By the 1920s, airplane travel had made art and architecture a global profession, at least in the dissemination and cross-contamination of ideas. All over the globe, colonialism and otherwise globalized commissions were spreading modernism and other sociopolitical systems around the world. These intellectual histories make for fascinating tales that reveal a secondary history behind some of our favorite designers and design icons.
A. Vesnin. Project design of the external façade of VKHUTEMAS dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. © The Schusev State Museum of Architecture Moscow / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014. Paper, printing, watercolor.
Modernism spread around Europe, but not in any particular direction. Different strains came from France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the Netherlands. The Bauhaus spread to places like the Czech Republic, while Russian Constructivism had its own influence on both Weimar and Prague. (Years later, similar ideas would cross the Atlantic to America from Rome, through the personal histories of architects like Michael Graves and Robert Venturi.)
These trans-national discussions and traveling salesmen are the focus of a new exhibition at the Martin-Gropius Bau Museum in Berlin. “Vkhutemas: A Russian Laboratory of Modernity” showcases the experimental teaching at the school that was known as the “Russian Bauhaus.” It helped propel this thinking out into the world, including via some teachers who were involved at both schools, such as Wassily Kandinsky and El Lissitzky.
N. Ladovsky. Architectural phenomenon of a communal house, 1920. © The Schusev State Museum of Architecture Moscow. Paper, ink.
I. Lamtsov. Abstractive exercise to detect the mass and weight. (Double volume), 1922. Pencil on paper.© The Schusev State Museum of Architecture Moscow.
The exhibition shows the earliest stages of Constructivist thought and how they paralleled the development of German design. Both the Vkhutemas and Bauhaus were affected by the rise of political regimes that did not value the artistic merits of the schools, and downsized them. These photographs and drawings show the early stages of an avant-garde that still echoes today. “VKhUTEMAS – A Russian Laboratory of Modernity: Architecture Designs 1920-1930” is on view until April 6, 2015, at Martin-Gropius Bau in Berlin — not far from the Bauhaus Archiv, where the “100 New Objects” exhibition is currently on view.
Exhibition of student‘s work on “Evidence and expression of mass and weight,” school year 1927-1928. © The Schusev State Museum of Architecture Moscow