel wrote ‘How far has El Lissitzky’s concept of horizontal skyscraper been carried into realisation by high-rise buildings and Stalin?’ This suggests that rather than having been annihilated, Lissitzky’s project was realised in the Stalinist period. Karl Schlögel, Moscow, Reaktion Books, London, 2004, p. 59. 7 Ibid, p. 56. 8 Ibid, p. 56. 9 Ibid, p. 56. 10 El Lissitzky, ‘The Future and Utopia’, in Russia: An Architecture for World Revolution, Lund Humphries, London, 1970, p. 64. 11 Ibid, p. 66. 12 In ‘Art and Pangeometry’, Lissitzky discusses perspective as opposed to axonometry: ‘One point Renaissance perspective: façade view of the stage viewed statically. Perspective limits space; it has made it finite, closed’. El Lissitzky, ‘Art and Pangeometry’, in Russia: An Architecture for World Revolution, Lund Humphries, London, 1970, pp. 142–9.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 13 Refer to the previous discussion of the cult of Lenin. 5 The serial series Iakov Chernikhov

Among the Soviet architects from this early period, Iakov Chernikhov stands out because of a considerable total number of drawings he produced. The exact number may be difficult, if not impossible, to determine. In the ‘Introduction’ to Russian Constructivism and Iakov Chernikhov, Andrei Chernikhov estimated that the total number of Chernikhov’s theoretical and drawn works reached 18,000.1 However, similar to the examples we have previously examined, other sources quoted the total number to be as ‘little’ as 17,000 and some as ‘huge’ as 40,000. According to the custodians 2 from Chernikhov’s foundation, the number is closer to the more modest estimate of 17,000. In any case, even if the most conservative estimate is correct, we are dealing with an extraordinarily large oeuvre. The actual number of works preserved in the archives is hard to establish. The majority of the works have been collated in the Iakov Chernikhov Foundation in Moscow, which also curates exhibitions and organises architectural competitions. Reportedly, several hundreds of Chernikhov’s works were stolen from the Russian State archives in 1997, only some of which were subsequently recovered, after attempts to sell them in London. Chernikhov proclaimed privileging the visual: ‘Always and absolutely everywhere, replace the word by the graphic image’,3 implying an almost absolute belief, shared by other figures of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 the avant-garde, in visual communication above language. Despite his praise of graphics, as Cooke pointed out, Chernikhov wrote nearly as much as he drew. Nevertheless, this does little to diminish the excep- tionally high quantity of his drawings. He originally started by teaching drawing in biology classes, literally producing them under the microscope. Shortage of paper and his experience of drawing with the aid of a magnifying glass led to Chernikhov soon establishing a small format for his drawings that enabled him to produce them quickly, and, importantly, in large quantity. The only ‘construction’ ever built following one of his designs was the water tower of the cable-making workshop for The serial series 141 the Krasniy Gvozdilshchik factory (1930–31) in St Petersburg.4 In the late 1920s to early 1930s, Chernikhov published a series of three books5 that helped to establish him as one of the leading forces in graphic and theoretical composition. In relation to the focus of this chapter, the most important aspect of Chernikhov’s work is that he consistently worked within a series, one after another.6 This aspect is different from our previous example of a smaller series within a larger one, i.e. Lissitzky’s Cloud Iron within the PROUNs. Chernikhov drew series after series7 apply- ing different ‘themes’ and varied graphic techniques. Interestingly, in several Russian publications, Chernikhov’s work is referred to as cycles that were used interchangeably with series. In his case, the term ‘cycle’ seems to be appropriate because it implies a series in a cyclical form. Such an enquiry has a curvilinear form where arguments develop to a certain level within a cycle, only to subsequently return to the beginnings and a more general investigation. Once the cycle has been completed and all of the sub-options have been examined and exhausted, the series returns to the larger, more general critical field. Some titles use the word ‘sequence’ instead, as though even the words used to describe Chernikhov’s production had to become variable and interchangeable. As in previous case studies, the prevailing tendency in the majority of historical accounts is to focus only on one particular cycle or, in several cases, solely on a few drawings from a single series. The opportunities for misinterpreting and contradicting conclusions abound. In a similar vein, interpretations of his relationship with the avant-garde vary. Cooke noted that for Constructivists at the time, Chernikhov’s work addressed only one ‘marginal line’ of investigation among many that others were pursuing. Whereas several of his works, such as The Palaces of Communism series, undoubtedly

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 possess a strong ideological dimension, current interpretations and commentaries, for the most part, tend to focus on the more abstract works, in particular, the industrial series. The drawings that tend to be viewed as exemplary of the whole of his opus usually come from 101 Compositions and Tales of Industry. In 101 Compositions 1925–1933, the ideological message can be difficult to decipher, especially if they are presented in black and white, as they were at the time, certainly outside of the Soviet Union. In one of the compositions, Hammer and Sickle, for example, unless you are aware of the title, the obvious symbolism can easily slip by undetected. Much of architectural 142 The unbuildable series literature continues to equate all of Chernikhov’s production with his most famous series, Tales of Industry (1933), with machinistic graphics, such as lattice beams, columns, pulleys, hooks, and other clearly industrial references. Unfortunately, this leads towards overlooking how thematically and stylistically varied his vast body of work is. In fact, it consists of a number of different, if not opposed, styles that range from the Supermatist-inspired abstractions to the Stalinist Classicism of the Palaces of Communism. This significant shift, in my opinion, renders the style itself into a repetitive trait, a variant like any other. Although the format of works are different, they generally stay very small. For example, the smallest ones are works from cycles: Architectural Fairytales, Architecture of Industry, Old Cities, with the size of approximately of 10 × 10 cm. Aristography, 101 Architectural Fantasies, Construction of Architectural and Machine Forms, and Basics of Modern Architecture are close to A4 size. Tellingly, the works from the cycles The Pantheons of the Great Patriotic War are larger, increasing to 80 × 100 cm. The scale of the actual drawings from Chernikhov’s opus is difficult to decipher from the publications of the work. This is especially due to the tendency of most publications to focus on only one drawing series or even just a single drawing. One imagines the drawings to be large, particularly given that several titles indicate a large urban scale, for example, a city. Surprisingly, in real life, Chernikhov’s drawings are generally of the same, somewhat disappointingly small size, as clearly seen in Figure 5.1. Only after direct access to the physical artefacts in the Chernikhov archive in Moscow does one realise that the drawings previously thought of as reproductions were not reduced but kept at the original size. This format (approximately A4) is minute in comparison with the architectural standards and fashion of the time. This explains why, in

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 several sources, Chernikhov’s work is referred to as architectural miniatures. My proposal is that again, rather than being deliberately small, or on any particular scale, size was seen as a variable like any other factor. At the same time, a small scale enabled him to produce many drawings quickly, in a sense, sacrificing scale for the quantity. However, something more significant may be at stake. For Chernikhov, the drawing may have been scale-less, i.e. it could be of any scale, ranging from that of a small graphic element (such as a logo), individual or group of buildings, to the scale of a city or even multiple cities. The serial series 143

Figure 5.1 Drawing size comparison: Palace of the Soviets (2.5 × 3 m) by Boris Iofan, final perspective (left) versusComposition No. 28 from 101 Compositions (0.29 × 0.21 m) by Iakov Chernikhov (right). The full impact of the massive scale of Iofan’s painting becomes clear when it is compared to the miniscule size of Chernikhov’s drawing. For Iofan, the aim was for a single artefact/image to create a maximum impact; for Chernikhov, the aim was to produce a variety of images and possibilities.

The drawing titled Hammer and Sickle Fantasy from 101 Compositions 1925–1933 clearly shows that even the compositions from this series were not completely devoid of the Communist symbols and ideological messages. The drawing size comparison of Iofan’s final perspective of the Palace of the Soviets versus Chernikhov’s Composition No. 28 shows the diminutive scale of the latter. The full impact of the massive scale of Iofan’s painting only becomes clear when it is compared to the miniscule size of Chernikhov’s

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 drawing. Their aims are suggested to be entirely different. For Iofan, the intention was for a single artefact/image to create a maximum impact. For Chernikhov, the impact had to remain dispersed and varied, allowing for many possibilities, while never committing himself to any one in particular. The fashion for architectural drawings at the time was to create them for display and on a large scale. The large scale of Chernikhov’s drawings is especially emblematic in the works in Socialist-realist style.8 The contrast with Chernikhov’s miniatures is made even more obvious when 144 The unbuildable series presented in direct comparison with one of the drawings of the same period. The small scale of the drawings is likely to have originated both from practical reasons, such as a shortage of paper, and by working under a microscope while teaching drawing to microbiology students at the military academy 1924–1926.9 Even if initiated by practicalities, a consequence of this is that Chernikhov could have realised that architecture need not be confined to any scale in particular. This also possibly suggests an understanding that an architectural composition can be made to work both from a distance and close-up. Figure 5.2 reveals socialist-realist features when viewed on a large scale. His drawings seem to follow a laboritorial kind of procedure. Indeed, he often uses scientific terms to describe his experimentations, where graphics tend to have worked through a number of options of different arrangements and compositions based on a set of themes, which then develop their own Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016

Figure 5.2 Iakov Chernikhov, Composition No. 28, which more recently, mainly in Internet sources, also tends to be referred to as Hammer and Sickle Fantasy, 101 Compositions 1925–1933. This drawing shows that even the compositions from the industrial series were not completely devoid of the Communist symbols and ideological message. The serial series 145 logic and rules from within. Each drawing appears to be very precise, ‘abstract’, and, as already indicated, very small. To contemporary eyes, this makes the drawings from 101 Compositions and other abstract cycles appear to be strangely familiar, yet unlike anything that was actually constructed. Again, they evoke the ‘future’ that was never realised. Making them curiously relevant to the current age is the combination of a small format and very controlled precise drawings, which could easily be mistaken for an output of a computer printer or even the computer screen itself. It also seems no accident that now imagery is more prevalent than ever. We can look back at Chernikhov’s work and view it as prophetic of some late twentieth-century architecture. If working in such a small format could seem limited, this is overcome by the absence of reference to scale or any other specifics in the majority of Chernikhov’s images. Generally, there are no human figures, no trees or sky, rendering each image’s ability to exist in an almost infinite number of possible scenarios and scales, from that of a logo, product, or building to the large urban scale of an entire city or even multiple cities. Holding in one’s hands a small portfolio contain- ing one of the cycles may seem to be disappointing,10 especially after seeing them in a book or on a computer screen and assuming that the ‘originals’ are much larger. In contrast, when you imagine being surrounded by the total number of produced pieces, even in today’s age of seemingly limitless copies, as Figure 5.3 indicates, one’s reaction would inevitably be of admiration. The effect is rendered more poignant given that each piece was drawn by hand. Despite the relentless production and number of works, each drawing is both similar yet ‘unique’. The absence of any reference to scale and the lack of presence of other elements conventionally shown in architectural drawings seem to point towards a completely urban vision, where elements, such as

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 trees, sky, and humans, are all made invisible by the dominance of industrial imagery. Perhaps it isn’t the case that Chernikhov believed that cities do not need trees, sky, or humans but that his interest was focused on the exciting industrial revolution and the landscapes and structures that this period would generate. The famous address by Lazar Kaganhovich in 1931, which proclaimed that the industrial future of the Soviet Union would be ‘urban by definition’ is an important reflection of the unprecedented scale of urbanisation this country experienced. This could explain why Chernikhov did not draw sky 146 The unbuildable series

Figure 5.3 Iakov Chernikhov, 101 Compositions 1925–1933. Shown here in black and white, the hammer and sickle symbol in one of the compositions is difficult to distinguish.

or trees and why the majority of his works were ‘urban by definition’ as well. Equally plausible would be to interpret the Industrial Series not as a mere 11

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 possibility but as an actual representation of an industrial revolution that took place. In that sense, Chernikhov’s work could be considered as an x-ray of the incredibly fast pace of the industrial change that occurred. The only access that the Western audience had to these drawings was usually through small black and white photocopies. Because of cost and access, miniatures were often made even smaller, encapsulating the entire series on one page. Another possibility is that instead of the colourful quality of the original drawings, monochrome replicas of Chernikhov’s colourful graphics may have been a more accurate representation of the reality of the industrial wastelands. The serial series 147 Chernikhov’s work elevates the idea of a series to a high level. We have nearly a complete lack of any architectural specificities, e.g. suggestions of a location, scale, function, or at times even gravity. This explains why when discussing Chernikhov’s work, one inevitably falls into what could be described as the jargon of computer technology. Terms, such as tools, systems, elements, and structure, become necessary. Chernikhov seems to have been attempting to devise systems, to create libraries of architectural/design/graphic forms, while suggesting only some within an ultimately unlimited number of likely combinations – dealing with an alphabet and vocabulary instead of a specific narrative, where order, logic, rules, and themes have been derived from within the works themselves. Such rules are not imposed onto the works, but are developed from within the drawing itself. An example of one such rule is the small paper format, which works well across the different platforms: as the sequential pages in a book, a wall exhibition, or a display within a three-dimensional space. His interest is not in singling out any one in particular but in devising a number of systems and in retaining as many options as possible. Not only does Chernikhov not pursue any of these conditions in full detail, he rarely shows them from more than one point of view. This could mean that each view reveals new design, which is another variant. The architect does not attempt to control the final outcome; his aim is to continue searching for another option, which is another composition. This is how this ‘series of series’, the collection of multiple series, can and does become akin to source books for students and designers, with architects being only one of the many likely users. The number of works in Chernikhov’s oeuvre, the variety of styles and likely applications ranging from that of a product to industrial structures, whole cities, and palaces, point towards the idea of multiple and variable. This can be used to show how designers (and I deliberately use this term instead of archi-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 tects), such as Chernikhov, do not focus on any particular scale, form, or style, but they continue to explore many other options. Instead of stop- ping at one possibility, the unbuildable helps in opening up possibilities. In this process, they even blur and stretch the extents of different styles and graphic forms. In other words, they expand the ‘visual’ beyond not only what is considered ‘architectural’ but what may be deemed as possible. Another issue strongly evident in Chernikhov’s work and pertinent to the more general discussion of the series concerns visualising a piece of work, not as individual, but as plural. This can be in terms of an exhibition, within the context of the entire series, or in other ways. The 148 The unbuildable series consistency of the format shifts the attention from any one of the individual drawings to the larger whole. Thus, the singular image, in addition to its own, acquires a dual meaning as a consequence of being part of the series; one has to account for any particular image in combination with multiple others. Based on the large variety of styles and drawing techniques he used, Cooke argued that Chernikhov’s production demonstrated style to be irrelevant, because he aimed to define ‘the fundamental architectural principles’.12 I would say that, for Chernikhov, the style is not irrelevant but simply a variant, a trait that can be changed like any other. The primary value of Chernikhov’s work, as Cooke rightly suggests, is in the influence on architectural education and the future generations of architects, concluding the following:

It is not architecture as such that we are examining, and perhaps evaluating, but an approach to teaching architects and other designers. Specifically, it is an approach to developing their formal and spatial inventiveness: in the Russian term, their fantasia.13

Cooke underlines the educative function of Chernikhov’s production, in particular, and the possibilities of invention to be engaged in the ‘unbuildable’. This is pertinent because even if we dismiss the facts, such as size of works, and completely dismiss what the architects may claim about them, the point is that they introduce possibilities for us to interpret them as such. Furthermore, they make the students, who will become the architects of the future, not only consider possibilities as suggested by those old drawings but also claim them as their own. Often, they further develop them in a way that is relevant to the current techniques and fashion. Similar to Cooke’s view, prominent Soviet theorist, Roman Khiger, identified the ultimate aim of Chernikhov’s approach as ‘a search for the 14

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 abstract expression of ‘the idea’ of the building’. This term ‘idea of the building’ may sound naïve; however, this notion continues to have a surprisingly long-lasting presence in architectural discourse and strikes one as being particularly relevant to architectural drawing and the unbuildable. It echoes the notion of truth in Peter Cook’s recent book on drawing, in which he proposes building as the ‘reality’ of architecture but drawing as its ‘truth’.15 Cook discusses a considerable number16 of drawings, of which several are part of an extensive series; he always refers to them The serial series 149 as singular pieces, never relating them to their larger context or a series. Cook heavily invested in the idea of a single drawing connected to a single truth, i.e. a single, key, definitive drawing that captures the entire ‘idea’ of the scheme. The single building/drawing always stays at the centre, which is the ultimate aim. Linked to this is the often-cited criticism that those in pursuit of drawing may be attempting to escape from reality and an elusive singular truth. However, I would again stress the importance of the multiple. When observed in a plural sense, drawings as numerous truths, the idea becomes stronger. In contrast to this, it seems no longer plausible to think of ‘the one single monumental idea’ of a building; instead, as early modernists demonstrated, it is possible to move away from the singular idea, i.e. towards a series of fragmented, dispersed, and infinitely varied ones. The notion of a single idea and, even more so, of a single truth, resonates with Benjamin’s concept of the original and its aura, which technological reproduction is out to diminish. The persistence of this and the ‘aura’ associated with the original, which cannot be replicated, may be connected with the disillusionment in our general capacity for invention. Because everything appears to be already invented, there seems to be little ‘hope’ for completely new ideas. However, a series works with and capitalises on the notion that the original can only be possible through a small variation of already existing ideas, or in the ever so slightly ‘new’ combinations of ‘old’ elements. This again evokes Wigley’s idea of infinitely small changes that finally usher in ‘the new’, with a single adjustment so small that it can remain imperceptible. Differences between the two may be difficult to perceive by those viewing the surface – the repetitive individual elements and drawing style – but not probing beneath into the techniques that generate the different combinations. Harbison writes of the unbuildable, which the last chapter of his book only starts to address, as follows: ‘The book ends in the most problem-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 atic place, reaching toward impossibility’. So, if we accept that architectural drawings and more generally, imagery, can make a building, such as the Palace of the Soviets, for example, so present that it becomes part of everyday life and the collective imaginary, continuing to exist through multiple smaller replicas, it therefore becomes inhabitable and realis- able in ways that actual buildings never achieve. In some ways, a different operation, but with a similar effect, happens with the series. When released in smaller, sequential fragments, the picture formed appears to 150 The unbuildable series be singular, yet still multifaceted and changeable depending on the point of observation. It seems no accident that Chernikhov’s production is interpreted regularly in books regarding drawings or the unbuilt. The connection between this method of working and the idea of the unbuildable seems so strong and persistent, even ubiquitous. For Harbison, Chernikhov’s drawings are pessimistic, negative, and symbolic of nothing being possible:

Yet something is wrong, Chernikhov’s ideas are more heraldic and less grounded in reality than those frivolous strings of garden pavilions trying on all the styles of the past in indecent haste. Their message is closer to nothing is possible, at least for architects, now that invention and production have completely come apart.17

Like Groys in his sweeping thesis, Harbison does not refer to any of the drawings in particular; however, he describes Chernikhov’s entire ‘industrial’ series as having become a ‘pure picture’, confirming Benjamin’s ‘pictorial detour’. Initially, Harbison seems to have an enthusiastic response, with signs of elation at seeing the colourful drawings. However, soon after, we find a suggestion that in this series, we no longer deal with architecture but with a ‘critique’ or even less than this – a mere ‘comment’ – which could imply that when architecture becomes a pure image, a process of considerable reduction takes place. Gone is the structure, the material, all other qualities of the conventional architectural project; here, we find not just a detour, a diversion as Benjamin would have it, but a complete reduction to a picture, or a pictorial comment. Harbison concludes that ‘From everything is possible – of the First Five Year Plan’, Chernikhov’s drawings’ message is that ‘nothing is possible, at least for architects, now that invention and production have come absolutely apart’.18 Hence,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 the initial enthusiasm is followed by the definitive disappointment and a pessimistic message, i.e. that nothing seems possible. It seems that by reading that nothing is possible from Chernikhov’s opus and separating invention from the production of drawings, Harbison ultimately favours conventional architectural production, the one preferably leading to the construction of buildings. Cook addresses this point from a different perspective where a building’s ‘reality’ does not live up to its truth, the drawing, and writes: ‘At this point we must face a nagging suspicion: that the The serial series 151 drawing can be possibly better than the reality’.19 This seems to me to be just as plausible as saying that sometimes buildings are better than drawings that served their production. It does, however, confirm the persistence of the idea that drawings have no reality without building, which I take issue with. Cook pointed out that Chernikhov’s work outlasted many of its critics, who dismissed it at the time as being too graphic.20 Arguably, this durability may concern the domination of graphic imagery today, whereby Chernikhov’s work appears to be advanced for his time, even prophetic. It is also connected with closing the gap between image and building; in other words, Chernikhov’s graphics do not appear as impossible as they must have seemed then. Perhaps we should understand Chernikhov’s work actually as an accurate record, not of future cities, but of the derelict and redundant industrial landscapes in an age in which we can produce so many things cheaply and quickly, and where factories are no longer the industrial colossal structures of the past, but small modest buildings with computers inside. In any case, the idea that architecture turned into a pure image is a reduction that must be examined. If it is simply the case of a singular image with a specific site, fixed scale, and defined purpose, we are dealing with a sense of diminishment. As with the example here, although it includes iteration and repetition, the effect is also of that of opening up a multitude of possibilities and combinations, enriching the project. Precisely in the endless ‘unbuildable’ series, more inventive strategies can develop, which can influence and shift architectural thinking. In other words, in contrast to ‘nothing is possible’, Chernikhov’s method of drawing suggests inexhaustible possibilities, which is in stark opposition to the idea of one truth and one reality. If, as Harbison proposed, the unbuildable is at least partly about trying to imagine oneself in an unfamiliar state of mind, an unknown territory, then this concept, as we have seen in the example of Chernikhov, can be productive. Perhaps it

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 may even be necessary to challenge architectural conventions and alter their working processes, including the production of buildings. In this sense, it could be argued that Chernikhov anticipated digital modes of production, with easy access to multiple copying and variation techniques, a seemingly endless process of multiplication and scale adapt- ability. For Chernikhov, a sheet of paper was interchangeable with an architectural site. Importantly, the paper does not appear to be limited by its actual size; instead, he used it similar to the way we work on 152 The unbuildable series a computer and view the screen.21 In contrast to Iofan’s and Tatlin’s utopias of an earthbound, centred physical object, of colossal actual scale, which dominates the skyline, leading us to the suggestion that ultimately, Chernikhov’s utopia of a serial series is one of an infinitely variable virtual image. The human body ceases to exist. Real sky has been replaced by the blackness of a computer screen. Abandoned industrial landscapes eerily follow our every move. In some ways, the discussion that started with reproduction and repetition could be considered as culminating here, as the series-of-series reaches such an excessive scale. Given the minute physical scale of the actual drawn artefacts and an enormous number overall, the arguments derived from this are relevant to the current age and the digital mass production of drawing. It also takes us towards attempting to discuss the limits of the unbuildable category. The connection between the excep- tionally high number of Chernikhov’s works and the very small physical scale of the individual drawings demonstrates the correlation between the two: the smaller the individual size and the larger overall number of produced artefacts. A considerable total number of artefacts confined to a consistently small format, I would say, emphasises the ability of the unbuildable to exist through different techniques and scales. Instead of a clearly formed series, we find multiple series, one within another. One has to ask if Chernikhov’s opus, in particular, and the repetition of series, in general, series of series, could be considered as reaching the very limits of the unbuildable. Outside the Soviet Union, now when the gap between building and image is reduced, the temptation to build might be hard to resist, despite the fact that there may not be the need to, and due to the evident power of the images themselves. Can they be said to define the limits of the unbuildable? We must contemplate that the traits, which made the category of the unbuildable distinct, could now be mixed, tainted by definition. Another likelihood presents itself: that

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 the unbuildable, rather than a distinct category, becomes no more than a trait for every project. Rather than being distinguished as either built, building, buildable, or unbuilt, the unbuildable becomes a constant variation, used in an architectural proposition when applicable. I would think that the series The Pantheons of the Great Patriotic War sequence, 1942–1945 (see Figure 5.4), is beyond just style or the particular character of the drawings. In fact, they may be fundamental to the way Chernikhov was working, i.e. the choice of subject and the method of producing drawings. Obvious readings concluded this to be The serial series 153

Figure 5.4 Iakov Chernikhov, composition from The Pantheons of the Great Patriotic War sequence, 1942–1945. Just like the Palaces of Communism series before it, this whole series is akin to Piranesi’s drawing style.

Chernikhov’s response to the doctrine of socialist-realism, an attempt to fit in with the dominant ideology and aesthetics. Archival documents include Chernikhov’s letter to Stalin to which he never received a response, asking to be included in the official building programme. Chernikhov also included his portfolio, probably featuring Palaces of Socialism (also referred to as Palaces of Communism from 1934 to 1941). Precisely in these drawings, for the first time, a sky and cloud- like elements appear. Uniquely in his opus, we see abstract human-like

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 shapes, leaving it unclear whether they suggest sculptures, ornaments on buildings or people. In this series and in The Pantheons of the Great Patriotic War, it appears as though we are confronted by many copies of Iofan’s Palace of the Soviets design. Evidently, copying in itself is far from being new in the history of art or architecture. Already in the Renaissance, artists made copies of entire or individual elements22 of paintings. Hillel Schwartz concludes The Culture of the Copy with the suggestion that Benjamin was wrong to talk of the aura of the work of art as being lost or diminished by modern image 154 The unbuildable series production and claims instead: ‘What withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is not the aura, the Happen-Stance, of works of art but the assurance of our own liveliness’.23 First, when talking about the culture of the copy, Schwartz clearly implies that the copy has by far surpassed the confines of the artistic field and entered culture as a whole, and a main- stream one at that. In her conclusion, Schwartz rightly reverses the gaze away from the unique work of art, onto the mirror reflection, onto us, because we are not looking for the aura of the original, but instead we are searching for a confirmation of our own self-worth and importance. Our often felt dismay resulting from the ‘bombardment’ by images could then be not because the images themselves appear fake but because we, ourselves, do not seem real, and we appear like mere mirror reflections. What is more, this ‘future’ of false imagery seems to be coming from America and is one of an illusion.24 This relationship with America, oscillating between worship and hatred, was particularly complex in Soviet Russia, prompting some critics to describe it as schizophrenic.25 The idea that a future overwhelmingly dominated by images is fake is reminiscent of the derisions of perspective, artist impression, or even, more generally, ‘hatred of drawing’, which is typically associated with the qualities of drawings ‘to be avoided’: such as pictorial, seductiveness, and deception. This brings us back to one of the arguments from the previous chapter, involving the cinematic image, the socialist mass audience26 and the Hollywood spectacle. Already in the debate involving King Kong and the Palace of the Soviets, the conflict between the future depicted through the ‘new’ media of film and photomontage, and the established image of the gigantic architectural edifice became apparent. This struggle with the ‘new’ and issues associated with it repeatedly occurs not just throughout this book but also particularly in the contradiction between the ‘new’ media and the ‘old’ monumental image recreated in Tatlin’s Tower and the Palace. In establishing the terms of the serial architectural proposition, I propose that the notion

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 of the ‘new’ is only apparently paradoxically and intimately connected with the repetition and the multiple. What could only be described as the explosion of the unbuildable in the form of the architectural series in the Soviet Union concerns the conflict of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ on so many levels and scales. This, in turn, resulted in the simultaneous denial of and search for Benjamin’s aura of the original, again, in many ways. Ekaterina Degot argued that the ‘aura’ could not exist outside of capitalism: The serial series 155 The Soviet art system, in both official and unofficial (ie mass distributed and unique) art, called into question Walter Benjamin’s belief in the aura of the unique. We should not forget that the aura is a purely capitalist phenomenon; without the market, as in the USSR, the unique work of art had no flair of ‘high art.’ It was often perceived (even by its creator) as a lamentable, marginal object unworthy of being reproduced.27

In the case of Chernikhov, even if the more conservative estimate of his overall drawn output is correct, it stands in stark contrast to the only built example, shown in Figure 5.5. I would question Degot’s claim of ‘aura’ as a purely capitalist phenomenon because the absence of the market in Socialism could and did not preclude the notion of the ‘original’ altogether. Just because there was no price attached to it, a value system in art still existed, albeit operating differently. Finally, although there may not have been an internal market in Soviet Russia, the world art market never ceased to exist, influences of which, however small, cannot be assumed to be completely absent. In fact, it may be the case that the mass-reproducibility of a work of art to address the scale of a socialist audience increases the ‘aura’ and does not diminish the value of the original or the desire to grasp its physical ‘real’ qualities. In other words, replicas of the Palace of the Soviets, no matter how many times they were repeated, did not diminish the ‘aura’ of the master copy, ‘the greatest building in the world’, itself. They, in fact, enhanced its effect by making it accessible and therefore democratic. Just because a mass audience had access to official pieces of art does not mean that all of these pieces are of no value. Equally, just because some artists worked against the political regime and Communism does not mean their production is valuable. For example, El Lissitzky continues to be valued less highly than Tatlin because of his life-long devotion to communism. It seems

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 logical that in this journey following copy and repetition, we end at the likely beginnings or multiple points of origins of perspective. The origins of serial architecture appear particularly in response to the advances in mechanical and more recent digital reproduction of images. Similarly, the Soviet ‘unbuildable’ revolutionary series coincided with the invention of photography and cinema. Thus, one can start to speculate that working within a series could, in part, be related to the realisation that fighting against copying may be a futile task. Instead, a 156 The unbuildable series Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Figure 5.5 Water Tower, Red Carnation Factory. The total number of Chernikhov’s drawings are estimated to be between 17,000 and 40,000. Even if the more conservative estimate is correct, it is still impressively a considerable number, in contrast to the only one partly built example.

series works with and takes advantage of the copy culture. When simultaneously attacked on several ‘fronts’, each tackle brings tiny advances individually, whereas a more fundamental change can only be achieved The serial series 157 by the large number of small changes within an overall field of enquiry. A series no longer invests value in the likelihood of being either unique or original, but instead in the ability to pursue fundamental questions through many related yet differentiated and distinct ways. To say that working in a series anticipates the loss of ‘aura’ would be to support the belief in the very existence of such an aura and in the original. The existence of such a thing is, however, in the very least, doubtful. The series appears to work with the idea of the ‘original’ as a ‘partial’ object, akin to a template, which each element in the series tries to emulate but can never achieve. In fact, once the variants start to resemble the template, the series apparently becomes complete and at the same time loses its primary function, therefore rendering itself redundant. The series does not stop because the singular original is missing; in fact, this absence is what produces a series, creating an infinite variety. Due to only selective representations of the work, the connection between Chernikhov and Giovanni Battista Piranesi may be more difficult to apprehend; however, the similarities between the two are far from superficial. The quantity of drawn works, the variety, and the graphic richness of different styles and techniques resulted in Chernikhov often being referred to as ‘The Russian Piranesi’. However, the connections between them are not so evident in the Western accounts, perhaps also because they tend to selectively represent the most abstract drawings, avoiding the ideologically driven ones. Because of the selective presence of Chernikhov’s work in the international scene, he tends only to be associated with a particular style of his Industrial drawing series. As such, he could be mistakenly perceived as very different from Piranesi. Evidence that quite the opposite may be true is clearly present in the lesser known series, where we find a striking similarity with Piranesi’s drawing style, human figures, and sky. An important connection between the Russian avant-garde and Piranesi can be traced to Sergei Eisenstein’s essay,28

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 ‘Piranesi or Fluidity of Forms’, in which he discusses montage and the delayed effects of Piranesi’s perspectives. Instead of going forward and relating the current architectural discourse to the peak of the unbuildable, we will go even further back to discuss one of the first examples of the serial unbuildable, i.e. Piranesi’s Carceri series. The underlining logic relates to the idea of poetic justice; thus, the book ends at the beginning. Equally plausible is the possibility that the limits, the boundaries, and the causes for the unbuildable cease 158 The unbuildable series to have the qualities that made it a distinct category and were already present from the start, in the pioneering series, the subject of the next and final chapter.

Notes 1 Andrei Chernikhov, ‘Introduction’, in Catherine Cooke (Ed.), Russian Constructivism and Iakov Chernikhov. Published as Architectural Design, Vol. 59, No. 7/8, Wiley, London, 1989, p. 11. 2 Anastasia Reznichenko, e-mail correspondence, July 2013. 3 Iakov Georgievich Chernikhov, Iskusstvo Nachertaniia (The Art of Graphic Presentation), Leningrad, 1927, p. 48. 4 For more information, see Iakov Chernikhov International Foundation. Available online at www.icif.ru/engl/index.htm. 5 The three books are: Fundamentals of Modern Architecture (1929–1930), Construction of Architecture and Machine Forms (1931), Architectural Fantasies – 101 Compositions (1933). 6 Ornament (1915–1927), Exprimatics (1915–1920), Aristography (1914–1927), Fundamentals of Modern Architecture (1925–1930), Architectural Fantasies (1925–1933), Construction of Architectural and Machine Forms (1925–1931), Architectural Landscapes (1930–1932), Industrial Architecture (1932–1936), Architectural Romanticism (1931–1944, Architectural Fairytales (1927–1935), Old Towns (1933–1941), Architectural Ensembles (1937–1943), Palaces of Communism (1934–1941), Architecture of Bridges (1933–1941), Pantheons of the Great Patriotic War (1942–1945), Military Camouflage (1941–1945), Construction of the Classic Type (1945–1951). 7 Cycle of Picturesque Architecture that included Architectural Tales, Architectural Landscapes, The Architecture of Wooden Buildings, Tales of Industry, Architectural Romanticism, and others. Followed by the architecture of palaces: Palaces of Communism, Architecture of the Future, and Architectural Ensembles. During the war: The Pantheons of the Great Patriotic War and the cycle The Military Camouflage. 8 Yuri Avvakumov commented how Chernikhov was a tall man and how awkward it seemed that he was constantly working on such a small drawing format. Interview with Yuri Avvakumov, Moscow, September 2008. 9 Catherine Cooke (Ed.), Russian Constructivism and Iakov Chernikhov. Published as Architectural Design, Vol. 59. No. 7/8, Wiley, London, 1989, p. 26. 10 Before seeing the original drawings in the Iakov Chernikhov Foundation in Moscow, I expected to observe at least some of the original drawings in a larger format. The actual scale seems incredible, considering the context in which they were produced, the sizes of Iofan’s, Tatlin’s, and other drawings at the time. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 11 In the first ten years of the New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union, the country literally became transformed from a predominantly agricultural to a highly industrial nation. 12 Catherine Cooke (Ed.), Russian Constructivism and Iakov Chernikhov. Published as Architectural Design, Vol. 59, No. 7/8, Wiley, London, 1989, p. 16. 13 Ibid, p. 16. 14 Roman Khiger, Y. Chernikhov: Osnovy Sovremennoi Arkhitektury, Sovrmenaya Arkhitektura (SA), Moscow, 1930, no. 3, inside back cover. 15 Cook writes: ‘In certain respects, this intensity directs us more clearly than the built building: it holds onto the vision while only occurring on a piece of white paper, whereas the house, though finely executed, is subject to its surroundings, The serial series 159 the time of day, the state of materials in wet or dry weather and the like. So we have another paradox: that the drawn building is more pure, more concentrated than the built building. Is the latter the real thing but the former the true thing? A tricky question’. Peter Cook, Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture, AD Primers, Wiley, London, 2005, p. 60. 16 Peter Cook’s book includes a total of 166 printed drawings, and he discusses more examples. 17 Ibid, p. 176. 18 Ibid, p. 176. 19 Ibid, p. 16. 20 Ibid, p. 122. 21 This is particularly important and relevant in the current age where we are more accustomed to seeing huge numbers of images, yet we often do not see them printed at all and even more rarely in their real size. So, the visual, the images, far from being dominant, become invisible. Thanks to the Internet, everyone has access to a considerable quantity of images, including architectural drawings, but in contrast to the available technology, their quality tends to be poor, their size tends to be small, and attribution tends to be difficult because they are often not properly referenced and prone to be digitally corrupted and altered. 22 One of the well-known examples of this is a ‘hand’ from Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper, which he also used in his painting of The Virgin and Child. 23 Hillel Schwartz, The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles, Zone Books, New York, 1998, pp. 140–1. 24 Schwartz writes, ‘What seemed on the surface to be valuable and substantial would turn out to have been synthesized – a skill at which Americans were sur- passing Europeans’. Ibid, p. 192. 25 In particular to the Soviet relationship with the American skyscraper, see: Sona Stephan Hoisington, ‘Soviet Schizophrenia and the American Skyscraper’, in Rosalind P. Blakesley and Susan E. Reid (Eds.), Russian Art and the West, Northern Illinois University Press, Dekalb, Illinois, 2007, pp. 156–71. 26 In early Soviet cinema, real people were often used as actors, but also stand-in actors were commonly used for the political leaders, including Lenin. 27 Ekaterina Degot, ‘The Copy Is the Crime’, in Diane Neumaier (Ed.), Beyond Memory: Soviet Nonconformist Photography and Photo-Related Works of Art, Rutgers University Press, Rutgers, New Jersey, 2004, p. 115. 28 Sergei M. Eisenstein, ‘Piranesi, or the Fluidity of Forms’, published in English in Oppositions 11, 1978, and in Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987, pp. 65–90. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 6 The pioneering series Piranesi’s Carceri

This chapter focuses on G. B. Piranesi’s Carceri series, consisting of the first edition dating to 1750 and the second edition dating to 1761. This, I consider, is one of the pioneering, if not the first, examples of an architectural series that is also fully contained within the unbuildable. This double series captures nearly all of the issues at stake examined in this book, bringing them together in a very precise manner. Even more renown than previous examples, Piranesi is one of the recognised and most studied architects, with his Carceri in particular, among the most cited works of architecture. Usually, however, the focus tends to be on a single plate, largely ignoring the fact that this project consists of a series, unbuildable and perspective. The first Carceri was so successful that it was doubled by the creation of the second edition. Working in a series involves a repetitive delay of the pressure an artist feels to produce the ultimate piece of work: one could work on several pieces in parallel, according to a type of variation on a theme, and produce several pieces as multiple conclusions. Naturally, even though the focus does not stay for long on any one of the drawings produced, several more exquisite pieces still can and should be judged in their own right. However, as with Piranesi,1 the often overlooked quality of this work could be not so much in any one of the individual pieces but in their overall seriality,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 in the number of likely combinations. Hence, any one drawing should not be interpreted as a plan for a city, for example, but each drawing of a series should be observed as an accurate proposition, limited to one, perhaps infinitely small point in time. For example, Manfredo Tafuri obsessively singled out Piranesi’s Great Wheel in The Sphere and the Labyrinth.2 It seems inadequate to judge Piranesi or any other architect based on a single drawing. The pioneering series 161 Alberto Pérez-Gómez defines the works of Boullée3 and Ledoux4 as projects that cannot be embodied in a physical building and as the first examples of the unbuildable:

Thus for the first time in the history of European architecture – apart from the rather fragmentary precedent of Piranesi’s Carceri – architectural intentions had to be expressed almost exclusively through theoretical projects that obviously did not fit into the new essentially prosaic world of industrial society.5

Evidently, Pérez-Gómez perceives Piranesi’s work as too fragmentary to be considered as a ‘proper’ example. I would argue that precisely because of the fleeting, instantaneous nature of his works, Piranesi must be considered to be more relevant to the current age than either Boullée or Ledoux. Fragmentation should not be perceived as a failing but a sign of a truly novel departure from the established architectural conventions. All elements – building, plan, site, and scale – become variable with constantly changing multiple points of view. Similar to the previous examples, we have not only an escape from but an out- right explosion of the plan. Crucially for the discussion of architectural plan versus perspective in the unbuildable, in the Carceri, we find no plan at all. Instead, there is only a double series of perspectives. According to the records, when Piranesi had been challenged by several French academicians to draw a plan, apparently, he simply could not draw it, and his attempt was ridiculed. A. Hyatt Mayor wrote the following:

The earliest personal recollection of him maybe was in the introduction that Sir William Chambers added to his Civil Architecture in 1791. Chambers had left Rome when Piranesi, aged

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 35, was living across the corso from the French Academy. Chambers later built a casino for Piranesi’s enemy, Lord Charlemont, so that he had a certain bias when he wrote the following: “A celebrated Italian artist whose taste and the effect of whose compositions, on paper, has seldom been equalled, knew little of construction or calculation, yet less of the contrivance of habitable structures, or the modes of carrying real works into execution, through styling 162 The unbuildable series himself as an architect. And when some pensioners of the French academy at Rome, in the Author’s hearing, charged him with ignorance of plans, he composed a very complicated one, since published in his work, which sufficiently proves, that the charge was not altogether groundless.” No such plans occur in Piranesi’s publications.6

Again, we find here evidence of speculations, an absence ofphysical proof and an abundance of intrigue. Evidently, many of Piranesi’s perspectives have been miscalculated and remain ‘inaccurate’, especially when dealing with round objects. Some critics would say this was because the Carceri were a result of a fleeting chance, a product of hallucinatory nightmares that he could not control, implying the architect must at all times exert control over their work. Piranesi in his defence stated: ‘They hate my novelty, I their timidity’.7 Regardless of which is true, whether he was a charlatan who could not properly develop a plan or a genius who invented new ways of drawing, he has made a strong impact on the architectural discourse. The importance is in the influence of such work, on students, in particular, and how it inspired many scholars of art and architectural history to think of new ideas and ways of perceiv- ing architectural space. Piranesi’s Carceri took the art of copying to a completely different level. A second edition of the series was produced several years later, making this series doubled or mirrored. By virtue of being both a series and the unbuildable, this architectural project changes the ways in which it ought to or even can be discussed. It continues to create curiosity, a sense of speculation, and even inspires a type of detective work. It seems counterproductive to discuss any single one of his drawings. Instead, one cannot help but discuss first the entire series, and then the second edition, the doubling of the entire series. In Carceri,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 there is a relentless repetition of different combinations of elements that themselves were copied, enlarged, reduced, mirrored, and modi- fied, and could in part be the reason why there may have been so many different interpretations of the underlying story. Every attempt at finding a single correct narrative seems to fail, perhaps because this one accurate story, which resolves it all and offers all of the clues, does not exist. No specific linear story flows through the series, clearly indicating either the end or a beginning. Instead, this architectural double series The pioneering series 163 appears more like a library of potentially unlimited numbers of combinations with repetitive variants. Here, we have not only the notions of seriality and the non-linear narrative but also an architectural project as a library, a collection of different elements. It is in these terms that architecture as a series will be proposed here, as another expression/ graphic form of the unbuildable, a radical alternative to the singular monumental. In Carceri, the same motifs are repeated through the first and the second editions of the series. An additional narrative richness is created through the subversion and the layering of the perspective in each etching. If we add an element of time with the perspectival ‘layers’ separated, the drawings appear in an even more animated and dynamic way. Perspective carries the narrative beyond just constructing the background or a stage set; it creates the story itself. Or perhaps, we need to say, plural, stories. In any case, this evidently marks an important example, possibly the very first instance of the serial unbuildable, with all its important traits: absence of site and plan, dominance of the perspectival images, shifting of scale, blurring of inside/out, and finally, the serial nature. Such traits occur regularly in the drawings of the unbuildable and manifest themselves in the examples previously discussed. I consider it to be significant that in the first edition of Carceri, an element resembling a stain or a cloud is centrally positioned, which makes Piranesi modern. As in the etchings, he positioned an element, normally either absent or neglected and confined within the background, at the very centre. Based on this, I would argue that one of the primary reasons for his enduring appeal and influence is precisely in the intrinsic multiplicity of his work. It may seem initially inconsequential, but it could in fact be the only logical result of defying convention that in the first edition of Carceri, the cloud is given an all-important central position. This central ele-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 ment confuses the viewer, leaving one unsure whether this may be a stain, smoke, or a cloud, whether it is inside or outside, below or above the ground. Importantly, in the second edition, as Figure 6.1 shows, the central cloud is often made to disappear, but not in a predictable way. Instead of attempting to reconcile the illogical perspectival constructions suggested in the firstedition, Piranesi continues to draw more complex perspectival configurations. It seems as though he wished to emphasise the contradictions and not resolve them. 164 The unbuildable series

Figure 6.1 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Carceri, The Drawbridge plate (edition 1, 1750, stain or a cloud; edition 2, 1761). The opening created by the ‘cloud’ in the first edition was not used by Piranesi to rationalise the structure but to make it more complex in the second edition.

Mirror reflection: perspective and the multiple origins of the unbuildable As evident from all of the previous examples, it is not always easy to distinguish between the series and mere copies because the notion of copying and repetitive drawing is intrinsic to both, with very differing consequences. There seems to be an obvious, even fundamental, conflict between the notions of the singular original and the serial. Simultaneously, the two opposites are inextricably bound. In contrast to the prevalent approach, I suggest that the serial production is not about the relentless production of a repetitive precise cheap copy but about an architectural project functioning in a serial fashion from the outset and in every piece. For example, the singular monument can be repeated; however, this

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 process involves a simple duplication, a creation of copies and replicas. A series does involve repetition but of the fundamental principles or rules, and not of identical units. Units share common traits but should not be mistaken for the exact copies. Each element of the series must contain substantial variations to constitute a variant yet maintain sufficient similarity to remain a part of the series. From the original series and the idea of the sky being central to Piranesi’s enquiry, we will now look at the origins of perspective. It is generally acknowledged that architectural perspective was connected The pioneering series 165 to the rediscovery of perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi during the Renaissance. Brunelleschi demonstrated the workings of perspective in accordance with the drawing of a measured object and mirror reflections.8 Note, however, that the word ‘re-discovery’ is being used here, rather than simply ‘discovery’ because it remains unclear whether this technique was not already present and only in fact reformulated or codi- fied by Brunelleschi. This experiment and its many interpretations could be said to relate perspective to the issue pertinent here, i.e. the question of the idea of the singular original versus the repetitive copy/variant. In Brunelleschi’s demonstration, the original is (for painters) the sky and (for architects) the building. The multiple copies are representations: mirror reflections of the sky and the painting of the building. The notion of the architectural object, the building, is related directly to the idea of a singular original. The eye of the observer and the sky, both mirror reflections, are not just concerned with a copy but also what follows: the sus- picious, the fake, and ultimately the less valuable. Therefore, even at the outset and in its basic set-up, perspective apparently suggests the idea of a multiple copy versus the one and only original. Thus, its ways of working overlap with one of the preconditions of the unbuildable as outside the architectural convention, engaging in the kind of practice architects ought to avoid. The perspective’s symbolic and story-telling potency has been frequently utilised in illustrating the unbuildable. Even in the case of a single object, perspectival lines suggest expansion towards an infinite imaginary horizon, giving it a direct relationship with an elusive realm, the domain of the sky. Simultaneously, perspective suggests a movement, a sequence of views; in these terms, it could be said to possess an inherent seriality. Compounded with being within the unbuildable realm and therefore produced as an aim in itself, this seriality can offer the richness of a cinematic experience. In this sense, we could say that perspective becomes the narrative of architecture.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Even at a casual glance at various accounts given Brunelleschi’s experiment, we note that the idea of a singular origin is problematic. Instead, the notion of multiple starting points over a period of time is more appropriate and plausible. More so in the case of the architectural series, we cannot talk about a singular cause or a beginning but of plural, multiple points. The origins of an architectural series are most likely rooted in the advent of printing, which makes possible the idea of an architectural project without a building, architecture simply as a portfolio or a book. Reading large plans and other orthogonal drawings on pages of a bound book can 166 The unbuildable series be difficult because you must be able to move, rotate, and overlay them. Perspective tends to work extremely well as a sequence of pages in a book or as a wall exhibition. In these terms, there is a considerable difference between Benjamin’s object of art in the age of mechanical reproduction and a serial architectural object. The process Benjamin addresses is the reproduction, the repetition of an identical ‘copy’ based on a master copy. The constituent elements of a series are not copies and therefore cannot be identical. For Benjamin, mechanical reproduction creates a master unit or a ‘proto- type’ and a repetitive copy, which is permanently in conflict with the old ‘original’. A series is comprised of variants. With an in-built contradiction, it appears to undermine the idea of ‘the original’; yet, with every ‘copy’ having subtle differences from the previous ones, the notion of the original as the unattainable ideal is being reaffirmed. However, the original in a series remains an incomplete object, elusive and multiple. Before examining the specifics that make these projects a series in architectural terms, let us first reiterate the characteristics that appear, confusingly at times, intrinsic to the series as a whole. The drawings are either without a site altogether or in shifting locations. They operate on a number of scales simultaneously and are a-scalar; each a part of a series can be understood using a range of scales – from the scale of a graphic logo or a product, to a collection of spaces, and to the scale of a city. They tend to work against the notion of a singular centre, often in fact disturbing the very idea of centrality. The series are sequential, inherently consistent with working as a book or an exhibition. Because of the subtle differences between them, it is difficult to perceive the total number of variants as a series, making them either ‘infinite’ or relying on an arbitrary ‘final’ number at the outset. I would suggest that the origins of the unbuildable are connected to the beginnings of architectural drawing as an end in itself, and the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 re-invention(s) of perspective. Technological inventions, which made copying cheaper and easier, such as an invention of screen printing for Piranesi, and later photography and photocopying, played an important part in this development. The advancements of drawing reproduction in this way meant that you could produce the negative – lithographic plate, which is then reproduced in a large quantity of copies. I would insist on the use of plural, i.e. origins, and not singular term, as a reflection of a change in an architectural drawing production, and the understanding The pioneering series 167 of historical shifts. One such strand I would connect with Piranesi’s Carceri, the architectural project without a plan, two editions of perspectival etchings on copper plates. The idea of the ‘new’ is intrinsically connected with the notion of the singular and unique original. The ‘original’ should be in some ways perceived as ‘new’ at the time of its appearance, and all of the works in between the two perceived as ‘new’ ones can only be copies of ideas that occurred previously. So, in relation to both the original and the new, repetition and difference are important processes to consider. However, there is also an established connection between new, repetition, and series; this is only apparently paradoxical. Following a similar vein of argument, when discussing the idea of the ‘new’ and how elusive it can be in architecture, Mark Wigley9 conditioned the appearance of something ‘new’ with the disappearance of something else. Instead of being satisfied with the simple ‘new’ brought about when something disappears, Wigley looked for a stronger, more fundamental form of newness that can only be brought about not when something disappears but only when it is fully extinct, i.e. annihilated. In this sense, Wigley called for a theory of a fundamental rupture, a ‘theory of extinction’ in architecture. Furthermore, Wigley suggests that this extinction cannot happen in one huge step; instead, it can only happen through an infinite number of tiny changes, through a copy and repetition of changes so small they might be nearly imperceptible. This question of the two infinites, an infinitely large number of infinitely small changes, clearly links the notion of ‘new’ and the focus of this chapter, an architectural project as a series. An answer to the series cannot be given in one piece. Instead, it is as though several variations on the same ‘theme’ are similarly developed, and any one cannot be considered to be any more or less valid than the other. The question remains whether the idea of destruction is or has been relevant in architecture. In this sense, I propose that an architectural project as a series is about

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 the reproduction, not of any ‘authentic’ original, but of a ‘variety’. The purpose in the series is to generate elements that, albeit repetitive, can combine in as many ways as possible. The changeable nature of the scale, site, and centre are all used to reproduce a variety, and not one but multiple solutions. Opposed to the idea of a singular architectural proposal, a series can become instrumental as a critical and speculative tool for investigation and an important locus of different forms of architectural knowledge. The aim of a series is not to have a singular possibility for a 168 The unbuildable series specific problem but to test a multitude of likely solutions for a problem that, although intrinsically architectural, cannot have a building as an answer. A series becomes complete and abandoned once the multiple likely solutions are deemed to have been exhausted. Once these ‘possibilities’ start to become predictable and nearly streamlined into a defined and ‘correct’ sequence, a series must cease. Without a reason for speculation, there can no longer be variation, the production of a series must cease. It is also likely that the limits can be found already in Piranesi’s Carceri, or even earlier in Brunelleschi. The previous arguments bring the discussion forward towards the current age and the digital mass production of drawing. The process Benjamin was lamenting has been accelerated further in the current age of the digital (or perhaps we should say post-digital, or computational) reproduction. Douglas Davis argued as follows:

There is no longer a clear conceptual distinction between original and reproduction in virtually any medium… What has happened to the aura surrounding the original work of art, so prized by generations of collectors and critics? Digitalization transfers this aura to the individuated copy. Artist and viewer perform together. The dead replica and the living, authentic original are merging, like lov- ers entwined in mutual ecstasy.10

Davis suggests that the idea of the aura has in fact all but diminished.11 I would also argue that precisely because an art piece has been copied and reproduced in a multitude of slightly different copies, the aura of such a piece is enhanced. One’s wish to get closer to the original physical artefact (if such an object exists) grows even stronger. In a way, the original is being heavily protected by a multitude of easily accessible copies. Consequently, the wish to access the original does not get diminished,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 but the actual contact occurs even more rarely. Our access to many buildings will be largely digital, to the point that sometimes we do not wish to see the object of interest in case it disappoints, and does not live up to our expectations. To Davis, ‘it is the repetitive copy that is dead, not the original. The one and the other are not separate’.12 Davis indicates a curious occurrence with ‘technological’ reproduction that Benjamin did not predict, that a copy reproduced ‘technologically’ appears far from identical; in fact, it is always ever so slightly altered. This is how the The pioneering series 169 original itself could be interpreted to be infinitely changeable from the outset. However, I would not say that this makes an identical copy dead, although the quality of reproduction may be variable. Yet, the unbuildable is one of the last domains of authorship and as such, re-asserts the authority of the architect and an individual signature. Within a seemingly infinite likelihood of copying, the idea of authorship only apparently diminishes. In fact, it becomes asserted and repeatedly re-confirmed. Working in a series involves delays in the production and reduces the likelihood of an end at any given point. Any variant in a series could be the last one, and any one can be the beginning of a new series. A series is shown to outline a field of a multitude of correlated possibilities. This involves an element of repetition but also the process of variation, whereby inventive strategies can develop to influence and shift architectural thinking. The various ‘pictorial detours’, such as the transformations of the sky, further complicate the idea of the end and the ‘completeness’ of a series, creating at once a simultaneous excess of the visual and an absence of the original. Although connected to both repetition and reproduction, a series should be understood as an essentially different mode of production. With the original not absent but multiple, we could define the series primarily as an open-ended process, where the end result is difficult, if not impossible, to locate. One thought then is that the series is made complete once it becomes familiar, when it conforms to our expectations. To the extent that we examine the series as another manifestation of the unbuildable, the latter is to remain to a great degree unfamiliar, vague, and out-of-context. That means that the final state should remain elusive: a sign of something new, something outside of the norm filtering through the recognisable and the ordinary. If the unbuildable is about conceiving that one is in an unfamiliar territory, if it is to truly remain ‘strange’, then this moment of recognition, the culmination of the search, can never be fully crystallised; all of the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 ‘pieces’ can never fall into place. The final moment should remain elusive, the totality incomplete. In my understanding, both identical copying and serial production have become accelerated and more intertwined than before. In several ways, every series must be considered as, at least in small part, a digital one, even those much earlier on, which used copper plates or a microscope instead of computers. In the same vein, an argument could be made to de-consider some of the current production as following the 170 The unbuildable series modes that are considered to be similar to those by signature architects years ago, despite parts of the drawing being produced by computational technology. Currently, architects, such as Zaha Hadid or Norman Foster, are unlikely to produce more than a sketch themselves, often drawn after the building is completed perhaps because they rely on an analogue way of thinking to produce buildings despite part of the process being highly digitised. Such signature sketches are produced so they appear to be part of the process, when in fact the architects themselves have been replaced by armies of technicians going through multiple variants, only very few of which make it towards the final built form. All that is left seems to be their signature. This is different from the artistic production involving the unbuildable, where the engagement between the individual work and the scale of the works generally retains a direct connection. However, the signature is retained.

Notes 1 Indeed, this technique of working on several pieces at once was commonly used in painting in order not to overwork and thus ruin ‘a promising’ start of one by relying on just one. 2 Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987. 3 Étienne-Louis Boullée, 1728–1799. 4 Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, 1736–1806. 5 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, ‘Symbolic Geometry in French Architecture in the Late Eighteenth Century’, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 1983, p. 161. 6 A. Hyatt Mayor, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, H. Bittner and Company, New York, 1952, p. 25. 7 Cited from Sullust in John Wilton Ely, The Mind and Art of GB Piranesi, Thames & Hudson, London, 1978, p. 21. 8 For an in-depth description of the experiment, see Giulio Carlo Argan, ‘The Architecture of Brunelleschi and the Origins of Perspective Theory in the Fifteenth Century’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 9, 1946, pp. 102–5. 9 Mark Wigley, ‘Keynote lecture’, Critique of the New PhD Symposium, Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, May 2007. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 10 Douglas Davis, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction’, Leonardo, Vol. 28, No. 5, Third Annual New York Digital Salon, MIT Press, 1995, p. 381. 11 Ibid, p. 384. 12 Ibid, p. 385. Conclusion

At this point, perhaps we need to remind ourselves of the notion of a shifting sky in the projects viewed. The idea of a cloud, the elusive and incomplete element, is interpreted to serve as a register of otherwise potentially imperceptible changes. For Tatlin’s Tower, the sky is a backdrop on which propagation messages can be projected, increasing the scale and influence of the structure as a whole. The unbuildable is literally expanded on the scale of the sky itself. In the case of the Palace, the cloud was used to enhance the scale of the Palace but pushed itself forward in front of the statue, dominating and obscuring it from view. Lissitzky’s Cloud Iron is formed around a fragmented centre, creating a circular horizon. In that sense, Lissitzky’s PROUN series demonstrates the architectural drawing transforming into a-scalar space with multiple representation techniques ranging from painting, sculpture, and interior space, to finally, a series of buildings in an urban context. Despite this series, at first glance, seeming to be all about an enclosure, a pure interior, it can be considered to be the exact opposite, the infinite and immaterial. It embodies not just duality but also a multiplicity of meaning. The complete absence of sky in Chernikhov’s opus could be interpreted to suggest virtual space. The cloud disappears entirely from his most famous industrial series and most other works only to make a brief appearance in the one cycle most out of character with the rest, the Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Palaces of Communism. The only constant, the size of the drawings, serves similarly as a computer screen, allowing for other elements to be infinitely changeable. At the end or at the beginning, the cloud in Piranesi’s Carceri is positioned at the very centre of his etchings. The cloud is the sign of a negation of the centre and a finite singular architectural object. In the second, double edition of the etchings, the cloud does not become resolved; it is made more complex, thus confirming the idea that the 172 Conclusion unbuildable is relative to speculation and discovery, not a singular fixed solution. The peak period for the unbuildable is strongly related to the advances of image-making, i.e. perspective, printing, photography, cinema, and other technologies. The proliferation of the depictions of the unbuildable became exacerbated in the Soviet Union by the emergence of an entirely new social and political system. Characterised by the ‘new’ type of mass audience, this new society combined with the absence of the forces of the capitalist market gave rise to a particular kind of authorship and production in architecture. Because of the incessant presence as a visual reference, both in terms of visual clichés and utopian elements, niggling suspicion follows: that the limits may be already present not in the peak but at the very beginning and from the outset. The question now, at the end of this book, must include how and whether the unbuildable is still relevant to the current digital (or perhaps we should call it post-digital) or computational age. Can the drawings of the unbuildable continue to be considered to constitute a field for an important architectural investigation where pertinent architectural facts tend to be revealed independently from building? Is it possible that by understanding how several influential examples of the unbuildable from the past continue to influence the current architectural discourse, in some way, can help us address the exponential increase in the production of imagery characteristic of our age? Is there a future for the unbuildable? With perpetual iterations of the buildable and the unbuildable in architectural production, there seems to be little doubt that there will be many more instances of overlapping and convergence. A link that so far seems only to have been hinted upon suggests that it is not despite but precisely because of the lack of what we may call much reliable material proof, the unbuildable can operate through different kinds of ‘facts’. These facts may be visual, akin to the pictorial

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 elements previously analysed, they can be written or even material. In this way, the unbuildable continues to influence architectural discourse and constitutes a paradigm with an important role in the development of architectural thinking. By functioning precisely on the limits of the architectural, it alters and expands its preconceived borders. It is precisely because of the refusal to engage with the actual ‘building’, and therefore, being frequently denied the status of architecture, that the unbuildable can succeed in challenging the very definition of the architectural. Conclusion 173 Having said this, the absence not only of the final outcome, the physical object, but of the much substantially material evidence perpet- uates curiosity towards the unbuildable. The drawings of the unbuildable were found to have an ability to signify ‘beginnings’; to inspire returns, referencing, copying and varied interpretations. Because they remain overwhelmingly pictorial and resist accurate interpretations, such drawings act as a constant reference or return points. With this kind of presence, they influence the way we think, not just by an architectural drawing and wider architectural issues but by the design of the building itself. The lack of materiality, in fact, was shown not to be a hindrance but to be instrumental in this process. The drawings of the unbuildable, particularly from this peak period, have this persistent nostalgia that paradoxically should be referred to as ‘nostalgia of the future’, which, even if misplaced, makes us frequently revisit them. In many respects, the unbuildable compensates for the lack of materiality through the excess of the visual, the ability to exist at multiple scales, in many locations, repeated and copied as a reference or through multiple associations. Based on this, along with others, is the counter-intuitive, even absurd, argument that often the unbuildable should be perceived to be the most buildable of all. We observed that when addressing serial architectural production, it is not the case that the unique authentic copy is missing. In a series, in essence, the original itself becomes plural, defined as multiple from the outset. We noted how the unbuildable exists in a number of different locations, with the increase of copies and architecture mimicking one another. Still, the same is true about a lot of buildings. One pertinent example in this respect is Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, and its negative copy, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. In this case of 1:1 copy, the building was turned upside-down, the plan was changed from back to front, and the famous façade was painted black instead of white. Although

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 other copies may have been destroyed at the request of Le Corbusier’s foundation in Paris, the Australian one received architectural awards. In terms of the contemporary architectural practice, it seems that it will become increasingly difficult for architects to contain their work as either purely buildable or unbuildable. More of an overlap and blurring of boundaries is inevitable. In these terms, the question of the ‘new’ will continue to be relevant. In fact, it can only become more pertinent in the age of repetitive sameness and relentless Internet posts. One must 174 Conclusion contemplate the likelihood that in the current era of seemingly endless repetitions, we have long surpassed the point where the unbuildable is outside of convention. In this case, we might conclude that the boundaries of the ‘architectural’ have been moved so far apart, that the unbuildable finds itself close to the centre and inside architecture proper. This means that the unbuildable must no longer be considered as a distinct practice. It is now likely to literally scan any image and produce it in a variety of scales and materials. Will this change, just like the proliferation of the unbuildable images, result in a similar propagation of material products, including buildings that test and stretch the notion of ‘architectural’? How that is going to affect imagery production is just one of the many question this study presents. The variety may likely diminish; however, the production and the quantity of imagery can only seemingly and endlessly increase. Connected to this interrogation and, one could say, expansion of the ‘architectural’ realm is the question of authorship. As demonstrated from the beginning, the authors of the unbuildable have been often denied the status of an architect. The evidence examined demonstrated that the drawing production in this context not only transformed but also altered the core definition of what constitutes authorship. Still, I had to resist a simplified reading of each of the terms and, in particular, that of the ‘author’. It is more convincing and productive to think of authorship in this context as being hybridised and complex, which is why many well- established terms, such as the Constructor, that were used to character- ise a creator during that period of time, may be inadequate. This term too easily becomes reduced to and closely aligned with Constructivism, itself too neatly labelled as a movement. The very basis of giving a single name for such a wide-ranging number of disparate practices seems to be unsubstantial. In fact, instead of using commonly accepted yet reductive terms, all of the chosen examples have been treated in terms of multi-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 ple authorships and varied pieces of work, with every single one evaluated in its own right. Likewise, it was shown that actually not only can one author work in a number of different ways but their works can simultaneously belong to two or more different types of practice. Many contradictions found in the interpretations of the Palace and the Tower opened a myriad of different suggestions rather than finite conclusions. This showed that the unbuildable is relative to architectural speculation, drawing and imagining different possibilities, which at times can be so Conclusion 175 convincing that they become a book, an exhibition, or even a piece of furniture. I would suggest that symbols, such as Tatlin’s Tower, can no longer be superseded in the same singular fashion. Instead, a larger number of symbols may continue to emerge, increasing in number and variety but decreasing in the duration of influence they possibly exert. The same is true of references in this book, particularly Benjamin’s notion of Technological Reproducibility, of which the influence can only become larger. Any new reference will easily be given less attention and importance simply because there are too many from which to choose. An idea of a long tail becomes relevant here, where an overall number of ideas may be longer, but the ‘head’ – what one has to achieve to leap towards novelty – is small. Every ‘new’ symbol is either a copy or a variant. There can no longer be death of painting, death of perspective, or the banishment of hand drawings. With photomontage combining graphics, photographs, photocopying, and photograms, the processes of image making developed in this period are still being used, although in an accelerated or more sophisticated fashion. Interestingly, there seems to be a recent trend towards using black-and-white and hand drawings, if UK architecture schools are indicative. More versions will be created, more subversions, interpretations, and misinterpretations, including instances of convergence when digital becomes hand-produced and vice versa. Finally, it seems plausible to propose that the buildable may continue to increasingly resemble the unbuildable, mimicking its traits, such as scalelessness, existing on multiple sites and excessive visuality. This may tend to blur the distinction between the two and may even eventually abolish the distinction, meaning that every building, in part, becomes unbuildable and vice versa. The very task of detecting the ‘new’, the significant change, which seems to happen gradually and is apparently easily missed and unrecog-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 nised, thus becomes more complicated. Resisting building is not going to become impossible, once it becomes sufficiently inexpensive and easy to produce large three-dimensional artefacts, but it will probably be less so. The characteristics we observed, to start with, as belonging to the category of the unbuildable, seem already to have affected architectural authorship in general, dividing, splitting, and simultaneously proliferating the role to such a degree that we rarely encounter those who strictly confine themselves within any particular type of practice. Instead, we come across 176 Conclusion more examples of interdisciplinary practices and designers who are hard to pinpoint or classify. Perhaps there will not be many architects whose entire production could be contained within the unbuildable. The temptation of building at least part of it as a cheaper, less elaborate variant has already become too strong. One such example could be the Olympics Tower in London, which, of course, has already been compared to its famous Russian counterpart. This tower has no particular purpose other than to celebrate an ephemeral event. An artist and an engineer seem to be building it simply because they can. At the same time, drawing by hand will never cease altogether as long as there are those who enjoy manual drawing and are able to touch and hold onto the product of their work. Similarly, one could ask what is going to happen to the manual production of drawings, for which the unbuildable is one of the last bastions. It seems unlikely that this will completely disappear, certainly because of architectural education and its connection with both manual production and the unbuildable. The advent of photography and computer imaging techniques did not destroy painting, although contemporary painters are increasingly less able to avoid using other techniques, at least as a part of their process. It seems that there will always be those who embrace the first available new technique and dismiss all others. At the same time, many will continue to try to defend what they know and are accustomed to, rejecting the ‘new’. However, this elusive newness can likely be discovered with either of those approaches. The search itself may have become more complex; however, the tools for conducting such an investigation have also become more sophisticated. Likewise, with such a quantity of data, identifying the variants in a series, as opposed to mere repetitive copies, seems to have become more complex. We frequently receive complaints of a visual overload and suggestions that our environments are becoming far too image-based. Akin to other images, architectural drawings have become easily produced and just

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 as easily discarded and rendered invisible. The generation of all data, including the visual, is on an exponential curve, probably at the ‘knee’ point, beyond which it could become unrecognisable. In Architecture in the Age of Printing, Mario Carpo1 has argued that digital reproduction has had a profound impact on the production of architecture, and not necessarily in the ways we can predict or fully understand. There seems to be little profit in refuting this. However, the impact of mechanical or digital production on the category of the unbuildable may be intrinsically limited. Undoubtedly, the majority of Conclusion 177 drawings produced to build buildings will use computers and, at the very least, involve some type of digital production of images. However, this does not mean that there are not and that there will not always be those who will continue to produce drawings as though the digital revolution never occurred. Precisely, this is why the unbuildable may be one of the last strongholds of the handmade architectural drawings. The aura, the unique signature of the authorial precision, in this category, is not diminished but the opposite – it becomes amplified. Not long ago, there was a period when everything digital was automatically considered to be valuable because of the novelty of the media. Several decades later, with online publishing becoming increasingly easy and inexpensive, items that were determined to be significant from the outset are considered worthy of printing, and just extremely important ones will exist as physical artefacts on a large scale. Several examples demonstrated that the ‘digital’ approach of thinking of drawings may have started before the actual digital technologies became available. Namely, Piranesi was able to anticipate ‘digital’ ways of working that are now found to be commonplace. Many, if not most, of the physical drawings used as examples in this book have already gone missing or in several cases are likely to actually deteriorate to the point of material destruction and disappearance. Could this be the destruction which presupposes something new as Wigley proposed? One can continue to speculate. Additionally, the inevitable general decrease in the production of drawings is observed as physical artefacts. This gradual loss of materiality can only improve the stature and the importance of these cases and continue to fuel more powerful speculations. The majority of the buildings are only accessed through digital means, which makes several unbuildable examples more pertinent and influential, in a sense more real than others. Eventually, the majority of examples of the unbuildable may end up

Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 being completely immaterial and accessible only in the digital realm. This perspective concludes the book in a poetically just place, whereby the drawn artefacts of the peak of the unbuildable eventually escape materiality altogether.

Note 1 Mario Carpo, Architecture in the Age of Printing: Orality, Writing, Typography, and Printed Images in the History of Architectural Theory, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001. Bibliography

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Kestutis Paul Zygas, ‘Tatlin’s Tower Reconsidered’, Architectural Association Quarterly, Vol. 8 No. 2, London, 1976, pp. 15–28.

Soviet Journals Arkitektura CCCP 1934–1941; Moskva Gos Arkhitekturnoe Izdvo, 1933–1991; USSR in Construction 1936 Moscow; State Publishing House of the RSFSR, 1930–1949. Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Image credits

Figure I.1 Le Corbusier Foundation/DACS Figure I.2 Sokirko and Tkanchenko Archive Figure 1.1 Vladimir Tatlin 1919 Figure 1.2 Yuri Avvakumov 1980 (left); Nerma Cridge 2013 (right) Figure 1.3 Unknown author 1925 or 1927 Figure 1.4 Yuri Avvakumov 1980 Figure 1.5 Zlatko Kopčić 2012 Figure 2.1 Schusev State Museum of Architecture, ‘halo’ added by the author Figure 2.2 Olav Orheim, 1965; Norwegian Polar Institute Figure 2.3 Schusev State Museum of Architecture Figure 2.4 Collage of Tatlin’s Tower and Palace of the Soviets, composed by the author Figure 3.1 El Lissitzky, Tatlin at Work, 1920 Figure 4.1 El Lissitzky, Lenin Tribune, PROUN no. 85, 1920 Figure 4.2 El Lissitzky, Cloud Iron: Rendered Axonometric Figure 5.1 Schusev State Museum of Architecture (left); Courtesy of Iakov Chernikhov Foundation (right) Figure 5.2 Courtesy of Iakov Chernikhov Foundation Figure 5.3 Courtesy of Iakov Chernikhov Foundation Figure 5.4 Courtesy of Iakov Chernikhov Foundation Figure 5.5 Arsenii Borissov, 2014 Figure 6.1 The British Museum, rectangle added by the author Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Index

Abraham, Raimund 6 Buck-Morss, Susan 88–89 allegorical architecture 6 buildable 5, 7, 16 American skyscrapers 86, 89, 129 Anderson, Darran 27 camera 50 architects, social role of 4 capitalism 119 architectural competitions 65–75; Carceri (Piranesi) 9, 157–158, see also Palace of the Soviets 160–170, 171 architectural drawings 10–11; of Carpo, Mario 176 Chernikhov 140–158; objections CCTV building 136–137 to 1–4; production of 4–5; scale of Chakhava, George 136 143–144 Chernikhov, Iakov 16, 115, 140–159 architectural education 4–5 China 137 architectural series 15–16, 115–120, Christ the Saviour Cathedral 68, 69, 173; Carceri 160–170, 171; of 71, 73–74, 85 Chernikhov 140–159; Horizontal churches 68–69 Skyscraper Series 127–139; PROUN cinema 50, 88–90, 108, 119–120 series 16, 115, 127–128, 131, cloud 171–172 135–136, 137, 171 Cloud Iron 15, 130–137, 171 architecture 10 Cloud Stirrups 135 Arp, Hans 128, 137 Cold War 87, 88 ‘aura’ 154–155, 157, 168 Communism 87, 155 Australian Institute of Aboriginal and conceptual architecture 6 Torres Strait Islander Studies 173 Congrès International d’Architecture avant-garde 13, 14, 66, 89, 91, 92, 103, Moderne (CIAM) 75–76 105, 106–115, 130, 136 Constructivism 13–15, 26, 27, Avvakumov, Yuri 53 29–30, 35, 40, 41, 52–55, 66, Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 67, 75, 76, 104, 107, 109–112, Banham, Reyner 2–4, 17n6 115, 137 Barris, Roann 112 Cook, Peter 148–151 Benjamin, Walter 10, 11, 42, 108, Cooke, Catherine 48–49, 90–92, 140, 115, 117–119, 131, 150, 154, 166, 141, 148 168, 175 copying 16, 117–120, 127, 137, Bevin, Ernest 87 153–154, 162–170, 173 Boym, Svetlana 27, 28 Craig, Michael 37 Brunelleschi, Filippo 8, 9, 165 critical architecture 6 Index 191 Cross, Chris 37 Grosz, George 40 culture 113–115 Groys, Boris 106–111, 130, 131, 136

Dadaists 40, 115, 138 Hadid, Zaha 170 Davis, Douglas 168 Hamilton, Hector O. 74 Degot, Ekaterina 154–155 Hammer and Sickle 141, 143, 144 Delaunay, Robert 44 Harbison, Robert 7, 150 digital reproduction 176–177 Hausmann 40 disembodied architecture 6, 90 Hays, K. Michael 40 Dmitriev, Vsevolod 56 Heartfield, John 40 drawings (see also architectural hero-projects 45 drawings): computerized Hoisington, Sona Stephan 70, 78 176–177; manual production of 176; Holl, Steven 136 orthogonal 2, 12; perspectival 8–9, Hollywood 89 11–12; renderings 2; working 5 Horizontal Skyscraper Series 127–139 dystopia 101 Hudson, Hugh D., Jr. 105

Eiffel Tower 38, 41, 42, 44 Ikonnikov, Andrei 40, 80 electrification 48–50 industrial design 112 Empire State Building 38 innovation 46 ‘The End of Capital’ event 55–56 interdisciplinary practices 176 enlightenment 48–49 Iofan, Boris 66–69, 74–75 everyday objects 52 Italian Futurists 40

fantasy 52, 70 John the Baptist 46 Feuchtwanger, Lion 49, 76 Josephson, Paul R. 45 Finegonov, K. I. 78 First Five-Year Plan 70–71, 83–84, 150 Kaganhovich, Lazar 145 Followers of the New Art 127 Kavtaradze, Sergei 72, 86 Forty, Adrian 2 Khiger, Roman 148 Foster, Norman 170 Kiaer, Christina 112 The Foundation Pit (Platonov) 70 King Kong 88, 89, 154 functional architecture 100, 101 Klutcic, Gustav 48 ‘future’ 113–114 Koolhaas, Rem 30, 137 Kracauer, Siegfried 56 Gabo, Naum 29 Krauss, Rosalind 119–120 Gan, Aleksey 107, 112 Gelfreikh, Vladimir 67 Le Corbusier 2, 3, 17n3, 17n4, 173 Georgia 136 Lenin, Vladimir 14, 27–28, 30–34, 41, Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Ghirardo, Diane 4 46, 48, 50, 66, 73, 74, 76, 79–80, Gide, Andre 76 85, 91, 100–102, 131 Giedion, Sigfried 56, 75–76, 102–103 Leningrad 14 Gogol, Nikolai 73 Lenin’s mausoleum 101, 104–105 Golosov, Ilya 39 Lenin’s statues 85–88, 137 Gombrich, Ernst 9 Lenin Tribune, PROUN no. 85 Gorelev, Gavriil Nikitich 78 127–128 Gorskii, M. 52 LeTatlin 52–53, 134 Griffiths, Sean 6 light 48–50, 90–92 192 Index El Lissitzky 16, 29, 82, 115, 116, 127, New Left publishing house 24 128, 129–139, 155, 171 new media 50 Lizon, Peter 67, 76, 90 New Moscow 90 Lodder, Christina 28, 35, 36, 37, Novodevichy Convent 25–26 54, 107 London Olympic Tower 43, 176 Okhotnyi riad 71 Loos, Adolf 1–2, 100, 102 ‘old’ 154 Lozowick, Louis 28–29 OMA 137 Lubetkin, Berthold 87 101 Compositions 141, 143, 145, 146 Lunacharsky, Anatoly 28, 74 original 118–120, 157, 167, 168–169 Lynton, Norbert 28, 34–35, 36, orthogonal drawings 2, 8, 12 37–38, 39, 46 painting 108 machine art 40 Palace of Culture 136 Malevich, Kazimir 27, 127, 137 Palace of Labour 66, 67, 75 manual production 176 Palace of the Soviets 15, 58, 65–99, mass audience 111–112, 119, 120, 100, 129, 130, 137, 154; chronology 155, 172 of 65–75; cinematic image Mayakovsky, Vladimir 14, 33, 106 production 88–90; conceptual Mayor, A. Hyatt 161–162 predecessors to 75–77; design of mechanical 117 74–77, 79, 90–92, 101, 103–105, mechanical reproduction 117, 166 114; drawings of 82–85; function Medvedkin, Aleksandr 90 of 104–105; height of 75; interior Melnikov, Konstantin 66 perspectives 83–84; location for 71; Milner, John 29 model of 78; as monumental mirror reflection 164–170 105–106; planning of 71–74; reaction modern architecture 73, 74, to 75–77; scale of 73; swimming pool 75–77, 102–103 of 68, 80–81; as unbuildable 80–90; modernism 75–77, 102–103, 109 visual presentation of 78–82, 114 Moholy-Nagy, László 44 palaces 72–73, 135–136 MOLPOSNOVIS 127 Palaces of Communism 141, 142, 153 monumental 55–58, 73, 101, Palaces of Socialism 153 105–106 Pantheons of the Great Patriotic War monumentality 102–103 142, 152–153 monumental propaganda 32–34, 69, paper architecture 6 100, 107 Paperny, Vladimir 76, 102, 107, 113, monuments 14, 16, 33, 44–45, 47, 114–115 100, 102–103; see also specific Pérez-Gómez, Alberto 161 monuments perspectival drawings 8–9, 11–12 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Moscow 14, 34–37, 49–50, 72, 79–80, perspective 31–32, 164–170 87–89, 128–129, 131, 137 photographs 44 Moscow Metro 71, 114 photography 50, 118, 120, 175, 176 Moscow-Volga canal 71 photomontage 31–32, 175 Musil, Robert 47 pictorial detour 10, 11, 42, 150 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista 9, 157–158, Nagakura, Takehiko 37 160–170, 171, 177 ‘new’ 12–13, 25, 32–33, 43–44, 57, plans 11–12 70–71, 127, 149, 154, 167, 172, Platonov, Andrei 70 175, 176 poetic justice 47 Index 193 poetic structure 46–47 Stalin, Joseph 18n21, 31, 46, 48, 72, Popova, Liubov 49, 55, 112 75, 77, 81, 85, 88, 89, 106, 108 POSNOVIS 127 Stalinist art 106–109 Prager, Karel 136 St Basil’s Cathedral 25 Prix, Wolf D. 24 St Petersburg 14, 18n21, 34–35, Productivism 13, 112 36, 37 PROUN series 16, 115, 127–128, 131, street spectacles 106–107, 114 135–136, 137, 171 Strigalev, Anatolii 38–39 Punin, Nikolay 28–29, 41 structure 10–11 swimming pools 68–69, 80–81 radiant 91–92 symbols 175 Radio Tower 44 Red Square 101 Tafuri, Manfredo 160 Red Tower (Avvakumov) 53 Tales of Industry 141, 142 Renaissance 8 Tarkhanov, Alexei 72 rendering 2 Tatlin, Vladimir 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34, repetition 27, 41, 50, 57, 90, 106, 115, 39–41, 52–54, 116, 137 117, 119, 127, 131, 135, 142, 149, Tatlin’s Tower 15, 23–64, 75, 84, 151–152, 154, 155, 162–169, 174 90, 100, 102, 104–105, 130, reproduction 117–120, 127, 131, 154, 175; absence of plan for 152–154, 164–170, 175–177 39–40; comparisons 25–26, revolution 27, 45 30, 41–47; design of 103–104; Rodchenko, Alexander 39, 44 drawings of 34, 35, 38–40; rotation 26–27, 45 fragments of 57–58; height of 38; Rowell, Margit 30 interpretations of 29–34, 46–47; Russia 14 location for 34–37; models 35–39, Russian Antarctic Base 86–87 49–52, 114; as monumental Russian Orthodox Church 26 55–58, 105–106; photographs of 35, 36, 38, 41; planning of Schlögel, Karl 25–26, 73, 80, 84, 50–55; propaganda and 25–34; 85–86, 87, 131 reaction to 27–29, 32–34; scale Shchuko, Vladimir 67, 75 37–50; structure 26–28, 44–45; Schwartz, Hillel 153–154 as symbol 57; visual reference to Schwartz, Morton 89 24–25 series, see architectural series technological 117 Shabolovka Tower, see Shukhov Tower technological reproduction 117–118, shaded drawing 2 168–169, 175 Shevchenko 39 technology 45, 46, 48, 135, 166 shifting sky 171–172 technology of display 45–46, 48, 49 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016 Shklovsky, Viktor 28, 32, 46–47 theoretical architecture 6 Shukhov Tower 41–44, 46 Third International 30, 35, 38, 46 single idea 149 Tolstoy, Vladimir 106–107 skyscrapers 86, 89, 128–139 tombs 14, 100, 101, 103; see also socialism 74, 119, 120 Palace of the Soviets socialist-realism 14, 48, 66, 67, 68, Tower of Babel 24 90–92, 103, 105, 106–115, 134, 135 Trotsky, Leon 27–28 Soviet Union 12–14, 32, 45, 48–50, Tugendkhol, Yakov 101–102 70–71, 103, 104, 113, 154–155, 172 Tupitsyn, Margarita 35 spiral 25–26 two-dimensional images 44 194 Index Umansky, Konstantin 40 Villa Savoye 173 unbuildable 102; buildable and 5, 16; visual excess 11 category of 1–17; characteristics of 38; defining 7; functions of 47; The War of the Worlds 25, 30 origins of 164–170; relevance of water 72 172–173; representations of 43–44; Water Tower 156 utopia and 13; visibility of 47 wedding cake architecture 114 unbuilt projects 5–6 Wigley, Mark 12, 167, 177 UNOVIS 127, 128 Wolfe, Bertram D. 18n20 urban celebrations 55–56 Wolfram, Eddie 40 urban topography 48–50 working drawings 5 utopia 13, 32, 40–41, 46, 50, 58, 66, Wright, Frank Lloyd 75 70, 101, 105, 135, 172 Young Followers of the New Art 127 variety 167–168 Verso 24 Zholtovsky, I. V. 74 Vesnin, Alexander 55 Zinoviev, Aleksandar 92 Vesnin Brothers 103 Žižek, Slavoj 88–89 Downloaded by [New York University] at 06:09 16 August 2016