VKHUTEMAS Russian state art and technical school

Presentation by: Ata ChokhachianMarch 2013

Architecture at Vkhutemas, book cover by El Lissitzky, 1927

VkhutemasRussian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow.

The workshops were established by a order from Vladimir Lenin with the

intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of

the highest qualifications for industry, and builders and managers for

professional-technical education.“(Fry T., 1999)

It was formed by merging the first and second Moscow Free Art Studios. It

included an art department (painting, sculpture, and architecture) and an

industrial department (printing, textile, ceramics, woodworking, and

metalworking). Actually, Vkhutemas’ main function was to train stand painters

and architects. At the same time, the industrial departments were given the task

of training new kinds of artists, able to work with the traditional forms of plastic

arts and to create the entire environment of objects surrounding men, including

objects of everyday life and work tools. (Hamilton, G.H., 1993)

At first Kandinsky, returning to the Soviet Union in 1914 had been the school`s guiding

inspiration, envisioning an institution with broad aims: it would focus on experimental, inter-

dependal basis, encouraging a perspective that would emphasize the position of the viewer`s

reaction, both physically and mentally. But his theories were rejected as too romantic and

psychological, and he returned to Germany and the Bauhaus in 1921, bringing with him ideas

from the Russian school.

Gropius states that, Kandinsky, along with Klee and Feininger provided a spiritual

counterpoint to the rational objective teachings that become the hallmark of the Bauhaus.

Vkhutemas was the Russian equivalent of the Bauhaus; Moholy-Nagy, Kandinsky and

Lissitzky were the masters for the affinities shared by the two schools. Like the German

school, Vkhutemas included art and industrial departments. The constructivists like the

teachers at the Bauhaus consider their technical experiments and formal explorations

“laboratory work”. (Kantor, S. G. 2003)

Art faculty

The primary movements in art which influenced education at

Vkhutemas were constructivism and suprematism. although individuals

were adaptable enough to fit into many or no movements—often

teaching in multiple departments and working in diverse media. The

artistic education at Vkhutemas tended to be multidisciplinary, which

stemmed from its origins as a merger of a fine arts college and a craft

school. Vkhutemas cultivated polymath masters in the Renaissance

frame, many with achievements in graphics, sculpture, product design,

and architecture. Painters and sculptors often made projects related to

architecture; examples include Tatlin's Tower. (Siegelbaum H., 1992)

Model of the Tatlin tower, 1919

Industrial faculty

The industrial faculties had the task of preparing artists of a new type, artists

capable of working not only in the traditional pictorial and plastic arts but

also capable of creating all objects in the human environment such as the

articles of daily life, the implements of labor, etc. The industrial department

at Vkhutemas endeavored to create products of viability in the economy and

functionality found in society. Class-based political requirements steered

artists toward crafts, and the designing of household or industrial goods.

Tables designed by Rodchenko were equipped with mechanical moving

parts, and were standardized and multi-functional. The products designed at

Vkhutemas never bridged the gap between workshops and factory

production. Furniture pieces constructed at Vkhutemas explored the

possibilities of new industrial materials such as polywood and tubular steel.

(Christina Kiaer, 2005)

Tubular steel chair designed in Tatlin's atelier , 1927

Vkhutemas vs. Bauhaus

• Vkhutemas was a close parallel to the German Bauhaus in its intent, organization and scope. The two schools were the first to train artist-designers in a modern manner.

• Both schools were state-sponsored initiatives to merge the craft tradition with modern technology, with a Basic Course in aesthetic principles, courses in color theory, industrial design, and architecture. (Fry T., 2005)

• The curriculum was similar to that of the Bauhaus, but with a more formalist approach to things.

• Bauhaus appears to have been more rooted in the idea of craft, and of a sort of melding of the beliefs of William Morris of the Arts and Crafts movement with industrial production, ironically, so that industrialism could be made human in a way. Vkhutemas appears to have worked for goals that are very, very, broadly similar, but from a completely different perspective. For Vkhutemas, art and design was to serve society, but it was still going to be art.

• Vkhutemas was a larger school than the Bauhaus, (Wood, Paul, 1999) but it was less publicized outside the Soviet Union and consequently, is less familiar to the West. (Tony Fry 1999)

• With the internationalism of modern architecture and design, there were many exchanges between the Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus.(Colton, Timothy J., 1995)

V. Kolpakova. G. Klutsis's workshop Color Solution for an Architectural Volume. 1928-1929.

Zal'tsman. A. Vesnin's workshop. Movie Studio. Last course project. 1926-1927.

Vkhutemas, “Model Construction”, c. 1925.

Maquettes from the Vkhutemas schools 1920-30

Vkhutemas, “Model Construction”, c. 1925.

Lyubov Popova , The picturesque composition. 1921

GEORGE Krutik City of the Future graduation project. 1928

Vkhutemas Werkstätten , VOLUME-SPACE-MODELS 1920s. by Khan-Magomedov

VKHUTEMAS in 2006 In 1920, the school was reorganized and in 1930 dissolved, following political and internal pressures throughout its ten-year existence. The school's faculty, students, and legacy were dispersed into as many as six other schools. However, many of the materials produced by students and faculty of VKHUTEMAS survived and are now part of extensive archives owned by Moscow Architecture Institute, MARKHI

Conclusions

• Vkhutemas and Bauhaus created the original model of artistic and industrial institutions, which had no

analogues in the past. Teaching and experimenting in these schools, the Avant-garde painters, sculptors

and architects developed a concept of aesthetic formation and created one of the earliest system of art and

design.

• Universal design method, the theoretical and methodological legacy of the most important centers of

formation of a new style still continue to promote the educational and stylistic processes in the fields of

art, design and architecture in present days.

• Many introductory disciplines of Bauhaus and Vkhutemas now integrated into the curriculum of

architectural, design and artistic institutions worldwide.

THANK FOR YOU ATTENTION

Refrences

o Sybil Gordon Kantor, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art, MIT Press, 2002, ISBN 0-262-61196-1

o Tony Fry, Inc NetLibrary, A New Design Philosophy an Introduction to Defuturing, UNSW Press, 1999, Page 161, ISBN 0-86840-753-4

o George Heard Hamilton, Painting and Sculpture in Europe, 1880–1940, Yale University Press, 1993, page 315, ISBN 0-300-05649-4

o Alexander Rodchenko, Experiments for the Future, Museum of Modern Art, 2005, Page 273, ISBN 0-87070-546-6

o Gilles Néret, Kazimir Malevich 1878–1935 and suprematism, Taschen, 2003, Page 93, ISBN 3-8228-1961-1

o Alan Colquhoun, Modern Architecture, Oxford University Press, 2002, Pages 110, 125–126, ISBN 0-19-284226-9

o Catherine Cooke, Russian Avant-Garde: Theories of Art, Architecture, and the City, Academy Editions, 1995, (Cooke, 1995), pp.168,172–173.

o Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Soviet State and Society Between Revolutions, 1918–1929, Cambridge University Press, 1992, Page 114, ISBN 0-521-

36987-8

o Christina Kiaer, Imagine no Possessions – the Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism, MIT Press, 2005, Page 122, ISBN 0-262-11289-2

o Lesley Jackson, Twentieth-Century Pattern Design: Textile & Wallpaper Pioneers, Princeton Architectural Press, 2002, Page 55, ISBN 1-56898-

333-6

o Paul Wood, The Challenge of the Avant-Garde, Yale University Press, 1999, Page 244, ISBN 0-300-07762-9

o Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis, Harvard University Press, 1995, Page 215, ISBN 0-674-58749-9

o Kantor, S. G. (2003). Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the intellectual origins of the museum of modern art. MIT Press.

o Wood, Paul (1999) The Challenge of the Avant-Garde. New Haven: Yale University Press ISBN 0-300-07762-9, p. 244

o Tony Fry (1999). A new design philosophy: an introduction to defuturing (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=yEc7UGv2xQEC).UNSW

Press. p. 161. ISBN 9780868407531. . Retrieved 15 May 2011.

o Colton, Timothy J. (1995) Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press ISBN 0-674-58749-9; p.215