Last updated Cover of SA, 1927, designed by Aleksei Gan
The OSA Group (Organization of Contemporary Architects) was an architectural association in the Soviet Union, which was active from 1925 to 1930 and considered the first group of constructivist architects.[1] It published the journal SA (Sovremmennaia Arkhitektura or 'Contemporary Architecture'). It published material by Soviet and overseas contributors. However this led to them being attacked as a 'Western' group and some individuals as being 'bourgeois'. After the closure of the group, their modernist approach to architecture and town planning was eliminated in the Soviet Union by 1934, in favour of social realism.
Like the ASNOVA group, OSA grew out of the avant-garde wing of the VKhUTEMAS school in Moscow. The group's founders were Moisei Ginzburg, well known for his book Style and Epoch (a Soviet response to Le Corbusier's Vers une Architecture) and the painter, designer and architect Alexander Vesnin. Unlike the earlier association the OSA group claimed for itself the name Constructivist, in that it was, in its utilitarianism and concentration on function rather than form, an architectural equivalent to the experiments of 'artistic' Constructivism. OSA was in many ways the architectural wing of the socialist Modernists of LEF, and likewise set up its own journal in 1926.
Until its closure in 1930, SA would publish articles on a variety of subjects, including a symposium on flat roofs, a special issue on colour in architecture, and discussions of Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus, Fernand Léger, and Kasimir Malevich (who was also a contributor to the journal). The design was mainly by Aleksei Gan, who also designed the distinctive grid pattern of the covers. Photography was occasionally by Alexander Rodchenko. As well as publishing on the built projects of Modernism, the journal published experimental projects by VKhUTEMAS students such as Lydia Komarova's Comintern project, the strange pod houses of Sokolov, and the works of Ivan Leonidov. Articles in the journal was mainly in Russian, though occasionally parts of it were in German, highlighting the group's affinities with the Neues Bauen, although no OSA architects were invited to contribute to the Weissenhof Estate. The group was, however, the Soviet counterpart of Der Ring in Germany: agitating for Modern architecture and construction methods, and polemicising against the Classicism and Eclecticism that would eventually coalesce into Stalinist architecture.
OSA activities
Boris Velikovsky with Barsch, Gaken et al., Gostorg Building, 1926.
There are several examples of built works designed by OSA members in the USSR. These include Moisei Ginzburg's apartment blocks (on Gogolsky Boulevard, Moscow, another in Sverdlovsk, and most famously the Gostrakh and Narkomfin buildings); the 1920s-'30s work of the Vesnin brothers such as the Likhachev Palace of Culture and the Mostorg department store in Moscow, and the Ivanovo bank and DneproGES power station; works by Mikhail Barsch, such as Moscow Planetarium (with Sinyakvsky) and the Gostorg office block (as part of a team headed by Boris Velikovsky); works by Ivan Nikolaev, such as the electrical-technical complex in Moscow (with Fissenko; this work was featured in MOMA's 1932 International Style exhibition) and the large collective house for the students in Moscow; and the workers' housing designed by Alexander Nikolsky in Tractor Street, Leningrad.
The OSA group's leading theorists were members of the CIAM from 1928 until 1933, with Ginzburg and Nikolai Kolli members of its secretariat, CIRPAC. A small CIAM meeting with the OSA group was held in Moscow in 1932, with Sigfried Giedion and Cornelius van Eesteren in attendance. Sergei Eisenstein's The General Line featured specially built buildings by OSA's Andrey Burov. The utopian projects of Ivan Leonidov were first published in SA, and their technologically advanced, fantastic nature led to harsh criticisms from the VOPRA group of Arkady Mordvinov and Karo Alabian, coining the phrase 'Leonidovism' to attack this 'Western' group: in a 1929 editorial SA trenchantly defended Leonidov, but this was a sign of what was to come, with Mikhail Barsch being targeted in an 'anti-bourgeois' campaign at VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN.
From collective houses to disurbanism
OSA took an avant-garde position with respect to urban planning as well as architecture, one that sometimes differed from the position of the Communist Party.[2] In 1926-29 they were active in propagandising collective houses and pioneered the notion of the social condenser. OSA architects were employed by the state to develop a standard for apartment buildings (the Stroikom apartments) for the purposes of mass production. However, by 1929 there was a shift in the group's theory away from collective city blocks to 'disurbanism', perhaps influenced by the brutalities of forced collectivisation in the Soviet countryside. Mikhail Okhitovich's theories of using telecommunications, roads and infrastructure to create diffuse, semi-rural cities were published in SA, and the group's proposals for the new town of Magnitogorsk were produced with his input, only to be defeated by Ernst May of Der Ring. The 1930 debate over 'disurbanism' saw the OSA leadership (particularly Ginzburg) throw itself behind the theory, which had dire consequences when the movement was condemned by a Politburo statement. The journal was wound up in 1930, and OSA briefly became SASS (Section of Architects for Socialist Construction) before being merged into the state architecture union. The group's members continued to practice in a Modernist fashion until 1934 and the official ushering in of Socialist Realism. Most OSA members survived the great purge, with the exceptions of Alexei Gan and Mikhail Okhitovich, who were both murdered.
With the general rehabilitation of Modernism in the 1960s the issues of SA were reprinted, after decades of suppression.
Informed by the ideologies of Soviet Constructivist theory, the Social Condenser is an architectural form defined by its influence over spatial dynamics. In the opening speech of the inaugural OSA Group conference in 1928, Moisei Ginzburg claimed that "the principal objective of constructivism... is the definition of the Social Condenser of the age." The single building most associated with the idea is the Narkomfin Building in Moscow, for which construction began in 1928 and finished in 1932.
The Russian avant-garde was a large, influential wave of avant-garde modern art that flourished in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, approximately from 1890 to 1930—although some have placed its beginning as early as 1850 and its end as late as 1960. The term covers many separate, but inextricably related, art movements that flourished at the time; including Suprematism, Constructivism, Russian Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Zaum and Neo-primitivism. Many of the artists who were born, grew up or were active in what is now Belarus and Ukraine, are also classified in the Ukrainian avant-garde.
Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected decorative stylization in favor of the industrial assemblage of materials. Constructivists were in favour of art for propaganda and social purposes, and were associated with Soviet socialism, the Bolsheviks and the Russian avant-garde.
Vkhutemas was the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas.
Alexander Aleksandrovich Vesnin, together with his brothers Leonid and Viktor, was a leading light of Constructivist architecture. He is best known for his meticulous perspectival drawings such as Leningrad Pravda of 1924.
Ivan Ilyich Leonidov was a Soviet constructivist architect, urban planner, painter and teacher.
Moisei Yakovlevich Ginzburg was a Soviet constructivist architect, best known for his 1929 Narkomfin Building in Moscow.
Constructivist architecture was a constructivist style of modern architecture that flourished in 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 favour around 1932. It has left marked effects on later developments in architecture.
The Vesnin brothers: Leonid Vesnin (1880–1933), Victor Vesnin (1882–1950) and Alexander Vesnin (1883–1959) were the leaders of Constructivist architecture, the dominant architectural school of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. Exact estimation of each brother's individual input to their collaborative works remains a matter of dispute and conjecture; nevertheless, historians noted the leading role of Alexander Vesnin in the early constructivist drafts by the Vesnin brothers between 1923 and 1925. Alexander also had the most prominent career outside of architecture, as a stage designer and abstract painter.
Ilya Alexandrovich Golosov was an architect from the late Russian Empire and early Soviet Union. A leader of Constructivism in 1925-1931, Ilya Golosov later developed his own style of early stalinist architecture known as postconstructivism. Не was a brother of Panteleimon Golosov.
Panteleimon Alexandrovich Golosov was a Russian Constructivist architect and brother of Ilya Golosov.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Ladovsky was a Russian avant-garde architect and educator, leader of the rationalist movement in 1920s architecture, an approach emphasizing human perception of space and shape. Ladovsky is known as the founder of modern Soviet and Russian schools of architectural training; his classes of 1920–1932 in VKhUTEMAS shaped the generation of Soviet architects active throughout the period of Stalinist architecture and subsequent decades.
The Narkomtiazhprom Building is a portmanteau for the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry that was conducting a 1934 architectural design contest for the building of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry, constructed in Red Square, Moscow. Notable entrants included Ivan Leonidov, Konstantin Melnikov, Vesnin brothers and Ivan Fomin.
Postconstructivism was a transitional architectural style that existed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, typical of early Stalinist architecture before World War II. The term postconstructivism was coined by Selim Khan-Magomedov, a historian of architecture, to describe the product of avant-garde artists' migration to Stalinist neoclassicism. Khan-Magomedov identified postconstructivism with 1932–1936, but the long construction time and vast size of the country extended the period to 1941.
Arkady Grigoryevich Mordvinov was a Soviet architect and construction manager, notable for Stalinist architecture of Tverskaya Street, Leninsky Avenue, Hotel Ukraina skyscraper in Moscow and his administrative role in Soviet construction industry and architecture.
ASNOVA was an Avant-Garde architectural association in the Soviet Union, which was active in the 1920s and early 1930s, commonly called 'the Rationalists'.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Okhitovich (1896—1937) was a Bolshevik sociologist, town planner and Constructivist architectural theorist, most famous for his 'Disurbanist' proposals of 1929-30.
Nikolai Dzhemsovich (Yakovlevich) Kolli was a Russian Modernist—Constructivist architect, Soviet architectural functionary, and city planner in the Soviet Union.
Le Corbusier had a short relationship with the Soviet Union, starting with his first trip to Moscow in 1928, and ending with the rejection of his proposal for the Palace of the Soviets in 1932. Nevertheless, the short-lived relationship had consequences that went beyond Le Corbusier's time in the USSR. Before his trip to Moscow, Le Corbusier was already an influential figure within the Soviet architecture profession. In 1922, Moisei Ginzburg, founder of the Constructivist movement, published materials from Le Corbusier's “Towards a New Architecture.” Corbusier's projects were frequently published and analyzed as examples for young Soviet architects. When Le Corbusier died in 1965, the official newspaper of the Soviet Union, Pravda, stated in its obituary, “Modern architecture has lost its greatest master.”
Contemporary Architecture was a Soviet architectural journal published in Moscow. The journal ran from 1926 to 1930, releasing six issues per year, with occasional publications of “double issues.” It was published by the OSA Group, a group of constructivist architects. Contemporary Architecture served as a platform for presenting and illustrating the constructivists’ project of revolutionizing residential living for a socialist society in the twentieth century and put forward new ideas on numerous theoretical topics and innovative new projects in the field of architecture.
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