June 20, 7:30 pm
“The concept of liberated labour lay at the very heart of the Soviet version of communist ideology, and had a powerful effect on the life-building model of the 1920s. Whereas in the modern world the activity of urban life flows around trade and credit, that is the material sphere, and leads to the construction of spaces for the sale of goods, or indeed for the sale of themselves (residential property), in the early Soviet epoch construction work was essentially geared towards labour.
“On the scale of the USSR the idea of universal labour found its material reflection through industrialization and the rise of new industrial cities. Because Leningrad did not need to be industrialized — full cycle large scale production had been located here since the time of the Tsars — architects were required to devote their skills to organizing the lives of the workers, to improving their living conditions, and as a consequence of population growth to build new complexes for the food processing sector,” notes Alexey Levchuk.
During his lecture Levchuk will talk about the construction of mass residential developments for workers, as well as about the houses of culture, kindergartens, schools and medical facilities built in the age of constructivism. The audience will learn about the buildings and spaces of the “infrastructure of the proletariat” in St Petersburg’s Nevsky, Vyborgsky and Moskovsko-Narvsky districts, as well as about the industrial sites on the Petrograd Side and on Vassilievsky Island.
Alexey Levchuk graduated from the architecture faculty of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. In 2003 as part of Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture team he took part in drawing up the rectontruction plans for the General Staff Building in St Petersburg. In 2004 he produced plans for the Tobol’sk urban renewal project. Levchuk has drawn up numberous plans for both residential and public buildings and interiors.
This lecture is organized in collaboration with the magazine Project Baltia.
Admission is free of charge. The number of participants is limited. Please register in advance.
The lectures from the programme Space, Time, Architecture organised at New Holland by the magazine Project Baltiya will be devoted to the history and contemporary life of cities. Space and time — the principal dimensions of human existence — are manifest in urbanistic embellishment. It is no secret that today the majority of Earth’s population lives in urban centres. Historians, working architects, artists and other experts will talk about the past and present as reflected in a city’s appearance. Centre stage will be commanded by St Petersburg, the most European of all Russian cities, but it will not have the limelight all to itself: audiences will also learn the details of how some of the surprising and at times downright strange elements of Moscow and other European and world cities took shape. The talks will also touch on issues affecting the preservation of urban heritage, and some of the most relevant findings of contemporary design will also be presented for discussion.
