Monday 13 June 2011

Frédéric Chaubin, Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed

Enjoyed leafing through this at the Taschen bookshop on Sunday. A lot of it is a bit baroque but there are also some amazing structures from what I assume is a fairly uncharted period in a fairly uncharted region (ie Russia just before the collapse of communism). See also Richard Pare's 'The Lost Vanguard' for a relatively sober comparison!

I was given a few names recently of notable contemporary Russian architects and the only one I've investigated so far is Alexander Brodsky who created a series of drawings with Ilya Utkin mainly in the 1980s, often submitted as entries to architectural competitions in Japan and the US.  Well worth a look, particularly if you like Boullee, Piranese etc

'Dome', Brodsky & Utkin 1989-90 from 'Brodsky & Utkin The Complete Works' Lois E. Nesbitt, Princeton Arch.Press

2 comments:

  1. One of the more interesting pieces of orphaned USSR architecture in North America is the USSR Pavilion of Expo 67 World Exposition in Montréal, Canada: http://expo67.ncf.ca/expo_ussr_p1.html

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  2. Thanks John, is that still there? Montreal '67 was full of interesting building wasn't it (see Iqbal Aalam's flickr site) - a fantasic Fuller dome, Habitat, Frei Otto and much as I like Basil Spence i don't think the UK pavillion was so great.

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