Royal Academy: 'Building The Revolution' free lunchtime lecture

Revolution: Ideals and Realities in Soviet Art and Architecture 1915–1935
Building The Revolution Free Lunchtime Lecture


A lecture by MaryAnne Stevens, exhibition co-curator, Royal Academy of Arts.
1–2pm; doors open at 12.30pm. 
7 November 2011 in the Reynolds Room, a John Madejski Fine Room, Royal Academy, London.


MaryAnne Stevens will be discussing the new RA exhibition which examines Russian avant-garde architecture made during a brief but intense period of design and construction that took place from c.1922 to 1935. Fired by the Constructivist art that emerged in Russia from c.1915, architects transformed this radical artistic language into three dimensions, creating structures whose innovative style embodied the energy and optimism of the new Soviet Socialist state.

The drive to forge a new Socialist society in Russia encouraged synthesis between radical art and architecture. This creative reciprocity was reflected in the engagement with architectural ideas and projects of such artists as Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, Liubov Popova, El Lizzitsky, Ivan Kluin and Gustav Klucis, and in designs by such architects as Konstantin Melnikov, Moisei Ginsburg, Ilia Golosov and the Vesnin brothers, as well as Le Corbusier and Erich Mendelsohn, European architects who were draughted in to help shape the new utopia.

The exhibition juxtaposes large-scale photographs of extant buildings with relevant Constructivist drawings and paintings, vintage photographs and periodicals. Many of the works have never been shown in the UK before.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/events/talks/revolution-ideals-and-realities-in-soviet-art-and-architecture-19151935,1777,EV.html