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[THE GOLDEN YEARS OF THE STALINIST ARCHITECTURE] O realisticheskikh osnovakh sovetskoi arkhitektury [i.e. On the Realist Base of the Soviet Architecture]

Tsapenko, M.

Moscow: Gos. izdatel’stvo literatury po stroitel’stvu i arkhitekture, 1952. Item #727

393, [3] pp.: ill. 22,5x18 cm. In original full-cloth with gilt lettering on the front cover and spine, with blind design on the cover and laconic colored design on the spine. Rubbed, pencil underlinings occasionally, otherwise in very good condition.

First and only edition. One of 10 000 copies.
This is an interesting monograph by the Soviet art historian Mikhailo Tsapenko (1907-1977) who headed the Kiev Institute of Theory and History of Architecture in the 1950s. Overviewing the Soviet architecture from the angle of the latest Stalinism, he sharply criticizes the 1920-1930s styles. He stresses the foreignness of constructivism, critisizes the structure of the 1930s socialist cities, announces that all ideas by Mel’nikov, Ginzburg, Leonidov, Golosov, Kornfeld and other architects of OSA and ASNOVA societies were impractical and utopian. Denouncing them for lack of the national attributes, he praises the 1940s buildings that, in his opinion, truly fit the bill of the Communist Party. As evidence, he puts some of the constructivist projects among numerous 1940s buildings that connected with the Stalinist classicism or had similar elements. The book features the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani buildings - the photographs of the whole constructions or the remarkable parts as well as their plans. 
Overall the brilliant book depicting the unity and diversity of the architecture reflecting the multinational nature of the Soviet Union.

Worldcat locate the copies at libraries of University of Kansas, University of Iowa, University of Illinois, Carleton College, Mervyn H. Sterne Library, Michigan State University, Ohio State University, University of Arizona, Cornell University, New York University and City College, New York Public Library, Columbia University, Getty Institute, Yale University, University of California and University of Washington.

Price: $750.00