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[WAS THE PALACE OF SOVIETS PROPORTIONAL?] Proportsional’nost’ v arkhitekture [i.e. Proportionality in Architecture]

Grimm, G.D.

Item #664

Moscow: ONTI, 1935. 148 pp.: ill., 15 ills. 30,5x23,5 cm. In original cloth with lettering. Some soiling of the slightly deformed front cover, minor tear of lower margin on the last page and few pages faded, otherwise very good.

First edition. One of 6000 copies. Rare. Cover design by well-known book designer A. Ushakov.
This is the Soviet critical work on the harmony in the architecture structures basing on the different theories of proportionality. The work was written by engineer and architecture historian, German Grimm (1865-1942). Professor of architecture, he was active both in pre-revolutionary construction and in the 1920s. In 1889 he received the golden medal for his project of St. Petersburg City Council Building; in the 1920s he has designed the district of the electric station ‘Krasny Oktiabr’ in Leningrad.
He supported the golden ratio theory and used this approach checking the ancient, Roman, Gothic, Byzantine constructions as well as the Soviet buildings. In this book, he calculated the proportionality of some competition projects in the USSR and abroad, including workers’ club by А. Nikolsky, people’s house called after Ulyanov-Lenin by A. Grinberg, crematorium by A. Salzmann and Palace of Soviets by B. Iofan. The author analyzed the first and final versions of the approved project, presenting the evidence that Palace of Soviets could be successfully constructed.

Worldcat locates only one copy in the library of Columbia University.

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