Fabien Bellat. Amériques-URSS: architectures du défi. [Paris]: Éditions Nicolas Chaudun, 2014. P. 304
/ Fabien Bella. America - USSR: architecture of challenge. [Paris], 2014. S. 304 /
The chosen topic seems to be lying on the surface: for example, the discussion of the relationship between American skyscrapers and Stalin's skyscrapers has long become a commonplace - however, interest in the history of relations between the two largest world powers of the 20th century remains high. However, it was this book, written by a French researcher, that became almost the first fundamental analysis of this plot.
This voluminous 300-page publication is the result of three years of research, during which Fabien Bella worked in Russia, the USA, Canada and Cuba. The book is richly illustrated with photographs taken by the author himself, as well as numerous archival documents, some of which are published for the first time. These historical materials are provided by the Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchusev, the UN archives, the Library of Congress and a number of other institutions. This is not the first time Bella has addressed the topic of international relations between Soviet architects: his dissertation was devoted to the relationship between Russia and France in 1930-1958.
The topic of relations between the USSR and America, indeed, seems obvious, but its analysis often boils down to an external comparison of Stalin's skyscrapers and several American skyscrapers. In her study, Fabien Bella approaches the issue more thoroughly, not confining herself to the architecture of the Seven Sisters, but placing them in a wider geographical and chronological context, tracing the history of international architectural relations from the early contacts of the 1920s to the end of the Cold War (however, the central the place of research is still occupied by Stalin's skyscrapers), and by "America" Fabien Bella understands not only the United States, but also other countries of this part of the world - in particular, Canada, Brazil and Cuba. He examines the relationship between the USSR and America in great detail: it seems that he tried not to lose sight of any contact between Soviet and American architects.
The first chapter, dedicated to the 1920s and 1930s, shows how serious the interest in American architecture was in the first decades of Soviet power among the most diverse architectural groupings of the USSR. Then, while the domestic government had not yet taken control of all international contacts, there was an active cultural exchange between the USSR and abroad. Bella tells in detail about the trips of Soviet architects to the New World (Iofan, Alabyan, etc.), their participation in international competitions (for the design of a monument to Columbus in 1929), the arrival of Frank Lloyd Wright in Moscow in 1937 and many other events. A separate section is devoted to Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky, who lived in the United States for 10 years and then worked in the USSR, including on projects for Moscow skyscrapers. An important role was also played by the work on the creation of the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in New York in 1939, when many Russian architects were able to get acquainted with modern American architecture. The author of the book considers this period of Soviet-American relations to be extremely important, because it was during these years that the projects of the Palace of Soviets, the Moscow Hotel and metro stations in the capital were created, which largely anticipated the aesthetics and style of the famous high-rises.
In the first chapter, the story about the work of American engineers at an industrial construction site in the USSR is especially interesting. Fabien Bella traces the fate of US specialists who were invited to work in the 1930s on the creation of the Soviet industrial infrastructure. This opportunity was very valuable for foreign designers (including architects), who, due to the Great Depression, were left without work in their homeland, and therefore many of them gladly came to the Land of the Soviets. Undoubtedly, this gave impetus to the development of domestic engineering and architecture. However, this “meeting” also had unexpected consequences: for example, Fabien Bella shows that the project of the USSR pavilion at the World Exhibition in New York, developed by Karo Alabyan, almost literally copies the work of Albert Kahn, the most famous American architect who worked here and engineers.
In the second, "central" chapter, Bell demonstrates how attitudes towards the American experience in the postwar years are beginning to change, and how this is reflected in projects for the reconstruction of Moscow and high-rise buildings. If back in 1943 Alabyan organized a discussion about American architecture in the Moscow House of Architects, and in 1945 the American Harvey Ville Corbett, a former mentor of Oltarzhevsky during his work in the United States, held an exhibition of modular construction in Moscow, then already in the late 1940s against the background of the fight against cosmopolitanism, Soviet architects are placed in a rigid ideological framework, calling for the creation of projects based on the national cultural heritage, without regard to international experience.
Analyzing the Stalinist skyscrapers themselves and comparing them with their American counterparts, Bella initially makes a reservation: it is almost impossible to find a direct similarity between them, since the Soviet architects faced a difficult task bordering on an absurd: on the one hand, to build skyscrapers like the American ones, and on the other - by all means create original buildings that will rely on the traditions of the architecture of the peoples of the USSR. Using the example of the implemented projects, the author traces the transformation of the original typology of the American skyscraper by Soviet architects: how exactly, with the help of what elements they root it in the tradition of Soviet (in the broad sense of the word, including, according to the researcher, the entire Eastern Bloc) architecture. Bella believes that Gothic as a whole is becoming a "taboo" topic - because of clear associations with cult architecture, but at the same time, the use of pointed teeth, which are often found in Poland, turns out to be quite legitimate, as we see in the example of the Foreign Ministry building. The author concludes: "This uncomfortable ambivalent position in which Soviet architects found themselves could be resolved only thanks to clever invention … it is from this duality that the phenomenon of Stalin's skyscrapers is born."
The final section of the book is devoted to the Cold War period and the new fascination with modernism in the Soviet Union and its strengthening as the dominant style outside of it. This chapter is, perhaps, the most independent part of the study: if there are numerous works on the Russian avant-garde and the era of Stalin, on which one can rely, then post-war Soviet modernism, even in Russia, in many respects remains terra incognita - although the activity of domestic researchers allows us to hope for an improvement in the situation.
During this period, architects are not required to skillfully disguise foreign motives - on the contrary, their ability to speak "the same language" with the West is welcomed. One of the first architects who learned to use this advantageously was Mikhail Posukhin. Bella believes that in his design for the CMEA building, he relied on the Town Hall in Toronto, built several years earlier, by the Finn Villo Revell, while the famous reconstruction plan of Tashkent Rozanov (1962-1967) inherits the projects of Costa and Niemeira for Brasilia. As for the entry of Soviet architects into the international arena, this took place primarily in the form of pavilions at World Exhibitions and buildings of the USSR embassies, which was an important, largely political gesture in the context of the Cold War. Each new building of this period seeks to "catch up and overtake America." According to the author, at first it turns out successfully, as, for example, in the building of the national pavilion in Montreal Posokhin (1967), but the final point of this story is the embassy in Havana, completely manneristic in its essence (architect A. Rochegov), completed in 1987 (Bella calls it "the lonely monster").
Fabien Bella, on the basis of his research, argues that the reality of Soviet architectural life did not correspond to the usual image of a hermetically sealed environment, revealing the mechanism of cultural exchange even in conditions of severe cultural isolation. The amount of material collected and analyzed by the author (often published for the first time!) Evokes respect; these data are of great interest primarily to a professional audience. A wide range of readers will be interested in the history of architectural ties and rivalry between the main powers of the socialist camp and the West, respectively, placed in the context of the dramatic history of the 20th century.
Unfortunately, now Fabien Bell's work is available only in French, which complicates the acquaintance of a large potential audience with it, but this book is worth at least flipping through for the sake of the illustrative series collected in it, which is not only interesting in itself, but also largely gives answers to the questions posed by the author. You can get acquainted with the publication "live" at its planned presentation in Moscow (the time and place will be announced later), as well as - we hope - in other cities of Russia.
