1,721,122 research outputs found
Old and New. Delving into the Origins of Collectivization
No full textSoviet experiences played an important part in the broader international debate on rural planning throughout
the early decades of the twentieth century. In this respect, the competition for the Green City of Moscow and the
project for new forms of human habitat in the Urals by M. Ginzburg and the OSA group (Sverdlovsk, Magnitogorsk and Chelyabinsk, 1926-32) –much too often labelled as “utopian” by architectural historians– deserve due reconsideration (Meriggi, 2009).
Based on research begun with MA (Kravchenko, 2019; Meriggi, 2019) and PhD students (Batunova, 2017), this paper
focuses on Verblyud, Gigant and other collective villages of the Salsk steppes, taking us to the origins of collectivization and epitomizing the 1920s and 1930s Soviet planning theory and practice.
Underpinning aspects include, firstly, the land: its population and settlement patterns before and during the modernization process. Secondly, the actual extensions of each production unit and the ratio between the number
of farmers and arable land. Finally, we cannot but venture a tentative understanding of the hierarchy of new rural settlements – some acting as sovkhoz headquarters, others as smaller kolkhozy and communes.
What follows is an attempt to piece together a heterogeneous set of information with the help of historical maps, building on a methodology in use by the author since 2000 for studying Soviet avantgarde projects performed by iteratively cross-checking bibliographic sources, visual documentation, cartographic selection, interpretation, and elaboration. Historical maps became a tool to contextualize the projects’ actual impact on the places concerned.
In the case of the Salsk steppes, the key research output is a map showing the evolution of the main settlements from the early1920s until the late 1930s. Two sources have guided our work: the economic geographer Nikolay Baranskij (1956a), and Eisenstein’s documentary film Staroe i novoe (Old and New), depicting the situation ex ante, the political terms of collectivization and its protagonists. In addition, this contribution is mainly based on Russian sources, maps, journals, books and reports dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, as well as recent scholarly works.
This contribution expands the research carried out at Politecnico di Milano on sovkhoz-heritage sites near Zernograd
(lit. “city of grain”), the former Verblyud (lit. “camel”), whose populations, like that of many other medium size towns in the Rostov Region have both been shrinking (Meriggi, 2019).
This paper examines four rural areas and settlements along the Rostov-Salsk railway line: the Tselinskij rayon (Tselina District, former Zapadno-Konnozavodcheskiy rayon), 1922–6; the Stalin kolkhoz (originally the Sejatel’ Commune), 1930s to 1950s; the Gigant zernosovkhoz no.1 (Gigant State Grain Farm), 1928¦; and the Uchebno-opytnnyj zernosovkhoz no.2 (Educational-Experimental State Grain Farm, originally named Verblyud), 1929. It argues that, from the early 1920s to the late 1950s, the Salsk District became a testing ground for early Soviet rural planning and
architecture
Ritm v Arkhitekture: formal'nij i propedevticeskij analiz arkhitektury v Schkole grazhdanskoj arkhitektury Milanskogo Politekhniceskgo Universiteta (Il ritmo in architettura: analisi formale e propedeutica nella Scuola di Architettura Civile del Politecncio di Milano)
No full textThe role of the rythm in architecture. The konstructist theory and a teaching practice experiment in architectural design courses in Milan Polythecnic Universit
Chinese Urban-Rural Continuum as framework for the Green City of the Future in East Pearl River Delta
No full textThe issues here presented have been produced following a research program outlined by the School of Civil Architecture, Politecnico di Milano, and the Huizhou Municipality Technical Bureau, in the framework of a Cooperation Agreement signed in 2008 and still ongoing between the Italian Government and the Guangdong Province of the People’s Republic of China. The research focuses on problems of conservation and enhancement of Hakka architectural heritage, considered as a key feature of the landscapes concerned in the Huiyang area - District of the Huizhou Municipality, Guangdong Province. Shaped as monumental fortified villages, Hakka rural settlement are a distinguished feature of the Pearl River Delta. This aspect emerges by considering the historical evolution of the network of marketing community and towns of this part of China as described by G. William Skinner in his famous writings on Marketing and Social structure in Rural China. By following the “Christaller model” used by Skinner, we can recognize in Huizhou Prefecture a network of Hakka villages based on the historical network of marketing communities. Here several historical market towns (that later became commune headquarters) are still playing the role of secondary hub in the network of settlements comprised between the most important market city of the area that today are Huizhou, Huiyang and Huidong. Each of these poles is then surrounded quite homogeneously in all directions by a lower level of market towns composed by groups of “weilong type” fortified villages of Hakka families. In our consulting activity for the Huizhou Municipality we proposed a strategy of development of the city of Huiyang based on the integration in the frame of its Official Masterplan of rural “landscape units” containing groups of “weilong type” fortified villages. These “landscape units” should still maintain an appreciable ratio of agricultural land to form part of the “green structure of the future”. In this way, we identify a strategy of development that at a regional scale could provide new opportunities of urban growth alternative to undifferentiated sprawl. This approach could be expressed with the slogan “rebuilding from the countryside within the city of the future” as opposed to “undifferentiated growth of the city at the expense of the countryside. We present in our paper the cases of the two minor market town of Xiang Ling and Weibu in the surroundings of Huiyang
La città verde
No full textIl tema della “città verde” è oggi indissolubilmente legato all’idea di bioarchitettura, da un lato, e di città sostenibile, dall’altro. “Città verde” è il titolo di un concorso di architettura del 1929 per la costruzione di una città del riposo nei pressi di Mosca che produsse quattro progetti di maestri dell’avanguardia russa che fecero del tema il pretesto per la proposta di nuove tipologie insediative. In questo libro, il termine “città verde” riunisce una serie di esperienze che, come quei quattro progetti, hanno cercato di delineare una nuova tipologia insediativa strutturalmente fondata nella campagna e nel territorio e alternativa alla grande città come forma di habitat per lo sviluppo della società moderna.
Il libro è diviso in due parti. La prima parte, "La città verde", scritta dall'autore - è composta da sei saggi in cui attraverso il confronto tra quattro esperienze di progettazione di insediamenti fondati sul territorio e complementari alla città negli anni '30 e '40 del Novecento: tra Russia (Il concorso per la "Città verde di Mosca" e il disurbanesimo), Italia (La campagna padana di Gaetano Ciocca) e Stati Uniti (I progetti per gli insediamenti TVA). Nei casi di studio vengono delineati gli elementi tipici di una forma insediativa complementare alla grande città, con le sue tipologie architettoniche distintive. La rassegna si conclude con un capitolo finale sulle caratteristiche del progetto di "città verde" desumibili dal confronto tra casi di studio che apre la seconda parte del libro. La seconda parte, “Per un atlante delle città verdi”, redatta da autori invitati e specialisti - è composta da sei saggi che propongono una rilettura di noti casi di architettura moderna in chiave di progetto di “città verde”: dalla visione fisiocratica negli Stati Uniti (Thomas Jefferson, M. C. Loi) e in Francia (Claude N. Ledoux, D. Chizzoniti); alle cittadelle industriali modello negli Stati Uniti (Henry Ford, F. Bucci) e in Italia a Ivrea (Olivetti, F. Bonfante); alle visioni del secondo Novecento di nuove forme insediative fondate sul territorio in Italia (“ruralistica” di Amos Edallo, G. Frassine; “l’eco-città” di Marcello D’Olivo, G. L. Ferreri).
Il volume si apre con una prefazione di Guido Canella e si chiude con una postfazione di Jurij P. Volchok. Nel dare il profilo di ciascuna delle esperienze citate, tutti gli autori dei diversi contributi hanno di volta in volta teso a evidenziarne soprattutto la proattività in termini di discorso architettonico e di progettazione insediativa. Le “città verdi” che compongono il libro sono frutto di ricerche svolte dagli autori nell’ambito di dottorati di ricerca e per progetti europei (COST C 11) e MIUR presso il Dipartimento di Progettazione Architettonica del Politecnico.The theme of the “green city” is today inextricably linked to the idea of bio architecture, on the one hand, and of a sustainable city, on the other. “Green City” is the title of a 1929 architectural competition for constructing a city of rest near Moscow that produced four projects by masters of the Russian avant-garde who made the theme the pretext for the proposition of new settlement typologies. In this book, the term “green city” brings together a series of experiences that, like those four projects, have sought to outline a new settlement typology structurally founded in the countryside and in the territory and alternative to the big city as a form of habitat for the development of modern society.
The book is divided into two parts.
The first part, "The Green City", written by the author - consists of six essays in which through a comparison between four experiences of planning settlements founded in the territory and complementary to the city in the 30s and 40s of the twentieth century: between Russia (The competition for the "Green City of Moscow" and disurbanism), Italy (the Po Valley countryside of Gaetano Ciocca) and the United States (the projects for the TVA settlements). In the case-studies, the typical elements of a form of settlement complementary to the large city are outlined, with its distinctive architectural types. The review ends with a final chapter on the characteristics of the "green city" project deducible from the comparison between case studies that opens the second part of the book. The second part, “For an atlas of Green Cities”, written by invited authors and specialists - consists of six essays that propose a rereading of well-known cases of modern architecture in the key of the “green city” project: from the physiocratic vision in the United States (Thomas Jefferson, M. C. Loi) and in France (Claude N. Ledoux, D. Chizzoniti); to the model industrial citadels in the United States (Henry Ford, F. Bucci) and in Italy in Ivrea (Olivetti, F. Bonfante); to the visions of the second half of the twentieth century of new forms of settlement founded in the territory in Italy (“ruralistica” by Amos Edallo, G. Frassine; “the eco-town” by Marcello D’Olivo, G. L. Ferreri).
The volume opens with a preface by Guido Canella and closes with an afterword by Jurij P. Volchok.
In giving the profile of each of the experiences cited, all the authors of the different contributions have from time to time tended to highlight above all the proactivity in terms of architectural discourse and settlement design. The "green cities" that make up the book are the result of research carried out by the authors in the context of research doctorates and for European projects (COST C 11) and MIUR at the Department of Architectural Design of the Polytechnic
Архитектура как пространсвенная композиция. Архитектурные масса, ритм и метре (The Architecture as a Space Composition. The Architectural Mass, Rythm and Metre).
No full textThe culture of Avant-garde, from abstract art to Constructivism and Suprematism, introduced during the XX century new tools and principles in the academic tradition, Beaux- art, of the discipline of architectural composition. The present contribution intend to demonstrate the validity of this Avant-garde tradition in training processes in architectural design, contrasting the current attempt to liquidate “composition” as an academic methodology to be substituted with “non-composition” processes
La città possibile di Ivan Leonidov. Una mostra alla Triennale di Milano - The possible city of Ivan leonidov. An exhibition at Triennale of Milano
No full textL'articolo illustra i criteri di ordinamento della mostra e un'anteprima dell'allestimento
Uno e centomila percorsi di ricerca sulla modernità: a margine degli scritti di Jurij Volchok
No full textThe text presents to the Italian public the two-volume collection of writings by Iu. Volchok – architect,
historian and theorist from Moscow active since the 1970s in the most prestigious research and training
institutions of the USSR first, and then of the Russian Federation. His writings are presented following
the thematic areas touched on in the book – from the history of building structures and the history of art
and architecture to the problems of preserving the legacy of the avant-garde and modernity in Russia. The
introduction to his theoretical research is accompanied by a chronicle of the author’s personal experience of
collaborating with Iu. Volchok from 1993 to 2020 in a series of exhibition projects and publications on the
Soviet avant-garde and its legacy. The chronological narrative of the projects witnesses the vicissitudes
and the development of scientific interest in the architectural culture of the Soviet avant-garde in Russia
and Italy over the last thirty years
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