Bookvica

[A CATALOGUE OF THE KIROV MEAT-PACKING PLANT] Leningradskiy myasokombinat im. S.M. Kirova / Vsesoyuznaya promyshlennaya vystavka [i.e. S.M. Kirov Meat-Packing Plant in Leningrad / All-Union Industrial Exhibition]

Leningrad: leningradskaya fabrika ofsetnoy pechati, 1956. Item #850

[32] pp., ill. 26.8x18.5 cm. In original illustrated publisher’s wrappers. Closed tear on the upper right corner of the front wrapper. Otherwise near fine.

First edition. Extremely rare.
The front cover depicts one of the most vibrant examples of the Soviet constructivist architecture - a building of the Kirov Meat-Packing Plant in Leningrad. Erected by the leading Soviet architects Noi Trotsky (1895-1940), Boris Svelitskiy, and R. Zelikman in 1930-1933, the plant was awarded a Grand Prix for its outstanding engineering and
architectural features on the international exhibition in Paris in 1937.

This richly illustrated brochure offers a visual insight into the working process of the Kirov Meat-Packing Plant in Leningrad. Commissioned in 1934, the grand factory was to provide meat products to the whole city. By 1935 the Kirov plant produced 5 times more meat products than all Leningrad enterprises in the 1920s. The production process was maximally mechanised and the factory chiefly incorporated American facilities. In 2000 the factory went bankrupt. At the moment, the complex is in disrepair.
The edition continues the tradition of the photobooks dedicated to the meat industry, kick-started in the 1930s by El Lissitzky with the publication of the two versions of the book “Pischevaya industriya” [i.e. The Food Industry], co-designed with his wife Sophie Küppers.
The edition was compiled for the 1956 All-Union Industrial Exhibition (Moscow) to showcase achievements of the second-largest enterprise in the Soviet Union.

Sold