New socialist cities: foreign architects in the USSR 1920–1940

Abstract

The creation of a Communist society between 1917 and 1939 implied the concomitant establishment of a non-capitalist economy and a non-bourgeois culture and lifestyle. In terms of the rhetoric used at the time, the Communist utopia was based on confidence in the beneficial impact of science, technology, planning and management. This necessarily presupposed alternative (new) town planning concepts, a reformed building industry, a new housing typology, and new management styles. Solutions for this mission were expected to come from foreign (mostly German) engineers, architects, and town planners who were invited to the USSR to realize the Communist utopia during the first Five-Year Plan (1928–1933).

Keywords:

• space
• heritage
• new towns
• socialist city
• city planning
• building industry
• housing typology
• architecture
• Ernst May

Notes on contributor

Koos Bosma is a researcher of twentieth-century architecture and city planning. He did extensive research on the planning and design of the Dutch IJsselmeerpolders and the reconstruction of the Netherlands and Europe after the Second World War. In 1993, his dissertation on regional planning in the Netherlands 1900–1945 was published. Since that time, he has published on housing, city planning and infrastructural planning, such as the Channel Tunnel, the High-Speed Trains programmes in Europe and the large European airfields, theory of architecture and urban history. More recently, he has started studying heritage topics like the Atlantic Wall and Cold War relics.

Notes

1. Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, 14.

2. David-Fox, Showcasing the Great Experiment, 1.

3. As he used historical documents from Soviet institutions, David-Fox presents a far more convincing explanation for this paradox than earlier influential authors like Caute, Fellow Travellers and Hollander, Political Pilgrims.

4. Kopp, “Foreign Architects,” 176–214. Kopp analyses the role of two French architects in the USSR: Le Corbusier and André Lurçat.

5. Early publications about parts of this topic: Cohen, de Michelis, and Tafuri, URSS 1917–1978; Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete; Rosa, Socialismo.

6. Chan-Magomedov, Avantgarde.

7. David-Fox, see note 2 above, 107.

8. Trincher-Rutgers and Trincher, Rutgers.

9. David-Fox, see note 2 above, 29.

10. Blinow and Filippow, “Die Rolle,” 261–75; Yurov, Kemerovo; and Nevzgodin, “Het Nieuwe.”

11. van Loghem, “Stedenbouw,” 74–6; van Loghem, “Wat gebeurt”, 57–62; and Schoorl-Traub, Een beetje vrijheid.

12. Bodenschatz and Post, Städtebau, 36–43.

13. Austin, Building utopia.

14. Nelson, Industrial Architecture; Hildebrand, Designing for Industry; Bucci, Albert Kahn.

15. Simon et al., Moscow, 178.

16. Buck-Morss, Dreamworld, 104.

17. Kotkin, see note 1 above, 69.

18. Ibid., 205.

19. Buck-Morss, see note 16 above, 107.

20. Miljutin, Sotsgorod.

21. Probably because Britain had no special cultural relations with the USSR and hardly any avant-garde movement, almost no British experts went to work in the USSR. Gold, Experience of Modernism and Ward, “Soviet Communism,” 499–524.

22. David-Fox, see note 2 above, 184.

23. Ibid.

24. Mohr and Müller, Funktionalität und Moderne; May, “Der Bau,” 117–35; May, “Städtebau,” 63–72; Höpfner, Ernst May; Jaspert, Die Architektengruppe; and Bueckschmitt, Ernst May.

25. We will not discuss the important contribution of the Meyer-Brigade here.

26. Flierl, “Possibly,” 161. The same story is told by the eyewitness and colleague of May in Frankfurt and in Moscow, Eugen Kaufmann (alias Eugene Kent). Memoirs of Eugene Kent c. 1978, 176–9. RIBA archives (KeE-1) at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

27. Flierl, see note 26 above, 161–2.

28. About the official inivitation of May, see Flierl, see note 26 above, 159–60.

29. Flierl, see note 26 above, 159.

30. Möller, Mart Stam; Oorthuys, “Mart Stam”; Oorthuys, “Met Mart Stam,” 39–43; Oorthuys, “Portrait of an Architect,” 6–15; Hils-Brockhoff and Möller, Mart Stam; and Rümmele, Mart Stam.

31. Schmidt, “Die Sowjetunion,” 146; Schmidt, Beiträge; Suter, Hans Schmidt; Huber, Die Stadt; and Möller and Lichtenstein, ABC.

32. Flierl, see note 26 above, 159.

33. von Herwarth, Zwischen, 69.

34. Private collection of Renate Prasse-Lang, Reichenbach, BRD.

35. Postcard Mrs Lang, July 17, 1931.

36. Letter Mrs Lang, September 15, 1931.

37. Letter Mrs Lang, July 21, 1931. About Hebebrand: Conrads and Kühn, Hommage.

38. Liebknecht, Mein bewegtes Leben, 48.

39. First letter Walther Schulz, October 21, 1930. Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM), Frankfurt am Main.

40. Letter Mrs Lang, May 22, 1932. This is confirmed by E. Kaufmann (E. Kent), 200.

41. Schütte-Lihotzky, “Damals,” 8–15, 11–14; Schütte-Lihotzky, Erinnerungen; Noever, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky; and Noever, Die Frankfurter Küche.

42. Werner, Fred Forbat and Forbat, Fred Forbat.

43. Letter Mrs Lang, October 24, 1931.

44. Letter Mrs Lang, July 15, 1932.

45. First letter Walther Schulz, October 21, 1930. DAM.

46. Baukunst und Werkform, 9 (1956).

47. First letter Walther Schulz, October 21, 1930. DAM.

48. Letter Mrs Lang, January 24, 1933.

49. Letter Mrs Lang, December 4, 1932.

50. Postcard Karl Lang, March 27, 1933.

51. Knopf and Martens, Görings Reich.

52. Letter of May to Stalin, September 7, 1931. This letter stems from a KGB-archive in Moscow, that was kindly copied to me by historian Werner Müller.

53. Snyder, Bloodlands, Chap. 1.

54. Flierl, see note 26 above, 193.

55. Letter Mrs Lang, January 27, 1932.

56. Letter Mrs Lang, February 11, 1932.

57. Blinow and Filippow, see note 10 above, 271.

58. Stein, “Eine Drahtung,” 818.

59. Blumenfeld and Gerfánoff, “Ein neuer Brief,” 1058.

60. Schulz, “Planmässiger,” 633–4; Reaction from Meyer, “Brief an die Bauwelt,” 764–5; and Schulz, “Wie arbeitet,” 66.

61. Kotkin, see note 1 above, 72–90.

62. Accounts of the horrible circumstances during the building of the factories and the town: Austin, see note 13 above and Kotkin, see note 1 above.

63. Bodenschatz and Post, see note 12 above, 43–63.

64. Third letter Schulz, December 26, 1930. DAM.

65. Wit, Johan Niegeman.

66. Bodenschatz and Post, see note 12 above, 193–207.

67. Ciucci et al., The American City, 1–142.

68. Kotkin, see note 1 above, 175.

69. Historian Werner Müller wrote to me that the KGB created files on them and sent me copies of files of some architects who were shadowed. Hebebrand, for instance, was in prison on the accusation of spying.

70. He was assisted by the engineer Bartotschat and the German emigrant Gerhard Kosel. “Die Mitarbeit,” in Exil in der UdSSR, 704.

71. Damen and Devolder, Lotte Stam-Beese.

72. “Die Mitarbeit,” in Exil in der UdSSR, 701.

73. “Die Mitarbeit,” in Exil in der UdSSR, 725–35. The life and work of Niegeman in Magnitogorsk is pictured in: Krone-Schmalz, Strasse der Wölfe.

74. Liebknecht, see note 38 above, 71.

75. Third letter Schulz, December 26, 1930. DAM.