Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2414-7-39
Title History of Soviet Architecture as Seen from Mid-Century Leningrad: On the Diversity of Historiographical Perspectives
Author email bass@eu.spb.ru
About author Bass, Vadim G. — Ph. D., associate professor. European University at St. Petersburg, Gagarinskaya ul., 6/1А 191187 St. Petersburg, Russian Federation; AuthorID: 492882; ORCID: 0000-0003-4725-6356; Scopus ID: 57192363760
In the section International Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries DOI10.18688/aa2414-7-39
Year 0 Volume 14 Pages 497509
Type of article RAR Index UDK 72.03 Index BBK 85.113(2)
Abstract

During the 1930s to the 1950s the Academy of Architecture of the USSR developed several projects on the history of Russian and Soviet architecture. By the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, some of them reached the manuscript stage and became the subject of reviewing and professional discussion. These discussions demonstrated impressive variety of opinions. Along with the “All-Union” (Moscow-centric) perspectives, there were also “local” ones. Despite the centralization and ideological constraints, the Leningrad architectural community retained a certain degree of autonomy in terms of both style and values. The article has been based on archival documents including the discussions of the ‘Concise Course of the History of Soviet Architecture’ at the Leningrad branch of the Academy. They allow to reconstruct a peculiar “Leningrad perspective” on the Soviet history of architecture. A certain autonomy of the Leningrad architecture was reflected in the view that the city was practically unaffected by “formalist” and modernist trends, in the assertion of professional continuity in relation to the works of the masters of the pre-revolutionary period, in the constant emphasizing of the city-planning and ensemble qualities that underlie the local tradition, and, finally, in the selection of monuments and personalities to whom separate essays should be devoted in the course.

Keywords
Reference Bass, Vadim G. History of Soviet Architecture as Seen from Mid-Century Leningrad: On the Diversity of Historiographical Perspectives. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 14. Eds A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. — Lomonosov Moscow State University / St. Petersburg: NP-Print, 2024, pp. 497–509. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2414-7-39
Publication Article language russian
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