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59-602: The building is a large concrete structure influenced by the Moderne and Art Deco movements, that was built by the Works Progress Administration from 1941 to 1942. The main interior feature is a 133 x 100 ft (40.5 x 30 m) drill hall which was used by the U.S. Naval Reserve to train thousands of young recruits for service in World War II . The building is noted for its association with mass mobilization during

118-683: A Moscow apartment block in 1929. A particularly extravagant example is the 'Chekists Village' in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg ) designed by Ivan Antonov, Veniamin Sokolov and Arseny Tumbasov, a hammer and sickle shaped collective housing complex for staff of the People's Commissariat for the Internal Affairs (NKVD) , which currently serves as a hotel. The new forms of the Constructivists began to symbolise

177-531: A composite style sometimes called Postconstructivism . After this brief synthesis, Neo-Classical reaction was totally dominant until 1955. Rationalist buildings were still common in industrial architecture, but extinct in urban projects. Last isolated constructivist buildings were launched in 1933–1935, such as Panteleimon Golosov 's Pravda building (finished 1935), the Moscow Textile Institute (finished 1938) or Ladovsky's rationalist vestibules for

236-472: A focus for Constructivism. Beginning in 1925 communal housing was designed for the area by architects like A. Gegello and OSA's Alexander Nikolsky, as well as public buildings like the Kirov Town Hall by Noi Trotsky (1932–4), an experimental school by G.A Simonov and a series of Communal laundries and kitchens, designed for the area by local ASNOVA members. An example of a finished Constructivist neighborhood

295-451: A pick and mix of historical styles, sometimes achieved with new technology. Housing projects like the Narkomfin were designed for the attempts to reform everyday life in the 1920s, such as collectivisation of facilities, equality of the sexes and collective raising of children, all of which fell out of favour as Stalinism revived family values. The styles of the old world were also revived, with

354-504: A series of terraces modelled after the decks of an ocean liner. The Flagey Building was built on the Place Flagey in Ixelles (Brussels), Belgium, in 1938, in the paquebot style, and has been nicknamed "Packet Boat" or "paquebot". It was designed by Joseph Diongre  [ fr ] , and selected as the winning design in an architectural competition to create a building to house

413-427: A still mostly agrarian country. There was also the critique that the style merely copied the forms of technology while using fairly routine construction methods. The winning entry by Boris Iofan marked the start of eclectic historicism of Stalinist Architecture , a style which bears similarities to Post-Modernism in that it reacted against modernist architecture's cosmopolitanism, alleged ugliness and inhumanity with

472-570: Is Hollywood, California 's Julian Medical Building , which has been described as a "landmark", "an architectural masterpiece", and "one of the crowning achievements of Streamline Moderne." The building's distinctive features include a rounded Moderne corner, windswept tower, and pylon-separated horizontally-reinforced windows. Although Streamline Moderne houses are less common than streamline commercial buildings, residences do exist. The Lydecker House in Los Angeles , built by Howard Lydecker ,

531-551: Is Sotsmisto (Sotsgorod) of Zaporizhzhia . Many of the Constructivists hoped to see their ambitions realised during the 'Cultural Revolution' that accompanied the first five-year plan . At this point the Constructivists were divided between urbanists and disurbanists who favoured a garden city or linear city model. The Linear City was propagandised by the head of the Finance Commissariat Nikolay Milyutin in his book Sozgorod , aka Sotsgorod (1930). This

590-528: Is an example of Streamline Moderne design in residential architecture. In tract development, elements of the style were sometimes used as a variation in postwar row housing in San Francisco's Sunset District . In France, the style was called Paquebot , meaning ocean liner . The French version was inspired by the launch of the ocean liner Normandie in 1935, which featured an Art Deco dining room with columns of Lalique crystal. Buildings using variants of

649-514: The L'Atlantique (1930), and the Normandie (1935). Patout's building on Avenue Victor lacked the curving lines of the American version of the style, but it had a narrow "bow" at one end, where the site was narrow, long balconies like the decks of a ship, and a row of projections like smokestacks on the roof. Another 1935 Paris apartment building at 1 Avenue Paul Doumer in the 16th arrondissement had

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708-492: The Great Depression of the 1930s progressed, Americans saw a new aspect of Art Deco , i.e., streamlining, a concept first conceived by industrial designers who stripped Art Deco design of its ornament in favor of the aerodynamic pure-line concept of motion and speed developed from scientific thinking. The cylindrical forms and long horizontal windowing in architecture may also have been influenced by constructivism , and by

767-542: The Moscow Metro in particular popularising the idea of 'workers' palaces'. By the end of the 1920s Constructivism was the country's dominant architecture, and surprisingly many buildings of this period survive. Initially the reaction was towards an art decoesque Classicism that was initially inflected with Constructivist devices, such as in Iofan's House on Embankment of 1929–32. For a few years some structures were designed in

826-780: The Moscow Metro . Clearly Modernist competition entries were made by the Vesnin brothers and Ivan Leonidov for the Narkomtiazhprom project in Red Square, 1934, another unbuilt Stalinist edifice. Traces of Constructivism can also be found in some Socialist Realist works, for instance in the Futurist elevations of Iofan's ultra-Stalinist 1937 Paris Pavilion, which had Suprematist interiors by Nikolai Suetin. Due in part to its political commitment—and its replacement by Stalinist architecture —the mechanistic, dynamic forms of Constructivism were not part of

885-569: The New Objectivity artists, a movement connected to the German Werkbund . Examples of this style include the 1923 Mossehaus , the reconstruction of the corner of a Berlin office building in 1923 by Erich Mendelsohn and Richard Neutra . The Streamline Moderne was sometimes a reflection of austere economic times; sharp angles were replaced with simple, aerodynamic curves, and ornament was replaced with smooth concrete and glass . The style

944-589: The Situationists , particularly the New Babylon project of Guy Debord and Constant Nieuwenhuys . High Tech architecture also owes a debt to Constructivism, most obviously in Richard Rogers ' Lloyd's building . Zaha Hadid 's early projects were adaptations of Malevich's Architektons, and the influence of Chernikhov is clear on her drawings. Deconstructivism evokes the dynamism of Constructivism, though without

1003-670: The Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. Abstract and austere, the movement aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space, while rejecting decorative stylization in favor of the industrial assemblage of materials. Designs combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced many pioneering projects and finished buildings, before falling out of favor around 1932. It has left marked effects on later developments in architecture . Constructivist architecture emerged from

1062-562: The Vesnin brothers for Leningradskaya Pravda . In 1925 the OSA Group , also with ties to Vkhutemas, was founded by Alexander Vesnin and Moisei Ginzburg —the Organisation of Contemporary Architects. This group had much in common with Weimar Germany's Functionalism , such as the housing projects of Ernst May . Housing, especially collective housing in specially designed dom kommuny to replace

1121-571: The 'Dynamic City' (1919) of Gustav Klutsis ; Lazar Khidekel's Workers Club (1926) and his Dubrovka Power Plant and first Sots Town (1931–33). Immediately after the Russian Civil War , the USSR was too impoverished to commission any major new building projects. Nonetheless, the Soviet avant-garde school Vkhutemas started an architectural wing in 1921, which was led by the architect Nikolai Ladovsky , which

1180-522: The 1920s. Other notable works included the aluminum parabola and glazed staircase of Mikhail Barsch and Mikhail Sinyavsky's 1929 Moscow Planetarium. The popularity of the new aesthetic led to traditionalist architects adopting Constructivism, as in Ivan Zholtovsky 's 1926 MOGES power station or Alexey Shchusev 's Narkomzem offices, both in Moscow. Similarly, the engineer Vladimir Shukhov 's Shukhov Tower

1239-462: The 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design, it was used in railroad locomotives, telephones, buses, appliances, and other devices to give the impression of sleekness and modernity. In France, it was called the style paquebot , or "ocean liner style", and was influenced by the design of the luxury ocean liner SS Normandie , launched in 1932. As

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1298-566: The Constructivist Nikolai Kolli . The duplex apartments and collective facilities of the OSA group were a major influence on his later work. Another famous modernist, Erich Mendelsohn , designed Leningrad's Red Banner Textile Factory and popularised Constructivism in his book Russland, Europa, Amerika . A Five Year Plan project with major Constructivist input was DniproHES , designed by Victor Vesnin et al. El Lissitzky also popularised

1357-579: The Constructivists was instilling the avant-garde in everyday life. From 1927 they worked on projects for Workers' Clubs, communal leisure facilities usually built in factory districts. Among the most famous of these are the Kauchuk , Svoboda and Rusakov clubs by Konstantin Melnikov , the club of the Likachev works by the Vesnin brothers, and Ilya Golosov 's Zuev Workers' Club . At the same time as this foray into

1416-611: The Textile Institute (Ordzhonikidze St, Moscow, 1929–1931), and Ginzburg's Moscow Gosstrakh apartments and, most famously, his Narkomfin Building . Flats were built in a Constructivist idiom in Kharkiv, Moscow and Leningrad and in smaller towns. Ginzburg also designed a government building in Alma-Ata , while the Vesnin brothers designed a School of Film Actors in Moscow. Ginzburg critiqued

1475-531: The appearance of newness and sleekness. Other later examples include the 1950 Nash Ambassador "Airflyte" sedan with its distinctive low fender lines, as well as Hudson 's postwar cars, such as the Commodore , that "were distinctive streamliners—ponderous, massive automobiles with a style all their own". Streamlining became a widespread design practice for aircraft, railroad locomotives, and ships. Streamline style can be contrasted with functionalism , which

1534-624: The calm Platonism of the International Style as it was defined by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock . Their book included only one building from the USSR, an electrical laboratory by a government team led by Nikolaev. During the 1960s Constructivism was rehabilitated to a certain extent, and both the wilder experimental buildings of the era (such as the Globus Theatre or the Tbilisi Roads Ministry Building ) and

1593-535: The city government to community groups and event organizers before a deal with MOHAI was reached with the city in 2009. The $ 90 million renovation of the armory for MOHAI was partially funded by the Washington State Department of Transportation , which had acquired the Montlake site for highway construction, and private donations. It reopened on December 29, 2012. LMN Architects led the project, which

1652-506: The collectivised 19th century housing that was the norm, was the main priority of this group. The term social condenser was coined to describe their aims, which followed from the ideas of V.I. Lenin , who wrote in 1919 that "the real emancipation of women and real communism begins with the mass struggle against these petty household chores and the true reforming of the mass into a vast socialist household." Collective housing projects that were built included Ivan Nikolaev 's Communal House of

1711-581: The dialectic) set the tone for the projects of the 1920s. Another famous early Constructivist project was the Lenin Tribune by El Lissitzky (1920), a moving speaker's podium. During the Russian Civil War the UNOVIS group centered on Kasimir Malevich and Lissitzky designed various projects that forced together the 'non-objective' abstraction of Suprematism with more utilitarian aims, creating ideal Constructivist cities— see also El Lissitzky's Prounen-Raum ,

1770-522: The everyday, outlandish projects were designed such as Ivan Leonidov 's Lenin Institute, a high tech work that bears comparison with Buckminster Fuller . This consisted of a skyscraper-sized library, a planetarium and dome, all linked together by a monorail; or Georgy Krutikov 's self-explanatory Flying City, an ASNOVA project that was intended as a serious proposal for airborne housing. The Melnikov House and his Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage are fine examples of

1829-764: The first was encapsulated in Antoine Pevsner 's and Naum Gabo 's Realist manifesto which was concerned with space and rhythm, the second represented a struggle within the Commissariat for Enlightenment between those who argued for pure art and the Productivists such as Alexander Rodchenko , Varvara Stepanova and Vladimir Tatlin , a more socially-oriented group who wanted this art to be absorbed in industrial production. A split occurred in 1922 when Pevsner and Gabo emigrated. The movement then developed along socially utilitarian lines. The productivist majority gained

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1888-570: The former headquarters of the Belgian National Institute of Radio Broadcasting (INR/NIR). The building was extensively renovated, and in 2002, it reopened as a cultural centre known as Le Flagey. The defining event for streamline moderne design in the United States was the 1933–34 Chicago World's Fair , which introduced the style to the general public. The new automobiles adapted the smooth lines of ocean liners and airships, giving

1947-546: The idea of building in the new society being the same as in the old: "treating workers' housing in the same way as they would bourgeois apartments...the Constructivists however approach the same problem with maximum consideration for those shifts and changes in our everyday life...our goal is the collaboration with the proletariat in creating a new way of life". OSA published a magazine, SA or Contemporary Architecture from 1926 to 1930. The leading rationalist Ladovsky designed his own, rather different kind of mass housing, completing

2006-414: The impression of efficiency, dynamism, and speed. The grills and windshields tilted backwards, cars sat lower and wider, and they featured smooth curves and horizontal speed lines. Examples include the 1934 Chrysler Airflow and the 1934 Studebaker Land Cruiser . The cars also featured new materials, including bakelite plastic, formica , Vitrolight opaque glass, stainless steel , and enamel , which gave

2065-512: The more pragmatic German architects fleeing Nazism, such as 'May Brigade' ( Ernst May , Mart Stam , Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky ), the 'Bauhaus Brigade' led by Hannes Meyer , and Bruno Taut . The city-planning of Le Corbusier found brief favour, with the architect writing a 'reply to Moscow' that later became the Ville Radieuse plan, and designing the Tsentrosoyuz government building with

2124-639: The original decoration and detail, including murals by artist and color theoretician Hilaire Hiler . The architects were William Mooser Jr. and William Mooser III. It is now the administrative center of Aquatic Park Historic District. The Normandie Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico , which opened during 1942, is built in the stylized shape of the ocean liner SS Normandie , and displays the ship's original sign. The Sterling Streamliner Diners in New England were diners designed like streamlined trains. Another example

2183-620: The originality and ambition of this new group. Melnikov would design the Soviet Pavilion at the Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts of 1925, which popularised the new style, with its rooms designed by Rodchenko and its jagged, mechanical form. Another glimpse of a Constructivist lived environment is visible in the popular science fiction film Aelita , which had interiors and exteriors modelled in angular, geometric fashion by Aleksandra Ekster . The state-run Mosselprom department store of 1924

2242-647: The project for a new everyday life of the Soviet Union, then in the mixed economy of the New Economic Policy . State buildings were constructed like the huge Derzhprom complex in Kharkiv (designed by Serafimov, Folger and Kravets, 1926–1928) which was noted by Reyner Banham in his Theory and Design in the First Machine Age as being, along with the Dessau Bauhaus , the largest scale Modernist work of

2301-633: The project was also funded by $ 6,399 from the State of Washington and $ 14,204 from, perhaps uncharacteristically, the University of Washington . It is situated at the south end of Lake Union , a lake which was connected to Puget Sound by the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1917. Previously the site had been used by the Eastern Mill, a sawmill. Construction of the building cost a total of $ 500,000. It

2360-515: The social aspect, as in the work of Coop Himmelb(l)au . In the late 1970s Rem Koolhaas wrote a parable on the political trajectory of Constructivism called The Story of the Pool , in which Constructivists escape from the USSR in a self-powering Modernist swimming pool, only to die, after being criticised for much the same reasons as they were under Stalinism, soon after their arrival in the USA. Meanwhile, many of

2419-632: The style abroad with his 1930 book The Reconstruction of Architecture in Russia . The 1932 competition for the Palace of the Soviets , a grandiose project to rival the Empire State Building , featured entries from all the major Constructivists as well as Walter Gropius , Erich Mendelsohn and Le Corbusier . However, this coincided with widespread criticism of Modernism, which was always difficult to sustain in

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2478-678: The style appeared in Belgium and in Paris, notably in a building at 3 boulevard Victor in the 15th arrondissement , by the architect Pierre Patout . He was one of the founders of the Art Deco style. He designed the entrance to the Pavilion of a Collector at the 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts, the birthplace of the style. He was also the designer of the interiors of three ocean liners, the Ile-de-France (1926),

2537-750: The support of the Proletkult and the magazine LEF , and later became the dominant influence of the architectural group O.S.A. The first and most famous Constructivist architectural project was the 1919 proposal for the headquarters of the Comintern in St Petersburg by the Futurist Vladimir Tatlin , often called Tatlin's Tower . Though it remained unbuilt, the materials—glass and steel—and its futuristic ethos and political slant (the movements of its internal volumes were meant to symbolise revolution and

2596-501: The tensions between individualism and utilitarianism in Constructivism. There were also projects for Suprematist skyscrapers called 'planits' or 'architektons' by Kasimir Malevich , Lazar Khikeidel – Cosmic Habitats (1921–1922), Architectons (1922–1927), Workers Club (1926), Communal Dwelling (Коммунальное Жилище)(1927), A. Nikolsky and L. Khidekel – Moscow Cooperative Institute (1929). The fantastical element also found expression in

2655-445: The unornamented Khrushchyovka apartments are in a sense a continuation of the aborted experiment, although under very different conditions. Outside the USSR, Constructivism has often been seen as an alternative, more radical modernism, and its legacy can be seen in designers as diverse as Team 10 , Archigram and Kenzo Tange , as well as in much Brutalist work. Their integration of the avant-garde and everyday life has parallels with

2714-551: The walls. They were frequently white or in subdued pastel colors. An example of this style is the Aquatic Park Bathhouse in the Aquatic Park Historic District , in San Francisco. Built beginning in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration , it features the distinctive horizontal lines, classic rounded corners railing and windows of the style, resembling the elements of ship. The interior preserves much of

2773-414: The war as well as its involvement with Depression-era work relief. The building was designed by Seattle architect William R. Grant and B. Marcus Priteca . Its construction was initially promoted by a citizens' committee but delayed by fears it would be a white elephant ; eventually politicians endorsed and promoted the project, and it secured a $ 99,997 WPA grant. Later a $ 69,983 increase was granted, and

2832-463: The wider Constructivist art movement , which grew out of Russian Futurism . Constructivist art had attempted to apply a three-dimensional cubist vision to wholly abstract non-objective 'constructions' with a kinetic element. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 , it turned its attentions to the new social demands and industrial tasks required of the new regime. Two distinct threads emerged,

2891-518: The work of Yakov Chernikhov , who produced several books of experimental designs—most famously Architectural Fantasies (1933)—earning him the epithet 'the Soviet Piranesi '. Despite the ambitiousness of many Constructivist proposals for reconstructed cities, there were fairly few examples of coherent Constructivist town planning. However, the Narvskaya Zastava district of Leningrad became

2950-507: Was a leading design style in Europe at the same time. One reason for the simple designs in functionalism was to lower the production costs of the items, making them affordable to the large European working class. Streamlining and functionalism represent two different schools in modernistic industrial design . Constructivist architecture Constructivist architecture was a constructivist style of modern architecture that flourished in

3009-525: Was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on July 8, 2009; the listing was announced as the featured listing in the National Park Service 's weekly list of July 17, 2009. As of that year, the building remained in good condition. After being forced to move from their Montlake site, the renovation of the armory into a museum for MOHAI was proposed. The building was leased out by

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3068-415: Was also an early modernist building for the new consumerism of the New Economic Policy , as was the Vesnin brothers' Mostorg store, built three years later. Modern offices for the mass press were also popular, such as the Izvestia headquarters. This was built in 1926–7 and designed by Grigori Barkhin A colder and more technological Constructivist style was introduced by the 1923/4 glass office project by

3127-409: Was awarded LEED Platinum status for its sustainable features that maximize daylight use and recycled materials during construction. Lake Union Park was developed alongside the renovation project and connects the lakefront area to the growing South lake Union neighborhood. Streamline Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in

3186-579: Was called ASNOVA (association of new architects). The teaching methods were both functional and fantastic, reflecting an interest in Gestalt psychology , leading to daring experiments with form such as Simbirchev's glass-clad suspended restaurant. Among the architects affiliated to the ASNOVA (Association of New Architects) were El Lissitzky , Konstantin Melnikov , Vladimir Krinsky and the young Berthold Lubetkin . Projects from 1923 to 1935 like Lissitzky and Mart Stam 's Wolkenbügel horizontal skyscrapers and Konstantin Melnikov's temporary pavilions showed

3245-427: Was dedicated on July 4, 1942, a "grim summer" point during the war, at a ceremony attended by honored guest Mrs. Peter Barber, whose three sons had been killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . The armory was decommissioned after the war, but received renovation funding in 1946. It was disestablished by the U.S. Navy in 1998 and transferred to the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation in 2000. The property

3304-461: Was often seen as an avant-garde work and was, according to Walter Benjamin in his Moscow Diary, 'unlike any similar structure in the West'. Shukhov also collaborated with Melnikov on the Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage and Novo-Ryazanskaya Street Garage . Many of these buildings are shown in Sergei Eisenstein 's film The General Line, which also featured a specially built mock-up Constructivist collective farm designed by Andrey Burov. A central aim of

3363-486: Was taken to a more extreme level by the OSA theorist Mikhail Okhitovich . His disurbanism proposed a system of one-person or one-family buildings connected by linear transport networks, spread over a huge area that traversed the boundaries between the urban and agricultural, in which it resembled a socialist equivalent of Frank Lloyd Wright 's Broadacre City . The disurbanists and urbanists proposed projects for new cities such as Magnitogorsk were often rejected in favour of

3422-469: Was the first Moderne interior preserved in a museum . Streamline Moderne appeared most often in buildings related to transportation and movement, such as bus and train stations, airport terminals, roadside cafes, and port buildings. It had characteristics common with modern architecture , including a horizontal orientation, rounded corners, the use of glass brick walls or porthole windows, flat roofs, chrome-plated hardware, and horizontal grooves or lines in

3481-441: Was the first to incorporate electric light into architectural structure. In the first-class dining room of the SS Normandie , fitted out 1933–35, twelve tall pillars of Lalique glass, and 38 columns lit from within illuminated the room. The Strand Palace Hotel foyer (1930), preserved from demolition by the Victoria and Albert Museum during 1969, was one of the first uses of internally lit architectural glass, and coincidentally

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