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Parallel Movement
Parallel Movement
Russian Constructivism
A movement with origins in Russia, Constructivism was primarily an art and architectural
movement.
It was a movement created by the Russian avant-garde, but quickly spread to the rest of the
continent.
New media was often used in the creation of works, which helped to create a style of art that was
orderly.
Constructivist themes are also quite minimal, where the artwork is broken down to its most basic
elements
The style combines straight lines and various forms such as cylinders, squares, rectangles,
cubes.
Concstuctivist architecture movement emphasized and took advantage of the possibilites of new
materials. Steel frames were seen supporting large areas of glass. Joints between various parts
of buildings were exposed.
Many buildings had balconies and sun decks. Large windows in order to let the as much light as
possible.
Constructivists not only employed the plastic arts as their means of expression, but expanded to
the areas of industry, graphic design and the performing arts
Constructivists proposed to replace art's traditional concern with composition with a focus on
construction.
Constructivist art often aimed to demonstrate how materials behaved - to ask, for instance, what
different properties had materials such as wood, glass, and metal.
The seed of Constructivism was a desire to express the experience of modern life - its dynamism,
its new and disorientating qualities of space and time.
Constructivism influenced other art movements of the twentieth century, such as Bauhaus and De
Stijl
Famous artists of the Constructivist movement include Vladimir Tatlin , Kasimir Malevich,
Alexandra Exter, Robert Adams, and El Lissitzky.
EXAMPLES:
TATLIN’S TOWER
Tatlin’s tower, or the project for the Monument to the Third International was a design for a
grand monumental building by the Russian artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin.
Vladimir tatlin was a painter and architect.
the design of the monument consists of three large glass structures, erected by means of a
complex system of vertical struts and spirals.
The lower storey, which is in the form of a cube, rotates on it’s axis at the speed of one
revolution per year- a venue for lectures, conferences and legislative meetings,
The next storey, which is in the form of a pyramid, rotates on its axis at the rate of one
revolution per month- venue for executive activities
Finally, the uppermost cylinder which rotates at the speed of one revolution per day is reserved
for information services: an information office, a newspaper and it will also have a telegraphic
office and an apparatus that can project slogans on to a large screen.
it would act as a kind of astronomical instrument, with its spine.
These can be fitted around the axes of the hemisphere. Radio masts will rise up over the
monument. It should be emphasised that Tatlin’s proposal provides for walls with a vacuum which
will help to keep the temperature in the various rooms constant.
The main idea of the monument is based on an organic synthesis of the principles of architecture,
sculpture and painting and was intended to produce a new type of monumental structure, uniting
in itself a purely creative form.
the glass structures should have vacuum walls (a thermos) which will make it easy to maintain a
constant temperature within the edifice. The separate parts of the monument will be connected to
one another and to the ground by means exclusively of complexly structured electrical elevators,
adjusted to the differing rotation speeds of the structures.