Leningrad: A Guide to Soviet Modernist Architecture 1955–1991

  • Year2021
  • LanguageRussian
  • Pages344
  • BindingPaperback
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This guidebook does not feature the Hermitage or Peterhof because the authors invite you to visit Leningrad. St. Petersburg is present, however, because it determined the character of Leningrad modernism.

Rather than rejecting tradition, here modernism reflected upon it. This is the modernism of traditionalism, not “militant” but in dialogue, which is what makes it so appealing. In the space age, Leningrad architects continued to think in terms of ensembles rather than separate buildings, which seemed archaic back then, but today this environmental approach seems to be cutting edge.

This is the third in a series of guides to Soviet modernist architecture. The first two were about Moscow and Alma-Ata.

Authors

Anna Bronovitskaya is an architectural historian and curator. She graduated in Art History from Moscow State University, before receiving her Candidate of Sciences in Art History degree in 2004. From 1992 to 2016 she lectured at Moscow Architectural Institute. Since 2016, Bronovitskaya has taught at MARCH Architectural School in Moscow. Between 2004 and 2014, she was editor of the architectural magazines Project Russia and Project International. Since 2015, she has given a series of lectures on twentieth-century architecture at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Her articles on Soviet architecture have been published in the Russian and international press. She lives and works in Moscow.


Nikolay Malinin is an architectural historian and curator. He graduated in Journalism from Moscow State University in 1992. He is curator of the Archiwood Prize and Chief Editor of the website Drugaya Moskva (The Other Moscow). Exhibition projects include: Das Andere Moskau (New Town Hall, Berlin, 2003), The New Wooden (Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, 2009), Will Price. Parallels (Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, 2011), Contemporary Temporary (part of the exhibition Temporary Structures in Gorky Park: From Melnikov to Ban, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, 2012), and Knigostroy (Central House of Artists, Moscow, 2012). Author of the books: Moscow Architecture. 1989–2009 (2009), The New Wooden (2010), Metropol: The Moscow Legend (2015), Moscow: A Guide to Soviet Modernist Architecture 1955–1991 (with Anna Bronovitskaya and Yuri Palmin, Garage, 2016, second edition 2019), Contemporary Wooden (2017), Alma-Ata: A Guide to Soviet Modernist Architecture 1955–1991 (with Anna Bronovitskaya and Yuri Palmin, Garage, 2018), The Contemporary Russian Wooden House (Garage, 2020).


Yuri Palmin is an artist and architectural photographer. He graduated in Applied Linguistics from Moscow State University in 1986 and began working as a professional photographer in 1989. Palmin collaborates with contemporary architects and specialist media in Russia and abroad, illustrates books on contemporary and historic Russian architecture, and participates in creative projects with other artists, including Alyona Kirtsova, Alexander Brodsky, Vladislav Efimov, and Sergey Leontiev. He teaches at MARCH Architectural School and is co-founder of the Institute of Modernism. Palmin’s works are in the collections of the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, and private collections. He lives and works in Moscow.

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