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L e n i n i n s t i t u t e o f L i b r a r i a n s h i p

i v a n l e o n i d o v , 1 9 2 7

r e j e c t i o n o f t r a d i t i o n a l f o r m

Political change in early 20th Century Russia brought about a desire for change

in other areas of the public sphere. The artistic body excercised this impulse with

a rejection of classicist principles. This meant opposition to themes of symmetry,

groundedness, and ornamentation, characteristic of the architecture of

totalitarian regimes.

G r a P H i c e V o l U t i o nMainstream graphic design rapidly moved from depictions of organic forms to more simplified forms and relationships, eventually reduced to only the most fundamental geometries.left to right: Rodchenko, ‘Composition,’ 1918; ‘Composition,’ 1919; Lissitzky, ‘Proun RVN 2,’ 1923

e a r l Y w o r kConstructivist artists rapidly moved from

two- to three-dimensions. its stylistic language became expressed in “skeletal

angular structures, in rectilinearity, simplicity, economy of line and materials,

and a geometric solution to surface.”

i n d U s t r i a l d e s i G n m e e t s a r c H i t e c t U r e“Go into the factory, where the real body of life is made.” The movement strove to develop pure art, the absorption of the various artistic forms into industrial production, resulting in the expression of constructive elements seen previously only in factories.

d Y n a m i s mTatlin’s iconic proposal for the Monument to the Third

International illustrates his interpretation of a “truly revolutionary monument, responding to and expressing

the dynamism of a socialist and revolutionary society.”

s o c i a l c H a n G et H r o U G H d e s i G nleonidov aimed to answer the needs of contemporary life through maximum use of the possibilies of technologies. The lenin institue of librarianship was designed as a collective center of knowledge for the USSR.

l e n i n H i l l s , m o s c o wThe institute was located on the lenin Hills in Moscow a few miles southwest of the Red Square. The connection between Moscow and the institute was made by an aerial tramway.

P U r e f o r m sa l o n G o r t H o G o n a l a X e sall primary buidling components are embodied by fundamental geometric forms, in this case spheres and rectilinear boxes. These elements are composed along axes originating at a central origin, expanding along the three euclidean axes. The results are highly constrasted spaces from one program to the next.

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P r o G r a mleonidov developed an expansive composition of individualized elements, challenging traditional ideas of the building as a whole. This scattering of building elements is representative of the process of social change and the dynamic political order of post-Revolutionary Russia.

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f i n a l c o m P o s i t i o nBy creating a composition of disorder, he assigned a

political meaning to his projects, communicating ideas of the diffusion of centralized power in an attempt to

redefine the social realm.

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t e n s i l e e X P r e s s i o nThe cables take on a poetic quality in the duality of their role. The steel cables support the structures both physically and conceptually, speaking both of guy-wires in tension and radio communication cables. The result is an aesthetic of a building “tied down” to the site.

a U d i t o r i U m / P l a n e t a r i U mThe construction of the auditorium resembles the ropes

of a hot-air balloon, a result of leonidov’s fascination with the mastery of the forces of gravity and the act of flight.

This illusion of built elements reaching towards the sky lies at the heart of this project.

c o n n e c t i o n t o t H e d i V i n eThe dome of a church represents the heavens and covers the idealized world. leonidov’s use of a dome to cover an assembly of people, his proposed use of it as a planetarium, are all consistent with the tradition of native religious architecture.

t r a n s f i G U r a t i o n although the cables serve a structural purpose, the graphic use of radiating lines to symbolize divine communication is traditional of Russian iconography.

l a t e r w o r kThemes of “weightless” machines of flight remained a central theme throughout leonidov’s career.

f o U r d i s t a n t V i e w s o f t H e c i t Y leonidov’s paintings of his vision of Campenalla’s City of the Sun feature a seemingly weightless sphere floating on the horizon, with only a faint shimmer hinting at the cables reaching toward the earth (1940s).

w e i G H t l e s s c i t Ydrawing for the United nations Headquarters Complex design

(1957-1958)