Utopias of Soviet Avant-Garde and The Radical Design Movement
There are a lot of similarities between the utopian visions of the Soviet Avant-Garde and The Radical Design Movement, as both thrived in times of unrest. Still, the expression of their respective utopias is the result of their times.
The Soviet Avant-Garde movement was an influential period of revolutionary modern art and architecture that burgeoned in the Soviet Union from 1890 to 1930. This time of radical artistic exploration warranted breakthroughs throughout all seven forms of art. More importantly, this movement refers to many co-existing individual movements that were on the rise at the time. The Soviet Avant-Garde movement gained popularity through social unrest, particularly during the Russian Revolution.
The combination of causes of social unrest led to the demise of the Russian Empire, ultimately resulting in the abolition of the autocracy. Newly emancipated peasants earned too little to sustain themselves and were also not allowed to sell their land for money. Discrimination against ethnic minorities was prominent in the pre-revolution. The rise of Russification, or the practice of non-Russian communities giving up their culture to be assimilated into Russian culture, angered ethnic communities. Moreover, active forms of oppression such as bans on serving in the Navy and denying or limiting their attendance in schools were widespread. The educated people of pre-revolution Russia spread radical ideas, allowing students freedom of thought and creating a more socialist generation. The concept of the government’s inability or disinclination to protect its people weighed heavily on especially the industrial working class, as their strikes and labor unions were silenced. This was exacerbated by Tsar Nicholas II government’s inability to provide for its citizens, especially soldiers, with basic warfare necessities such as food and weapons during World War I. Instead, organizations known as the Zemstvos stepped in to counteract the government’s ineptitude and promote the general welfare of civilians. Seeing that local organizations had to play the role of the government it was natural for the citizens to lose hope in the government, and doubt that can protect its people. Citizens will follow the rules written and unwritten, pay taxes, contribute to production, all in exchange for certain protections and benefits. When that social contract is broken, and the State itself becomes what people need to protect from, there is nothing stopping people from violently revolting.
This untrust and frustration elicited a revolution, one of the first protests being on March 8, 1917, on International Women’s Day in Petrograd. Oppressed groups, including peasants, the working class, and women, protested their living conditions. As protests became increasingly violent over the course of a week, the police killed over 1300 people. On March 15, after the majority of oppressed soldiers joined the fight, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. A provisional government came into power and consisted of a mixture of democratic policies including, socialists, anarchists, constitutional monarchists, and liberals. Russian revolutionary and communist leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Petrograd after his exile to rebuild his empire as the Bolsheviks. Planning a coup of the provisional government, Lenin successfully took over the interim government in November, officially passing state power to the soviets.
The fall of the Tsar and the adoption of communism were a total rework of society during the early 1900s, similar to the radical changes in art brought by the Soviet Avant-Garde movement. During the 19th century, before the Russian Revolution took place, minimal substantial advancements were made in the field. Still an autocratic state, Russia was far behind compared to the Western world. In particular, the only painters that became successful were sent abroad for training through the Russian Academy of Arts. Along with landscape portraits and historical works, a huge emphasis was placed on religious works in pre-revolution Russia. Russian icons have been especially important to Russia’s art history, dating back to AD 988. The icons were created in strictly the Byzantine style, but as the concept became older, painters started experimenting. Due to a strict stylistic expectation in regards to colors and composition, the artistic scene before the Russian Revolution was devoid of innovation. The tumultuous time leading up to and following the Revolution saw an explosion of artistic innovation.
The ideals of the Russian Revolution were utopian and demanded a total reform of society socially and politically. Socially, peasants demanded an end to “redemption payments” to the State and complete abolishment of all serfdom ideals. The general population, especially those fighting on the warfront, wanted the government to protect them, ultimately introducing the concept of the general welfare, which was soon adopted by the Bolsheviks, altering social policy frameworks forever. With women playing a major role in the Russian Revolution by advocating for women’s rights, a society was imagined in which women were viewed as equal to men. Through the Women’s Day protests, society was able to step towards this direction and achieve women’s suffrage in 1917. The idea of better working conditions and pay within the industrial class, women’s rights, and benefits and protection from the government shepherded Russia into a supposed social utopia. Politically, revolutionaries such as Vladimir Lenin imagined the downfall of the Tsarist government and its replacement with the world’s first Communist State, a shift from a far-right governmental system to a far-left system in which women were considered equal to men, the industrial class had better pay, and then a new form of government was able to protect its citizens.
The protests of 1968 referred to a worldwide chain of protests characterized by social upheaval and disagreement with the military and bureaucracy. These mass movements grew internationally, spanning from the United States to Italy. In the United States, protests were sparked over the Vietnam War. At the same time, Western European countries’ youths took to the streets to protest its government and the Eastern European countries protested their lack of freedom of speech and loss of fundamental civil rights. The increase in socialist movements changed the ideals of the new generation of students. Since Italy was in a socialist movement, the majority of movements were led by students at universities. Stemming from the strikes and protests throughout the 1960s, the demonstrators essentially wanted to change the capitalist and patriarchal society of the time. This was especially relevant considering the economic changes Italy was going through due to rapid industrialization. In May 1968 all universities in Italy except for Bocconi were occupied by student protestors. These protests were unusually rampant due to the population increase in the educated class. It is inevitable for revolts to occur when a higher population is educated and unafraid to challenge authority and governmental power. However, although this movement was led by left-wing students, as the right-wing individuals were dominated in the Battle of Valle Giulia, it was not limited to students. Italian artists such as Giò Pomodoro, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Ernesto Treccani and Gianni Dova occupied the Palazzo della Triennale for 15 days. The extensive nature of these protests influenced students to advocate for workers, resulting in the Hot Autumn.
The Hot Autumn of 1969-1970 was a period of social upheaval in which workers in factories and industrialized areas in Northern Italy protested against their low wages and unlivable conditions. Due to labor migration, many workers had come from the more impoverished South and believed that their employers were exploiting them and paying them less. Angered by having to leave their homes and the high cost of living in the North, workers were frustrated. Leftist students willing to make change stood up for these workers and demanded better pay and working conditions and soon, the workers joined the protests.
Similar to the Russian Revolution, the period of Italian unrest also descended into violence. The Years of Lead refers to political turmoil in Italy characterized by far-left and far-right terrorism. In 1969, the death of a policeman, a bombing that killed 17, and the death of an anarchist worker occurred. Student strikes and riots were exceedingly violent throughout 1969, enabling fascist groups to mirror that violence and push fascism through terrorism. Throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, there were an unprecedented amount of mass shootings, bombings, murders, and kidnapping cases lead by many political groups.
Recovering from World War II and the damage brought on by fascism, Italy’s artistic advancements were dull before the 1960s. However, during the 1960s, Italy experienced a creative rebirth stemming from the artists of the time period’s ability to adapt to the rapid industrialization of the 60s by using new technologies to experiment with abstract forms, bold colors, and conceptual practices.
The utopian ideals present in Italy were a complete freedom of speech and basic civil rights, and once again, benefits and fair pay and working conditions for the industrial class. Although poorly achieved, through the glorification of violence as a means of social change, a society was imagined in which people were essentially free and oppressed.
Kazimir Malevich was a Russian avant-garde artist who founded the artistic and philosophical school of Suprematism. His ideas about art and the world, in general influenced a generation of artists and philosophers. Malevich worked in a variety of styles, but he’s most well known for his exploration of the composition of pure geometric forms. He was influenced by the abstract art movements of artists across Europe and the United States namely the Cubist and the Futurists. Suprematism took these abstract styles to their logical extreme, freeing art from any loyalty to representation.
Malevich was designing when Russian society was undergoing rapid transformation, leading up to the following the Russian Revolution. There was a desire to break away from the past in a complete tabula rasa. As centuries-old political and societal structures crumbled, Suprematism emerged as the dawn of a new age of art.
Perhaps the singular painting that marked the start of a new era of art was Black Square. It was simply a black square painted on a white field. It was displayed in the corner, under the ceiling—right where it is customary to hang Icons. While occupying the sacred spot, it was the antithesis of the Icon. Icons were celebrated for their beautiful representations, brilliant colors, and millennia of religious tradition, making them an integral part of Russian society. Black Square was a new start, a blank state characterized by “zero.” It had zero representation, zero color, and, most importantly, zero prescribed meaning or expectation. Black Square preceded the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Soviet utopian ideals so the painting itself doesn’t imagine a utopia. Instead it presents a blank surface for the thinkers and artists that followed him to project their own ideas of utopia onto.
Fellow artists and Malevich himself realized the monumental shift he’d made in the art world with Black Square, but the public was weary of it. They were uncomfortable with Black Square because it represented the clearing of everything they knew and loved. In his manifesto, Malevich explains that “the ascent to the heights of non-objective art is arduous and painful... but it is nevertheless rewarding. The familiar recedes ever further and further into the background... The contours of the objective world fade more and more and so it goes, step by step, until finally the world . Everything we loved and by which we have lived becomes lost to sight. No more ‘likenesses of reality,’ no idealistic images nothing but a desert! But this desert is filled with the spirit of non-objective sensation which pervades everything.” This has a strong parallel to the Russian Revolution where the path towards Socialism was similarly arduous and painful. It was a leap into the unknown but the promise of utopia was ultimately worth the violent struggle of the revolution.
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin, a Soviet painter, sculptor architect, and stage designer responsible for the development of Constructivism. He visited Paris and was inspired by the materiality and construction of Pablo Picasso’s reliefs. Upon returning to Russia Tatlin began applying engineering principles to art and sculpture, leading to the movement known as Constructivism.
Tatlin was deeply involved with the Communist leadership and even appointed as head of the art department within the Ministry of Education under Lenin. In addition to his political career, his academic roles allowed him to influence a generation with his beliefs about art as a practical means to serve the people.
Of all the artists and architects working during the Soviet Avant-Garde, Tatlin had some of the most utopian aspirations both in philosophy and artistic ambition. He wrote and spoke about how he believed art should be in service of the people. The Constructivists believed in developing an art style constrained by physical reality that extended beyond traditional two-dimensional work. Tatlin wanted to “liberate art from frames and boundaries, making them three-dimensional in “real space.” He also believed art should not only be visually pleasing and provocative but also serve a function. His use of practical and utilitarian materials such as iron, glass, and steel allowed his work to occupy the elusive place in between art and architecture.
While Malevich developed Suprematism to have a complete break with the past and value art as a means to inspire feeling, Constructivism was a movement towards the future while still referencing the past in a constructive destruction. It took the knowledge of utilitarian building from the past. Still, it applied modern engineering material innovations making art responsible for encouraging the population to make the transition to a more productive and modern society.
He rose to fame after constructing The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Tower, which he completed in 1920. He had plans for a massive iron and steel structure as a monument to the utopian aspirations of the community leaders on the Russian Revolution. The original designs showed a gargantuan structure with double helix spirals surrounding four revolving volumes. It was designed to dwarf the Eiffel Tower, but material constraints in post-war Russia rendered it impossible. Instead, Tatlin built a 20 foot tall model of the spiraling tower, which was a monument in it’s own right.
The monument was part of a government-organized program to replace czarist monuments that the Soviets viewed as oppressive with monuments to the revolution. Beyond being symbolic, true to Constructivist philosophy, the monument functional as the four revolving volumes would make one complete revolution in different time frames signifying important meetings of various committees and the legislature of the Third International.
The monument captured all the utopian aspirations of the Third International in one monument. The utilitarian materials and innovative construction were a nod to the technological innovation and the promise to bring Russian society into the modern age associated with the Third International
Unlike Malevich, who took a tabula rasa approach to utopia, completely discarding everything that people knew and loved, Tatlin took the approach of creative destruction. He used the typology of monumentalism that the Tzar has used to assert his power and subverted it to be a beacon of freedom and the future. He also studied utilitarian forms of traditional construction and manipulated them by using new materials and techniques to to create a new formal language. This difference in the tabula rasa versus creative destruction impulse might be credited to the time frame in which both artists were practicing. Malevich was practicing during global chaos and dissatisfaction, without an alternative in sight. Consequently, Black Square is despondent and presents visions for utopia. The Monument to the Third International, while only being constructed five years later, responded to a very different world. A revolution had successfully replaced an oppressive autocratic regime with a socialist government that inspired hope for the future, and Tatlin's work reflects this optimism and established utopian vision.
Archizoom Associati was a collective born in 1966 in Florence Italy. The group had many prominent Architects and designers namely Andrea Branzi--architect and designer, Gilberto Corretti--architect and designer, Paolo Deganello--architect and designer and Massimo Morozzi--architect and designer; later in 1968 the group was joined by Dario Bartolini--designer and Lucia Bartolini--designer.”
The group is credited for sparking the Radical Design Movement. They brought the concept of kitsch as a method of critical irony to their speculative work. While they work at multiple scales and through various mediums, they are most well known for their theoretical utopian visions of society. They believed that the built environment had become a means of oppression, and thereby, their vision of utopia was one where architecture didn’t impose its will on society, rather it behaved as a blank slate that faded into the background.
Their idea for utopia is best captured in their project No-stop City. No-Stop City was a speculative project that featured an infinitely extending grid, subdivided into uniform units with walls and columns, interrupted only by natural features such as mountains. “In this city without architecture and its aesthetic value, humans live in a continuous flow of information, markets and services, and routinely use nature to create and decorate their environments.” The illustrations show the spaces filled with personal effects. The unending conditioned space takes care of the physical demands of architecture as a barrier from the elements, so all the objects in the project are free to act as space making or self-expression devices.
The imagery of No-stop City, a blank void, leans towards dystopia, but Branzi explains: “No-stop City is a tool for emancipation. The idea of an inexpressive, catatonic architecture, outcome of the expansive forms of logic of the system and its class antagonists, was the only form of modern architecture of interest to us… A society freed from its own alienation, emancipated from the rhetorical forms of humanitarian socialism and rhetorical progressivism: an architecture which took a fearless look at the logic of grey, atheistic and de-dramatized industrialism, where mass production produced infinite urban decors. The City frees us with its blankness, its featurelessness, allowing us to be anyone anywhere.”
Just as Malevich’s Black Square ushered in a new era of art, Archizoom’s No-stop City was the seminal work of the Italian Radical Design Movement. Both works share the idea of the void as a tool of liberation and break from the past. Malevich didn’t populate the field of the Black Square, instead allowing viewers to form their own projections of the future. However because Archizoom presented a more realized utopia in the sense of urban planning they did present limited imagery suggesting how the void of No-stop City might be populated.
Superstudio was an architectural firm, founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, later joined by Gian Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro and Roberto Magris, Alessandro Poli. Their work is closely tied to the work of Archizoom designers from both collectives who attended the University of Florence and did multiple joint exhibitions, most famously “Superarchitecture.” They became the face of the Italian Radical Design Movement with their shocking illustrations.
They were dissatisfied with the uniformity of modern architecture, which its left-wing members saw as an instrument of capitalism that disempowered the masses, robbing them of their individuality and freedom. Because their work was a direct critique of modernism, much of their work was dystopian, exploring the logical end to a modernist takeover of the world.
They produced a series of illustrations called the “Continuous Monument,” which depicted a monolithic volume indiscriminately carving through urban and natural American landscapes. The form’s complete disregard for the site was a direct critique of Modernism with its obsession with clean uniformity to mar the unique beauty of different aspects of society.
The work of Superstudio is much more pessimistic in comparison to that of Archizoom. Both groups formed their stances on architecture and the order of the world at The University of Florence, when a whirlwind of activism howled through the city’s university in the early 1960s. Naturally, they shared common grievances with the world they lived in; systematic spatial oppression by the built environment. But while Archizoom proposed uniformity of the built environment as a utopian solution in which people could express themselves, Superstudio presented it as a dystopian warning that would stifle individualism. This vested interest in individuality and personal expression is closely tied to the anti-establishment deals of the Protests of 1968.
Studio Alchimia was founded by Mendini and Adriana Gue in Milan in 1976 in the wake of the Radical Design Movement that spread across Italy in the ‘70s. They were an interdisciplinary and multiform group that represented the avant-garde of Italian design through seminars, production of experimental video, clothing design, theatrical set design, product design, decorative arts, performance art, and architecture. Their work was exhibited in the Milan Triennial, Venice Biennale, and inspired the Memphis design movement of the ’80s.
Like the rest of the radicals, Studio Alchimia believed design could change the world and wrote a manifesto to communicate their ideas about the need for design in a tumultuous time. Mendini wrote that “Alchimia believes that today both man and woman live in a turbulent and unbalanced state, their lives characterized by “detail”: organizational, human, industrial, political, cultural fragments...A transitional period in which they are gripped by an undefined fear resulting from the loss of many values once considered absolute. To find oneself again is essential, and Alchimia works on those values which are considered negative: on weakness, on emptiness, absence of being, and depth, which today take a back seat to that which is on the surface, full, and violent, as things to be removed. If the transitory nature of these times does not allow for certainty, if even philosophy seems to have shut its doors on the future, if it is impossible to visualize general and rational transformation, then the Alchimia group concentrates on itself, seeking out details of thought, intent only in signaling its poetical vocation.”
This turn to the past in the wake of uncertainty is represented in their work. They presented the exhibition In 1980 l’Oggetto Banale (The Banal Object) at the Venice Biennale in 1980. The exhibition consisted of a series of found objects reinvented through combining and mixing various styles and forms of expression from different epochs. Mendini transforms banal, everyday objects into radiantly colorful ‘re-designs’.” The communicative power of reconfiguration is central to the group's work and it is informed by their deeper ideas about designing a utopia as something that draws from the past using the method of “creative destruction” to move forward. Superstudio practiced in the late ‘60s and Archizoom created No-Stop City in 1970 very close to the passionate protests of 1968 that demanded a complete reform of society. This passion is reflected in their tabula rasa approach to utopia. In contrast, the Banal Objects exhibition happened a decade after the protests reached a fever-pitch and is reflective in the more restrained approach to utopia.
Banal Objects has strong parallels to Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International. Both Tatlin and Studio Alchimia were designing later in their respective movements. Their work was inspired by an already existing utopian manifesto and the works of artists that came before them. They also share the method of “creative destruction” of drawing from the past to design the future. Tatlin’s use of utilitarian materials is comparable to Studio Alchimia’s use of every day, often utilitarian objects. Both manipulated their materials into a completely new formal language capturing the aspiration for the future. While Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International was designed for functionality as it followed the Constructivist Manifesto, Studio Alchimia’s Banal Objects were simply a formal exploration and often aimed to de-functionalize the objects.
The circumstances that led to the Soviet Avant-Garde and the Italian Radical Design Movement are comparable. Both stemmed from revolutions that had about a decade-long build-up. The Russian Revolution of 1917 succeeded on the back of the failure of the revolution of 1905, leading to a decade of discontentment and the desire to overthrow the oppressive regime. In 1917 a series of events leading to the overthrow of the tsarist regime happened at lightning speed. In the situation of 1968 there was growing discontentment with the war, the establishment and the violation of civil rights throughout the 60’s what's a similar speed. A series of global events sparked by the Tet Offensive led to a rapid escalation of global protests and the demand for complete reform. In the Russian Revolution, these two differ there was an organized push for reform by the Bolshevik party. A Bolshevik party replaced the existing autocratic government with what they believed was a more equitable form of governance. In assuming power they also drafted manifestos outlining what they believed constituted a utopia. This position of power meant their idea of utopia existed within the framework of a government and was much more systematic. Whereas in the case of the protests of 1968 specifically the protests of 1968 in Italy those who were protesting and did not have power. They were mostly students and their idea of utopia was about breaking away from the oppressive bureaucratic institutions. It wasn’t about systemic reform within the constraints of the existing government, nor were they about overthrowing the existing government. Their utopias were devoid of a structural government all together.
Beyond the difference of organized versus unorganized revolution the Russian Revolution and protest of 1968 differed because of their time. The Russian Revolution happened in 1917 czarist near feudal society that has seen little development or change for multiple centuries prior to the revolution. This was partly due to the strict control of my czarist regime and fear of losing power due to peasant development, and in part because of the lack of globalization and connection to the rest of the world that had continued to develop far surpassing Russia. The protests of 1968 were a global revolution with specific pockets of revolution in different parts of the world. The revolution happened in a rapidly changing world, a mere 20 years after World War II and the very decade after the post-war era. Despite being 50 years apart, many of the demands of the revolutions and their ideas of utopia were similar; more equitable distribution of wealth, more civil rights, and freedom from oppression.
Contextually, however, these demands were more radical during the Russian Revolution. The soviets had been former peasants living in a near feudal society, and it was an amazing change to so rapidly transition to a socialist society. The world had already seen socialist ideas and was familiar with the Communist Manifesto by the Protests of 1968. The hot autumn which constituted a series of workers' protests for better wages and living conditions in Italy, was sparked by better education and labor unions. While these demands and protests did improve the workers' lives, they weren't as radical of an idea as to the same demands made during the Russian Revolution. In fact, many of those who participated in the protests of 1968 read Lenin and Marx’s works and were inspired by the socialist messages. They built upon the writing and art of the Russian Revolution to draft their own manifestos and ideals.
The word utopia was coined by Sir Thomas More. “He derived the word 'utopia' from the Greek ou-topos meaning 'no place' or 'nowhere'. It was a pun -- the almost identical Greek word eu-topos means 'a good place.” The double meaning of the word is at the heart of the issue with utopias: they are a vision of perfection, but one that can never be achieved. This is because a utopia is a perfect world in regards to the systems that it is governed by but this doesn’t mean the people inside the utopia are perfect. When the standard is perfection the humanistic imperfections compound leading to the inevitable failure of every utopia.
Looking back on history, we see that the socialist liberation of the Russian Revolution was ultimately thwarted by Stalin’s corruption of Marxism and one-party totalitarian police state. The anti-war, anti-establishment, pro-civil rights protests of 1968 didn’t instill significant, lasting systematic change, but by looking at the art they produced we can begin to understand the visions the individuals had for utopia. We can learn from these visions by realizing their potential for greatness and getting ever closer to the impossible target of perfection with the next utopia. On the contrary, we must understand the reasons the utopia failed and acknowledge the dystopia presented alongside the utopias to avoid making those same pitfalls.
For example, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman unveiled his plans or a 100-mile-long linear city called The Line. It’s designed to be an urban monolith slicing through the Arabian desert, uncannily similar to the “Continuous Monument” which Superstudio presented as a dystopia for it’s complete disregard for site and oppressive uniformity. While the merits of The Line can be debated, it’s important to be aware of the history of the dystopian project.
The Protests of 1968 occurred about 50 years after the Russian Revolution and today we stand 50 years from the Protests of 1968, long overdue for another revolution. We’re hurtling towards a climate crisis that’ll bring unimaginable suffering, we’re seeing a global rise in facism, dealing with civil right violations, are threatening to destabilize democracies, and of course a global pandemic killing millions. 2020 was a year that saw widespread protests and dissatisfaction, but nothing close to the scale of reform demanded in 1917 or 1968. If the pattern of the revolutions and their accompanying Art Movements holds true, then we are on the verge of a revolution where artists will first denounce everything from the past in a complete tabula rasa and then begin to design the future as a utopia through creative destruction.