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[ARCHITECTURE OF WORKERS’ CLUBS] Arkhitektura rabochikh klubov i dvortsov kultury [i.e. Architecture of Workers’ Clubs and Palaces of Culture]

Moscow: Gosizdat po stroitel’stvu i arkhitekture, 1953. Item #504

311 pp.: ill. 27x21 cm. In original card boards with cloth spine. Very good, slightly rubbed and torn on the extremeties of the boards.

First and only edition. One of 4000 copies. Very rare. Binding, title pages and ornamention of the book by Y.M. Sigov.

This edition was compiled by a collective of architects and engineers from the Research Institute of Architecture - I.P. Domshlak, V.E. Bykov, Y.A. Kornfeld and others. It is a rst of its kind account which generalized the experience of designing and building clubs in the USSR by systematizing and analyzing basic composition of clubs’ designs. To be able to do it the Institute gathered information from many towns across the country ( eld work and gathering information from mail questioning and graphic materials from different architecture contests and projects).

Interesting that even though the data used for this book was primarily from the end of the 1940s there are also early buildings which are recognised by the authors as ‘‘alien to Soviet architecture relics of constructivism’’ (e.g., Palace of Culture in Kiev district in Moscow by Kornfeld, Palace of Culture of Promcooperation in Leningrad by Levinson and Munts and others, Vesnin brothers’ design projects). Despite the common notion that some of the early constructivist buildings go against Soviet architecture some of them are mentioned.

Numerous illustrations and plans are in the text as well as the big addition with photographs of interior and exterior and oor plans seperately from the text. All illustrations are captioned and divided into categories (small clubs up to 400 visitors, medium up to 750, palaces with capacity from 1000). The addition is followed by numbered list of illustrations. The rst part is dedicated to history of development of clubs and palaces. Second part is a classi cation system (workers’ clubs, kolkhoz clubs, children’s clubs, clubs of city intelligentsia, military clubs, clubs of management workers, palaces of culture). The second classi cation is based on the placement - general city, city district, factory, village. The last classi cation is based on capacity. Third chapter is more technical and focused on different standard ways of designing clubs.

A very rich material on the one of the most important architectural and social features of Soviet Union.

Price: $850.00