Reshaping Russian Architecture: Western Technology, Utopian Dreams

by William Craft Brumfield (Editor)

Reshaping Russian Architecture examines the development of twentieth-century Russian architecture as it relates to the transformation of the imperial Russia into an industrialized Soviet empire and shows how Western notions of style and technology were assimilated on a massive scale into a uniquely Russian vision. Among the issues examined in articles by four distinguished historians of architecture and urban planning are: the decline of imperial architectural design during the mid-nineteenth century as occasioned by fundamental changes in aesthetic values and the social structure; the denouncement of the European capitalist economic system and consequent rejection of modern urban architecture during the period immediately prior to the 1917 revolution; and utopian concepts of modern urban design that were implemented during the interwar years of phenomenal industrial development. An important contribution to our understanding of Russian and Soviet culture in a critical period of its evolution, Reshaping Russian Architecture will also appeal to those interested in modern architecture and urban planning in general.

Hardcover

First published July 27, 1990

About the author

William Craft Brumfield is Professor of Slavic Studies at Tulane University. Brumfield, who began photographing Russia in 1970, is the foremost authority in the West on Russian architecture. He is the author, editor, and photographer of numerous books, including Lost Russia: Photographing the Ruins of Russian Architecture, also published by Duke University Press. Brumfield is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center. In 2002 he was elected to the State Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences, and in 2006 he was elected to the Russian Academy of Fine Arts. He is also the 2014 recipient of the D. S. Likhachev Prize for Outstanding Contributions to the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage of Russia. Brumfield's photographs of Russian architecture have been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums and are part of the Image Collections at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.