On May 28, the Central House of Architects hosted a presentation of the book “Urban Development in the Shadow of Stalin. The world in search of a socialist city in the USSR”. The book was prepared by a team of authors working under the guidance of the German scientist and architecture researcher Professor Harald Bodenschatz. The event was organized by the KNAUF CIS group together with the Union of Moscow Architects. Famous Russian architects, representatives of the KNAUF group and the German Embassy in Russia made speeches and lectures at the presentation
The publication is the result of a multi-year research project carried out at the Schinkel Center at the Technical University of Berlin, where Mr. Bodenschatz serves as Professor of Sociology of Urban Design and Architecture. For the first time, the authors managed to fully illuminate an outstanding era in the history of urban planning. The study was initiated and funded by the co-owner of the international KNAUF group, Honorary Consul of Russia in Nuremberg (Germany), Mr. Nikolaus Knauf, a passionate amateur historian who considers this period the most significant in the modern history of urban planning in the USSR and Russia.
Nikolaus Knauf described the motives that prompted him to come up with the initiative of the project: “To reflect the idea of building magnificent architectural structures in a period of a calmer and more balanced approach - this is what Knauf considers it his duty to publish this book in Russia and thereby expressing gratitude to the architects of those years and their architectural fantasy.
The central theme of the book is a change of course, a turn, a change of paradigms in Soviet urban planning in the period 1929 - 1935, the conditions in which it took place, the actors, the forms of this process, controversial issues, results, implementation and its impact in the context of the first two five-year plans … The book separately raises the question of the role of international cultural exchange in this change of course. Of particular interest is the dramatic change in the relationship between politics and urban planning, the politicization of urban planning.
The authors primarily used archival materials, journals of those years, and scientific literature of the 1930s as sources. The results of already existing studies of various European authors, especially Italian ones, were taken into account.
No urban planning discussion had such a serious ideological content as the discussion of urban planning in the era of early Stalinism. Nowhere in Europe has there been such a fierce debate about the principles of building a better city than in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1935. Stalin, despite all objections, proclaimed the transformation of an agrarian country into a modern industrial state as the goal of the first five-year plan. Foreign experts were invited to provide assistance and advice. It was necessary to build new cities and reconstruct old ones. Magnitogorsk and Moscow are striking examples of the implementation of these plans.
In an extremely short period of time between 1929 and 1935, a paradigm shift took place in urban planning - one of the most radical, the most controversial and one that had tremendous consequences. Its importance on a global scale was unprecedented. This process of turning point, which was of decisive importance for the history of not only Soviet, but also European urban planning, has today been documented and analyzed only fragmentarily. This book fills this gap in many ways.
Work on the Russian edition of the book has been going on for four years. For Nikolaus Knauf, it was important to publish this book in Russian in Russia to vividly present the positive development of Russian construction in the 1930s, to remind the Russian people of the outstanding architectural achievements that belong to the best in the world.
Knauf company has undertaken all expenses to present this book to the Russian-speaking reader. However, it is not possible to find it on free sale: the book "Urban Planning in the Shadow of Stalin" is published in a limited edition and is intended only for members of the professional community.
The Knauf Group is an international company that has been carrying out investment activities in Russia and the CIS countries since 1993. Today the KNAUF group is one of the world's largest manufacturers of building finishing materials.
