Chelsea College of Arts

Rodionova Daria
History and theory

How did communist ideology affect the vector of architectural development of

USSR?
1. Introduction.
Architecture should not be separated from the political and social life of hu-
man-beings. On the contrary, “throughout the history, architects have always been in-
volved to some extent in politics, and have a nearly always sought positions of power
and influence’’.1 Communist ideology in the Soviet Union had a huge impact on the
architectural development of many modern nations: Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia,
Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, Romania,
Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Azerbaijan. The amount of affected
countries makes the topic of my analysis relevant and worth-discussing. My essay
will be structured in a following way. I argue that communist ideology had an enor-
mous impact on architecture of the 20th century. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917
has changed the vector of the architectural development of many countries listed
above. Firstly, I will analyse the general effect of ideologies on infrastructural devel-
opment. Secondly, I will outline the changes that the Revolution brought to a newly
established Soviet state. The third section will be dedicated to Stalin’s architecture
and he understood the importance of practical urban planning. Lastly, I will talk about
Khrushchev’s approach to infrastructure and the changes that he brought to the con-
struction. Moreover, in my work I will be referring to books, journals and other aca-
demic sources in the field.
2. How ideologies affect architecture.
In the beginning, it is important to understand the relationship between politi-
cal ideologies and architectural development. Erikson and Tedin define ideology as “a

1 Barbara, Miller Lane. (1986). Architects in Power: Politics and Ideology in the Work of Ernst
May and Albert Speer. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17. p. 283.
1
set of beliefs about the proper order of society and how it can be.’’2 Political ideology
is usually reflected in the course of urban planning. Furthermore, governments mas-
sively use architecture in order to propagate political ideas and beliefs of the society.3
There are several types of ideologies: anarchism, liberalism, conservatism, religious
ideologies, environmentalism, socialism, nationalism and their derivatives. For exam-
ple, many buildings in the newly sovereign post-colonial states portray ethnic, cul-
tural and religious patterns in order to cause nationalistic feelings among the popula-
tions.4 I totally agree with Miodrag Suvakovic’s argument, which claimed that ‘‘ar-
chitecture is a political and ideological practice that uses its techno-aesthetic and
techno-artistic strategies to participate in the organisation of individual and collective
human life’’.5 In my view, the most interesting architectural distinguish is between
liberal and extremely socialist (such as communist) political ideologies. Liberal ide-
ologies are more open, free and creative than socialist ones, which usually are practi-
cal rather than beautiful or unusual. Thus, I can claim that liberal ideologies are more
intellectually stimulating for architects because there are often less rules and require-
ments for their work. Socialist ideologies imply that usually there is a certain archi-
tectural plan and a set of rules that you have to follow and hence, architects in social-
ist countries are rarely required to «think outside the box».
Many constructions in liberal states are built by individual entrepreneurs,
whose aim is to generate wealth and money. That results in higher levels of overall at-
tractiveness of buildings and the usage of different and sometimes unusual materials
for their construction. New York is a perfect example of a city, which was fully built
under the liberal political discourse. It is full of unusual architectural constructions of
different styles and shapes made by independent architects (such as Thorn Mayne,
Bjarke Ingles, Frank Gehry and teams from “Diller Scofidio+Renfro), which are built
with the use of expensive materials, such as glass, acrylic based materials and natural
2 Erikson TS and Tedin KL. (2003). American Public Opinion. New York: Longman. 6th edition. p.
64.
3 Vale, J. Lawrence. (1992). Architecture, Power and National Identity. New Haven, London: Yale
University Press.
4 Gellner, Ernest (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Cornell University Press. 2nd edition. pp.
112-115.
5 Sukanovic, Miodrag, (2014). Architecture and Ideology. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 10.
2
stone of high quality. In socialist states, the majority of infrastructure is built by the
government, which implies that the whole cities can be built with accordance to the
state’s architectural plan and a certain budget with the use of exactly same materials,
which is extremely practical and pragmatic. That results in the overall likenesses of
buildings and their general unattractiveness. Magnitogorsk, an industrial city by the
Ural Mountains in Russia, which was rapidly developed by the Soviet government in
the early 1930s, is an example of a communist dream-city. All buildings are made un-
der the same urban plan. They are all made of grey bricks and they are completely
similar to each other. However, the material is extremely functional and hence, those
buildings still do not require reconstruction or redevelopment.
To sum up, I would like to state that the section above proved that there is a
strong relationship between political ideology and the vector of architectural develop-
ment. Architecture is one of the key components through which the ruling body might
express its political authority.6 In my further analysis, I will use the case study of the
Soviet Union to demonstrate my argument.
3. A revolution in architecture.
The Bolshevik Revolution has affected all spheres of livelihood and architec-
ture was not an exception. Constructivist architecture as a form of modern architec-
ture was established in the Soviet hemisphere in the early 1920s. It emerged from the
Russian Futurism art movement and it had successfully united the purpose of com-
munist ideology with the latest methods of engineering and construction. The first
state famous constructivist project was the headquarters of the Comintern in St-Pe-
tersburg built by Vladimir Tatlin. Even though the building was never fully build, the
materials used (glass and steel) and its futuristic political message set the order of ur-
ban development of 1920s.7 Interestingly, the social revolution has brought an inno-
vative approach to architecture, which had a place for «liberal» materials such as
glass and steel, however, as will be discussed in the next section, those materials were

6 Sonne, Wolfgаng. (2003). Reрresenting the Stаte: Сapital Сity Рlanning In the Early 20th Century. New York: Prestel.
7 Frampton, Kenneth. (2004). Modern Аrchitеcturе - a Criticаl History. World of Art. 3rd edition,
p. 376.
3
employed only for a very short period of time, during the first hopeful stages of the
communist political order.
Another illustrious constructivist project was the Lenin Tribune by El Lis-
sitzsky. Sima Inberman refers to Lissitzsky as a «father of international construc-
tivism» because he came to Berlin in 1921 as an emissary of the Soviet government
and influenced the beliefs of many European cultural figures from artistic circles.8
From the first years of his rule, Vladimir Lenin wanted to expand the communist ide-
ology to other nations and hence, it is believed that he sends Lissitzsky to introduce
the positive aspects of communist ideology to European intellectuals, architects and
artists.9 Moreover, shortly after the Russian civil war, the Soviet Avant-garde educa-
tional center established an architectural wing «ASNOVA – (association of modern
architects), which was led by Nikolai Ladovsky. The school was teaching students
how to create functional, cheap, pragmatic and fantastic buildings. The talent and an
enormous ambition of ASNOVA architects was repeatedly demonstrated in a number
of famous projects, which were very innovative for their time - Mosselprom store,
Izvestia headquarters, Red Banner textile factory in St Petersburg or Kharkov
Gosprom complex.1011 We can see that the revolutionary ideas, progressive way of
thinking and an unguided search for something new and modern were hugely re-
flected in the architecture of early USSR, which tried to combine pragmatic function-
ality with futurist elements. Unfortunately, the period of adventurous and risky con-
struction development, had quickly ended. It is usually argued that the constructivist
architectural path has ended with a loss of constructivist architects in a competition
for the building of the Palace of the Soviets - a supposed (it was never built) reply to
American sublime project of that time - Empire State Building. This was not the only
example of how a competition between communist (Soviet) and liberal (mostly

8 Ingberman, Sima. (1994). ABCL Internationаl Constructivist Аrchitecture 1922-1939. The MIT
Press, p. 3.
9 ibid, p. 4.
10 Khan-Magomedov, S.N. (1998). Pioneers of Soviet Architecture. Rizzoli. p. 432-435.
11 Reyner, Banham. (1971). Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Architectural Press.
pp. 297 - 299.
4
American) ideologies took place in the architectural grounds and another example of
that phenomena will be discussed in the next section.
4. Stalinist architecture.
Boris Iofan’s victory over his constructivist colleagues has started a new page
in the vector of construction development in the Soviet hemisphere. It marked the be-
ginning of Stalinist architecture, which was against the modern and futuristic ap-
proach to urban planning.12 The most of the housing projects of Stalin were created in
order to install the communist ideas in the hearts and minds of people. Their aim was
to establish the equality of the sexes, the creation of collectivist atmosphere in which
children are raised. The architectural style itself represents a combination of several
architectural styles. The style was very different from previous trends in construction
in the USSR and the architecture of 1930-1950s abroad. Under the reign of Joseph
Stalin, architectural policy contributed to the formation of a classic monumental style,
in many ways close to eclecticism, empire and art deco. Stalin’s architecture with its
monumentalism, ideology, the cult of heroic past is viewed in the context of totalitar-
ian architecture of the 20th century and sees in it typologically similar features with
modern Italian and German architecture, but in my opinion, in Stalin’s architecture
there are also many similarities with neoclassical architectural trends of the first half
of the 20th century, which are not associated with totalitarian states, for example
Northern European neoclassicism.
After the end of the Second World War, Stalinist architecture, which reached its
maturity, spread widely throughout the Soviet Union, penetrated the countries of
Eastern Europe, China and DPRK. Today, Stalin’s architecture meets the most polar
assessments - from its recognition of the outstanding achievement of the Soviet and
world construction in general, to the complete denial of any aesthetic and artistic
value in it. Personally, I affirm that it cannot be seen as an example of beautiful and
magnificent direction of architectural development; however, his style should not be
assessed by looking only at the beauty and gorgeousness. His task was to create the
huge number of simple, similar, cheap and very functional buildings, which would

12 Khmelnitsky, Dmitriy. (2007). Stalin the Architect. Moscow: New Literature. pp. 6-9.
5
transmit the communist ideas of collectivism, equality and societal solidarity and we
can definitely claim that he achieved that goal. In the end, architecture has different
purposes and it is not only about creating stunning, good-looking and fabulous build-
ings. It is also implemented by governments for much more practical sets of ideas and
policies. For example, the main aim of a typical Stalinist building in Siberia would
not be its overall amazement, but rather its ability to live through the cold weather
conditions: strong breezes and blizzards.
Overall, the Stalinist architecture was an integrated approach to building with
the planning of recreational areas, transport infrastructure, shops and consumer ser-
vices on the basis of socialist urbanist ideas and patterns. However, ideological com-
petition with the United States of America, has forced Stalin to partly betray his prag-
matic access of urban planning. Stalin’s wanted to respond to the American sky-
scrapers and ordered to build seven, unusually progressive tall buildings - Stalin’s
Sisters. It is claimed that after the Second World War Stalin said that the USSR has
won the big war, foreigners are going to come to Moscow, but what will they look at
if there is still no tall buildings? We have a moral responsibility to build ones.13 In ac-
cordance with the statistics of Russian architectural historian Sergey Gorin, the re-
sources used for the construction of those buildings (cost per meter) was much larger
than the resources employed for the construction of buildings throughout the big
country.14 It shows that for Joseph Stalin, it was important to show that his political
ideology is also capable of constructing tall buildings (which was an innovative fea-
ture of the 20th century). In other words, his aim was to show that a country did not
have to adopt the liberal ideology to build such constructions.
5. The sunset of monumental classicism.
The decline of the Stalinist architectural approach began with the beginning of
the rule of Nikolay Khrushchev. He made a decree about eliminating all excessed
luxury in urban planning. Furthermore, he established many programs, which were
based on several factors: rapid industrialisation, the improvement of the average qual-

13 ibid, chapter 11.

14 Gorin, Sergey. (2001). Stalin-era architectural summits. Moscow: Stroitelniy Mir. p. 112.
6
ity of buildings and the reduction of the money spent on construction. On November
1945, he famously pushed a new initiative “On eliminating the excesses in design and
construction”15. It was the beginning of a complete restructuring of the Soviet archi-
tecture and building branch, which was a transition to the wide industrialisation, stan-
dardisation and unification that were needed for the quicker country satisfaction of
housing and public institutions. By this time, Stalinist architecture has reached its cri-
sis. A huge change of Soviet urban planning paradigm made a conversion to a higher
quality structuring of residential areas. The appearance of new design and engineer-
ing methods has accelerated the tendency of replicating the same decorations. How-
ever, this tendency has not only made the appearance of facades much worse, but also
made the work on the construction of building more expensive because of the plan-
ning transition to a massive housing development. The realisation of this program
made a large-scale simplification of projects, the declining of their aesthetics and the
actual contraction of space for the art in architecture in comparison with the totalitar-
ian Stalinist period. The architects were denied in individuality, creativity and self-ex-
pression rights. However, was it a question of ideology war with luxury or was an
economical ambition to save money? The most outstanding example of Khrushchev’s
architectural style are so-called Khrushchyovka.
The architect Nina Kraynyaya, who built the district Bilyaevo in Moscow,
claims “we were excited by the novelty of a new aim, we believed, that the reflection
of the same level of comfort in architecture is the new aesthetics itself’’.16
Khrushchyovka buildings equalised a certain level of living conditions on a huge ter-
ritory. With no doubt, this level was very far from the ideal, but it established an over-
all degree of stability. Moreover, during that time nobody thought about criticising
the new constructions for the absence of balconies, combines bathrooms or wall parti-
tions. All of this was a trifle in comparison with that colossal changing in life of so-
viet people, which happened because of the new construction program. This type of
house opened a possibility of resettlement of all of the crowded communal apart-

15 Lambertucci, Filippo. Architecture and Ideology. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 211.

16 Erofeev, Nikolai. (2014). History of Khrushchyovka. Open Left Online Magazine.
7
ments. Khrushchyovka buildings were «closing holes» in the bombed cities of west-
ern republics of the USSR after the war; they were also built beyond the Arctic Cir-
cle. By virtue of Khrushchyovka buildings, it became possible to construct military
and industrial cities in hard-to-reach places. They became the new alternative to the
barracks and tents, where usually workers and builders of new industrial cities were
living in horrible conditions. Nevertheless, what is even more important, wherever
the Khrushchyovka buildings were constructed, they were providing people with
needed living standards. In addition, at the same time, they were giving a possibility
to establish the new mode of life. Khrushchyovka building - is the project, which has
solved the social problem and which gave the urban life a new sound, which we still
can hear nowadays. Few people would be amazed of their “beauty”, but the project it-
self may possibly be the greatest architectural program in terms of functionality and
its size, which was ever brought to life. Being guided by the proportions of Corbus-
ier17, Khrushchyovka has set up a new compact scale of modern urban existence,
which the modern austere furniture and interior objects were supporting. Until now,
nearly eight millions of Russians still live in those buildings.
5. Conclusion.
Overall, I would like to claim that political ideologies have a huge effect on the
architectural development of any state. As mentioned in the first section, liberal states
usually allow architects to freely express themselves on the ground. That happens be-
cause the private entrepreneurs build the majority of constrictions within a country.
Businesspersons usually have an understanding of what they want to construct but
they often give a certain room for imagination and creativity for architects they hire.
In the socialist governments, there is often an overall constructional plan, which ev-
eryone has to follow – a certain set of materials and ideas of how the buildings should
look like. In the far right socialist ideologies, like the Soviet Union, the state builds
the majority of infrastructure by itself and hence, this results in the even bigger econ-
omy and the removal of beautifulness from the grounds of importance.

17 Tafuri, Manfredo. (1976). Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development. MIT Press. p.128
8
 The communist ideology had also had a huge impact on the vector of architec-
tural development in the Soviet Union. Firstly, the Communist Revolution has
brought the architectural avant-garde, when the most revolutionary town planning,
design and architectural projects, in the spirit of constructivism, were proposed and
widely implemented. At this time (1918-1932), there was an active exchange of ideas
and projects between Western and Russian architects, based on the architectural her-
itage of the previous eras. Secondly, after that, there was a transition to architecture
with a distinctly retrospectivist bias, conditionally it can be called the Soviet monu-
mental classicism, the style is associated with the figure of Joseph Stalin and his per-
sonal approach to urban planning. The border to the transition to a new architectural
style was a competition for the design of the Palace of Soviets, after which the vast
majority of new architectural objects were built in a new style (from the summer of
1932, no project created in the style of strict constructivism was accepted for con-
struction in the USSR). The post-war architecture was aimed to the overall recovery
of many destructed cities and villages. Architecture has become one of the top prior-
ity areas of the national economy. The architectural work should have been bringing
confidence to the spectators in the soonest restoration of the whole country. The
brightest examples of Stalinist architecture are the Stalin Sisters and a complex of
pavilions of VSHV. Stalinist idea was to remove the active usage of the expensive
materials such as glass and steel and to make the construction more available for the
mass production of the Soviet government.

After that period, the change of power in the leadership of the USSR has pro-
voked a new shift of paradigm in the architectural development of the Soviet Union.
With Khrushchev, the architecture has become completely functional, pragmatic and
practical – it was fully reflective with the communist ideas of gender equality, collec-
tivity and likenesses of living conditions. That approach was predominant until the
last years of the Soviet Union and many human beings in various countries still live
in those highly functional and stable Soviet buildings, which lack brightness, creativ-
ity and beauty.
9
10
 Bibliography:

Barbara, Miller Lane. (1986). Architects in Power: Politics and Ideology in the
Work of Ernst May and Albert Speer. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17. p.
283.

Erikson TS and Tedin KL. (2003). American Public Opinion. New York: Long-
man. 6th edition. p. 64.

Erofeev, Nikolai. (2014). History of Khrushchyovka. Open Left Online Maga-

zine.

Frampton, Kenneth. (2004). Modern Architecture - a Critical History. World of

Art. 3rd edition, p. 376.

Gellner, Ernest (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Cornell University Press.

2nd edition. pp. 112-115.

Gorin, Sergey. (2001). Stalin-era architectural summits. Moscow: Stroitelniy

Mir. p. 112.

Ingberman, Sima. (1994). ABCL International Constructivist Architecture

1922-1939. The MIT Press, p. 3.

Khan-Magomedov, S.N. (1998). Pioneers of Soviet Architecture. Rizzoli. p.

432-435.

Khmelnitsky, Dmitriy. (2007). Stalin the Architect. Moscow: New Literature. pp.
6-9.

Lambertucci, Filippo. Architecture and Ideology. Cambridge Scholars Publish-

ing. p. 211.

Reyner, Banham. (1971). Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Archi-
tectural Press. pp. 297 - 299.

Sonne, Wolfgаng. (2003). Reрresenting the Stаte: Сapital Сity Рlanning In

the Early 20th Century. New York: Prestel.

Sukanovic, Miodrag, (2014). Architecture and Ideology. Cambridge Scholars

Publishing. p. 10.
11
Tafuri, Manfredo. (1976). Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist De-
velopment. MIT Press. p.128.

Vale, J. Lawrence. (1992). Architecture, Power and National Identity. New

Haven, London: Yale University Press.

12
Group project

My big part of participation in the group project began with doing a chapter of
the research. I was researching and collecting the information about Bat-
tersea Park history, location, landscape, entertainment in the park and many
other aspects. The very interesting and exciting part of the research was
about history of the benches ( the Battersea Park is famous because of the
historical, very expensive and beautiful benches). I was making the compari-
son of the benches of the Battersea Park and other park in London, research-
ing the types of benches, variety of materials they made of, history of decora-
tion and other details. After exploring the park we have decided to choose the
landmark for each of person from the group cutting the Battersea Park into
sections. Then we collectively made a decision to make a bench as a repre-
sentation for each landmark. My landmark was the playground in the park, so
I was doing a research about it and then making a bench in the Sketch Up
program using V-Ray for rendering. The chosen colours represent the playful-
ness and activities of the playground, the materials and shapes of the bench
show the safety, stability and communication, which are very important for the
parents when they come to the playground with their children. Working in
group on one project is very challenging, as each of us has different opinion
and perception of different things, however I found our team very hardworking
and united.

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