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[LAST DAYS OF ART GROUPS] Gruppirovki sovetskoi arkhitekury [i.e. Soviet Architectural Groups]

Mikhailov, A.I.

Moscow: OGIZ-IZOGIZ, 1932. Item #337

133, [2] pp.: ill. 21x15 cm. In original photomontage wrappers. Tears and rubbings of the extremities, loss of small pieces of the spine. Otherwise very good.

First edition. Very rare. One of 5000 copies.
This is a compilation of articles by Aleksei Mikhailov, art critic and architecture theoretician, one of the founders of VOPRA (Association of Proletarian Architects). It’s peculiar to see how opposing art groups coexist in one book. Even more interesting is the fact that later in the same year all independent literary and artistic groups were banned by the decree of the party’s central committee. Freedom and diversity came to an end, there came the era of a one true ideology - the socialist realism.
Articles are titled Groups of Architectural Front and Goals of Proletarian Architects; About ‘Restoration’ and National Architecture; Formalism in Soviet Architecture; Ideology of Architectural Constructivism; VOPRA-ASNOVA-OSA: To the Topic of Idealogical and Methodological Differences; Architecture Groups at the Palace of Soviets’ Competition.
Text is accompanied by bibliographical references and many black and white photographs of existed buildings and projects which never came to life by described groups and architects - VOPRA, Ladovsky, Iofan, Shchusev, ARU, VKHUTEIN, Fomin, Ginzburg, et al. It is worth of noting that the design of this edition itself is significant and reminds us about constructivism: photomontage wrappers, layout and text design, dynamic photographs, e.g. Narkomfin building shot from an unusual angle. Today even a book by an ardent critic of avant-garde is valuable as a source of information about rich and dynamic artistic life of 1920s.

WorldCat locates copies in Getty, Columbia, UCLA, Yale, University of Chicago, University of Michigan.

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