Advanced Topics in Modern Architecture: Russia's Architecture, East to West and Back

The seminar examines the main orientations in Russia's architectural avant-garde, with a particular emphasis on the Constructivists, whose theories and designs are dissected. Their interaction with the Western radicals, from Berlin to the Netherlands, is considered, as well as their infatuation with America. Attention is devoted to the demise of Constructivism and its protracted survival under Stalinism through the analysis of specific designs. The echoes of Russian creativity in the West and the contribution of German, Swiss and American architects to the modernization of the country are mapped, from the early 1920s to the 1970s.