"VKHUTEMAS. Thought is material"

[SergeiSK]

The Museum of Architecture named Shchusev Nov. 17 exhibition opens "VKHUTEMAS. Thought is material" dedicated to the projects of students of the legendary Soviet university
Highest artistic and technical workshops were organized in 1920, the partisanship on the rise of avant-garde artists and architects of the Soviet regime. In VHUTEMAS taught the best: from the author of Tower III International Vladimir Tatlin to book charts the number one Vladimir Tabor. Age of the largest in the USSR, the creative laboratory was short-lived: in 1926 was renamed the Institute workshops (VHUTEIN). But he lasted only four years: in 1930 it was divided into the Moscow Architectural Institute and Surikovku.
Since 1950 the abbreviation "VKHUTEMAS" in the biography of the artist or architect could directly affect the price of his works. In the former students of the workshops saw the carrier of the secret knowledge of a range of extraordinary creative latitude, holding the secrets of this project thinking. However, not all teachers VKhUTEMAS thought so. Peter Miturich schedule, for example, work in high school bored by: in his view, the contingent was always random and incapable of art. "
Not surprisingly, the MARCHI conceived to celebrate the 90 th anniversary of the university festival "Space Art Workshops - 2010 and a large exhibition. It is surprising that this has not happened before. The exhibition will feature exhibits from the collections of the Museum of Architecture, updated from the 1930 thanks to former students and teachers of Art Workshops, as well as their families. The latest acquisition of the museum became his student drawings of the architect Andrei Burov, starts in his time with the constructivist scenery for the film Eisenstein's Old and New, "and now - a recognized classic.
By analogy with the study of French historian Georges Duby about the era of the High Middle Ages, "the cathedral", the 1920 can be called a "time projects." The present boom in architecture began in the young Soviet republic only in 1925, when construction volume has grown tenfold in comparison with the first half of the decade. But youth and mentors VKhUTEMAS had before them unprecedented in scale construction site.
Student Art Workshops Sergei Senkin described the visit of Lenin in a hostel of young artists. Lenin in a new art did not understand , and Senkin, explaining his work, telling him: "The old artists are deceiving himself and others that they can represent. Nobody knows, as we learn, and our task is an associate art with politics, and we certainly associate art with politics. " This problem has still not been resolved to anyone. Besides, architects VKhUTEMAS before his eyes were problems of a new society in which the primary social unit was working, and the main customer - the state. Therefore, they concentrated on developing a new type of buildings - factories, kitchens, homes, communities and other hybrids, created to improve everyday life of Soviet people. The transition from a predominantly private housing Nouveau to the understanding of the common good across the country accompanied by the appearance of both exotic and sensible ideas, and the exhibition "The thought is material" would be both. However, both - in the spirit of the times. After all, around, and just talk about "social responsibility of the artist and the reform of the architectural image of Moscow.
Valentin Dyakonov
magazine Vlast »№ 45 (899) on 15.11.2010

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