Constructivism

The architectural philosophy

What is Constructivism?• Constructivism was an art movement that began in 1919.• “a style or movement in which assorted mechanical objects

are combined. The movement has influenced many aspects of modern architecture and design.”

• initially it acted as a lightning rod for the hopes and ideas of many of the most advanced Russian artists.

Popular artists in the constructivism era• Naum Gabo

• aleksandra ekster

• Lyubov popova

The beginning of ConstructivismConstructivism evolved just as the Bolsheviks came to power in the October Revolution of 1917, (a seizure of state power that was a key part of the Russian revolution in 1917) It was created by those who supported the revolution. It borrowed ideas from Cubism and Futurism, and was heavily inspired by Dadaism, but was in it’s own way a new way to look at objects as a form.Aleksei Gan first used the word as the title of his book Constructivism, printed in 1922.

The ‘Revolution’• ‘the people making this work largely didn't consider themselves to be

artists; they even used the term as an insult. They wanted to destroy art altogether, because they thought they'd created something better to put in its place’

• Inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky’s declaration ‘the street our brushes, the squares our palettes’, artists and designers participated in public life during the civil war.

• In addition some Constructivists were heavily involved in the 'ROSTA Windows', a public information campaign of around 1920.

• Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the most famous artists of this period

Tatlin, 'Construction Art' and Productivism• A key work of Constructivism was Vladimir Tatlin's proposal for

the ‘taitlin’s tower’, while the tower was planned, The tower was not built until much later, due to a lack of money following the Red October revolution.

The aims of Constructivism• Constructivists proposed to replace art's traditional concern

with composition that has a focus on construction.• Objects were created not in order to express beauty, or the

artist's outlook, or to represent the world, but to carry out the fundamental analysis of the materials.

Deconstructivism• Deconstructivist art was originally developed by architects Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas

and various others in the 20th and 21st century. It is influenced by the theory of "Deconstruction", which is a form of semiotic* analysis.

• Hadid by her sketches and drawings of abstract triangles and rectangles evokes the aesthetic inspired by constructivism

• The scaffold and crane like structures represented by a lot of constructivist architects are used for the finished forms of his designs and buildings.

• Though similar formally, the socialist political connotations of Russian constructivism are deemphasized by Hadid

• (Semiotic is the theory of signs and symbols)