67 Anna Bokov
In 1926 El Lissitzky was commissioned to design a stage
set for I Want a Child [Khochu rebenka], by Sergey Tretya-
kov, to be performed at the Meyerhold Theater in Mos-
cow. The play was produced by Vsevolod Meyerhold
(1874−1940), the legendary avant-garde theater director
known for an experimental system of stage movement
referred to as “biomechanics,” developed immediately
following the October Revolution in 1918. It took nearly four
years for Meyerhold to secure censorship approval for
the play. Despite his official involvement in cultural policy
at the highest level in the 1920s, the play’s controversial
content prevented it from being produced. I Want a Child
explored the sexual and social challenges faced by Milda,
a fiercely independent Soviet agronomist who decided to
have a child on her own, outside of traditional family bounds.
Meyerhold envisioned the play as a real-time dialogue
between actors and spectators: the latter could “join” the
performance at any moment, which required not only a rad-
ically different directorial approach but also an entirely new
architectural setting. “What kind of theater do we envisage
for the presentation of the new spectacle?” he wondered.
“First of all, we must remove the boxes and abolish seating
in tiers.”1 Meyerhold declared, “The only design suitable for
a performance created by the combined efforts of actors
and spectators is the amphitheater, where there is no divi-
sion of the audience into separate classes dependent on
social standing and financial resources.”2
Originally trained as an actor in the studios of Konstantin
Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko,
Meyerhold developed his biomechanics as a critique of the
Stanislavsky system, which was based on empathy and
psychological authenticity. FIG 1 Meyerhold’s system drew
upon the concepts of William James regarding the primacy
of physical over emotional reactions, Vladimir Bekhterev
on conditioned reflexes and Frederick Winslow Taylor on the
scientific organization of labor.3 Taylor’s theory included
the notion of a worker’s “economy of physical energy,”
achieved by reducing unnecessary movements, developing
a rhythm and locating the center of gravity. Actors were
required to develop their physical apparatus, the body, in
a process interpreted by Meyerhold as “conserving expres-
sive means … guaranteeing the accuracy of movements.”4
Taylor’s biomechanics, according to Meyerhold, “sought
to establish the laws of an actor’s movement on a stage” by
developing a system of exercises on the basis of human
behavior. It treated actors as anonymous functions in the
collective fabric of a play rather than as individuals, recalling
the notion of “mass ornament” described by critic and soci-
ologist Siegfried Kracauer in 1927:
Although the masses give rise to the ornament, they are
not involved in thinking it through. As linear as it may be,
there is no line that extends from the small sections of
the mass to the entire figure. The ornament resembles
aerial photographs of landscapes and cities in that it
does not emerge out of the interior of the given condi-
tions, but rather appears above them. Actors likewise
never grasp the stage setting in its totality, yet they
consciously take part in its construction.5
Biomechanics relied on expressive body language and the
“elementary laws of reflexes” rather than elaborate stage

(1926–1930) in the Meyerhold Theater, 1929.

and costume design to communicate the act.6 According to

El Lissitzky working on a stage design of

Meyerhold, “If the actor remains on the bare stage, the

Sergei Tretyakov’s Play I Want a Child

greatness of the theater stays with him.”7 This emphasis on
bodily movement was manifest in the new intention for stage:
constructions [konstruktsii] rather than scenic decorations
[dekoratsii].

The constructions for stage, designed by avant-garde

artists such as Lyubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova,
functioned as utilitarian apparatuses for activating the
spectacle and, more importantly, for engaging the spectator

FIG 2
masses. Describing Popova’s stage set for Magnanimous
Cuckold [Velikodushnyy rogonosets] Meyerhold wrote:
“means of political agitation and propaganda” in the revolu-
We wanted to lay this foundation for a new kind of tionary struggle, while the stage was to turn into a political
theatrical action, which does not require any illusory tribune. Meyerhold outlined five principles for constructing
scenery or complex props but utilizes the basic impro- a “true people’s theater”: 1) Unification of the audience and
vised objects and transitions from a play done with stage in one space (removal of the stage box); 2) Axo-
professional actors to a free game with workers during nometric perception of the spectacle (amphitheater); 3)
their time off.8 Experience of action by a viewer from three sides (spatial
development of a spectacle onstage-stadium); 4) Introduc-
As an active member of the Bolshevik Party in 1918 and tion of all service elements into the composition of the au-
the head of the theater division of the Commissariat of ditorium (actors’ cabin, technical part, orchestra); 5) Stage
Education (Narkompros) from 1920, Meyerhold formulated access for the mechanical transport and demonstration.10
his radical views in a program titled Theatrical October
[Teatral’niyy Oktyabr’].9 This manifesto called for reform- Meyerhold used real technology in his plays—motor-
ing the traditional “counter-revolutionary” theater and cycles, cars, machine guns, and even an agricultural com-
proposed ways of politicizing it based on the gains of the bine. In one of the early plays, performed during the civil
October Revolution. Convinced that the social revolution war, Red Army soldiers marched through the stage with
would lead to a theatrical one, Meyerhold advocated for the their banners while reports from the front were announced
complete destruction of the old art and the creation on its throughout the performance. Meyerhold continued the
ruins of a fundamentally new one. Theater was to become a development of this radical typology with a team of young
Constructivist architects who designed the new theater
building in the 1930s. Sadly the director did not live to see
his new theater open, in the fall of 1940. He was arrested
and executed just months before by the very regime he so
passionately helped envision and materialize.

Lissitzky’s design for the Meyerhold production of I

Want a Child sought to transform the theatrical space itself
according to the principles of Theatrical October. Trained
as an architect, he approached the challenge by developing
a prototype for an entirely new theater. Lissitzky proposed
Vsevolod Meyerhold, Biomechanics. Actor Training Workshop, 1920s.

to reconfigure the entire interior of the theater building in

the center of Moscow granted to Meyerhold by the Soviet
government in 1920.11 A photograph shows the designer
inside a model of what would typically be the backstage,
in this case a seating area. FIG 2 The project eliminated the
proscenium—the partition between stage and auditorium—
to transform the traditional separation between audience
and performance. What was formerly a proscenium was
wrapped around an elliptically shaped seating area. The
ribbon strip carried the slogan “A healthy child is the future
builder of socialism”—an effective way to communicate
the message of the play. The design eroded the barrier
between the action onstage and the backstage functions,
effectively folding the mechanics of the play and its audi-
ence into the play itself.

Thus both the screenplay and form of the performance

pursued the singular goal of imagining a particular instance
FIG 1

of a future social order. A key question in this ambitious

68 The Construction of Soviet Culture: From Mass Spectacle to Synthetic Theater

 69
task was how properly to shape the future human, a subject
of impassioned discussion in Soviet society. The unabash-
edly materialistic stance assumed by the authorities
presupposed that human nature—and the environment at
large—could be consciously reshaped, an idea adopted by
scientists, educators, and writers as well as artists and ar-
chitects. The creation of a “new Soviet man” [novyy sovets-
kiy chelovek] and a “new Soviet woman,” what Leon Trotsky
referred to as a “higher social biological type … or a super-
man,” was not simply about the making of a new type of
individual but an integral part of constructing a new “we”—a
single unified Soviet nation.12 Lissitzky interpreted this
“truly proletarian” concept of a new superhuman turned
new nation quite literally by merging the faces of a man and
a woman in his 1929 poster Russische Ausstellung.13 FIG 3
Architecture and design were seen as vehicles for ar-
ticulating the proletarian concept of “we” by shaping a new
social order through spatial and visual means. Although
at first glance spatial arrangement of Lissitzky’s project
might seem reminiscent of the Roman amphitheater, it
differed from it in its treatment of actors and audience by
its multiple stage configurations and its direct engage-
ment of the audience in an active participation as part of
the performance. In the context of early Soviet period, the
inclusion of spectators in mass spectacle (massovyy akt)—
which typically included a reenactment of October revolu-
tion—was believed to indoctrinate or “convert” them into a
revolutionary culture.14
Design for a total theater by
Walter Gropius, 1926.
FIG 4
El Lissitzky poster for USSR Russian Exhibition, 1929.
FIG 3
Anna Bokov
Political conditioning through active participation of
the spectators—in this case the proletarian masses—was
an objective that Meyerhold actively pursued. He further
formulated a detailed program for a new type of theater
fit for mass spectacle starting in 1927.15 He believed that
the new typology required a “close collaboration between
director and architect” similar to the relationship between
the Bauhaus director, architect Walter Gropius, and the
Berlin theater director Erwin Piscator. FIG 4 In 1926 Gro-
pius developed a design for a “synthetic”—or as he called
it, “total”—theater for Piscator, who was notorious for his
left-wing political views and “commitment to the Russian
Revolution.”16 As director of the People’s Theatre [Volks-
bühne] during the Weimer Republic, Piscator had staged
works by Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy in the early 1920s.
Like those of Meyerhold, his plays were treated as a means
of political propaganda and carried a clear leftist agenda.
To achieve his goals Piscator used a variety of artistic and
technological devices, from film projections to mechanized
sets, something that no doubt inspired Gropius, who wrote:
The contemporary theater architect should set himself
the aim to create a great keyboard for light and space,
so objective and adaptable in character that it would
respond to any imaginable vision of a stage director; a
flexible building, capable of transforming and refresh-
ing the mind by its spatial impact alone.17
Like Meyerhold, Gropius felt that a modern stage and
theater embodying these new interpretations of theatri-
cal space was still to be created. The Bauhaus director
was familiar with the contemporary needs of the theater
through his experience at the school. The Bauhaus theater
workshop became known under the leadership of Oskar
Schlemmer, a multimedia artist and theater director who
created radical theatrical performances such the Triadic
Ballet. Schlemmer saw the theater as fundamental for its
role in transcending reality and constructing a world of illu-
sion—an embodiment of the Bauhaus ideal:
It is natural that the aims of the Bauhaus—to seek the
union of the artistic ideal with the craftsmanlike practi-
cality by thoroughly investigating the creative elements
and to understand in all its ramifications the essence of
der Bau, creative construction. … For, like the concept
of Bau itself, the stage is an orchestral complex which
comes about only through the cooperation of many dif-
ferent forces. It is the union of the most heterogeneous
assortment of creative elements. Not the least of its
functions is to serve the metaphysical needs of man
by constructing a world of illusion and by creating the
transcendental on the basis of the rational.18
Theatrical performance has long been one of the main
laboratories for advancing a new art form most closely re-
sembling the idea of a “total work of art,” or Gesamtkunst-
werk. Combining the use of various media—music, dance,
painting, architectural and costume design—it was the
perfect context for employing principles of “the essence of
der Bau” or “creative construction.” Schlemmer wrote:
If the aims of the Bauhaus are also the aims of our
stage, it is natural that the following elements should
 be of first and foremost importance to us: space as a
part of the larger total complex, building [Bau]. The
art of the stage is a spatial art, a fact which is bound to
become clearer and clearer in the future. The stage,
including the auditorium, is above all an architectonic-
spatial organism where all things happening to it and
within it exist in a spatially conditioned relationship.19
Schlemmer described the “present” theater as an evolution
of the two traditional types of theatrical organization: the
first, a central arena “on which the play unfolds itself three-
dimensionally while the spectators crowd around concentri-
cally,” and the second, a classic stage form of the Greek
proscenium theater, “with its protruding platform around
which the audience is seated in concentric half-circles.”
Eventually this open proscenium moved away the spectator,
to be “finally pulled back altogether behind a curtain to form
today’s deep stage which dominates our present theater.”20
Nikolay Ladovsky, Communal House, 1919.
FIG 6
Design for a total theater by Walter Gropius,
1926. Walter Gropius & Oskar Schlemmer,
Die Bühne im Bauhaus, 1924, 25.
FIG 5
70 The Construction of Soviet Culture: From Mass Spectacle to Synthetic Theater
Gropius conceived of this building as an “instrument
so flexible that a director can employ any one of the three
stage forms by the use of simple, ingenious mechanisms.”
This instrument could be used for diverse kinds of perfor-
mances: “drama, opera, film, and dance; for choral or instru-
mental music; for sports events or assemblies,” as well as
conventional plays.21 FIG 5
An element common to the theater projects of Lissitzky
and Gropius is the elliptical form—a cross between the
O-shape of the Roman amphitheater and the U-shape of
the Greek theater. They also incorporated aspects of the
“present theater,” a building type that originated in an urban
setting, where a town plaza served as the stage and sur-
rounding buildings hosted the audience and where often
the facade of a municipal building acted as a backdrop, as
in Siena, Italy, for example. Through their synthetic designs
Gropius and Lissitzky sought to create the antithesis to
the class-segregated theater in the form of a democratic
space with a flexible stage that combined properties found
in both Greek and Roman theaters. Their flexible configura-
tions offered new modes of engaging the spectators and
actors, making the audience an integral part of the play.
The goal of Cultural Revolution was to erase the bound-
ary between spectators and actors, between illiterate
masses and intellectual elites. Leftist artists urged everyone
to “immediately come out and with their skilled brushes illu-
minate, color the sides, foreheads, chests of cities, railroad
stations.”22 Revolution pushed the crowds onto the streets
and turned the city itself into a stage for artistic experimen-
tation that no longer belonged to the elite but became an
“art of the commune.”23 The mass spectacles of the first
post-revolutionary years enacted on city streets with
thousands of people functioned as agitational education,
as “crucibles for transforming consciousness among the
illiterate masses.”24 Art was now viewed as an essential part
of everyday life—as a means to erase the boundary between
old and new eras. Poet Vladimir Mayakovsky captured this
ubiquitous mood brilliantly:
Enough of half-penny truths!
Old trash from your hearts erase!
Streets for paint-brushes we’ll use,
our palettes—squares with their wide-open space.
Revolution’s days have yet to be sung by the thousand-
year book of time.
Into the streets, the crowds among,
futurists, drummers, masters of rhyme!25
According to Alexander Bogdanov, the mastermind behind
the Proletkult movement, every work of art reflected the
ideology of a particular class and was not applicable to
another.26 “Art is one of the ideologies of class, an element
of class consciousness,” he wrote. “Hence it is an organiza-
tional form of the class life, a way of unifying and bringing
cohesion to class forces.”27 It was through art, or to be
precise by “throwing away the art of the past” and creating
new forms of art, that the proletariat was to create “its
own culture” and ultimately is own “empire”—one building
at a time.28
 71 Anna Bokov

“pre-revolutionary social, technical, and economic circum-

Nikolay Ladovsky, Workers’ Club for Kostino (1927)

stances.”36 They advocated for a “new social type” that

would resolve the “question of impact on the user (ideologi-
cal, emotional impact, and so on).”37 This notion of social
condenser applied to a range of building types—“communal
(top). Stroitelstvo Moskvy, no. 7, 1929.

housing, workers’ clubs, palaces of labor, administrative

buildings, and factories”—but it was ultimately manifested
in a new building type known as the workers’ club.38 When
first introduced, the workers’ club was intended to challenge
the origins of clubs as social institutions accessible only to
the elite, and therefore it was perceived as a provocative
proposition. Ultimately these “condensers” were instru-
mental for a larger social-engineering project that would
forge a proletarian age. The club’s spatial organization
FIG 7

would condition new social behavior through a series of

A fundamental theme in Soviet architecture and urban-
ism was designing assembly spaces that could facilitate
the mass spectacles. Tatlin’s Monument to the Third Inter-
national, designed in 1919, initiated the decade long explo-
ration for the symbol for the young Soviet nation.29 Projects
by Tatlin’s contemporaries, members of Zhivskulptarkh
(an acronym for the commission of Painterly and Sculptural-
Architectural Synthesis), architect Nikolay Ladovsky,
sculptor Boris Korolev, and artist Alexander Rodchenko
developed proposals for a collective project “Temple of
Communication of the Peoples” in 1919–1920. All of them,
including Tatlin, were faculty at Vkhutemas—the Soviet
counterpart to the Bauhaus.30 Zhivskulptarkh’s proposals,
similarly to the Monument to the Third International,
deployed what was considered the “best expression of
our spirit,” dynamic spiraling form.31 FIG 6
Lenin’s death in January 1924 marked another phase
in the development of the assembly typology, now recast
as a memorial in addition to its primary “congregational”
function. Lenin was now seen as an “extrahistorical” figure,
someone who belonged to a “different order of humanity”
personifying the Revolution itself.32 The mass spectacles
following Lenin’s death, in particular those commemorating
the tenth anniversary of October in 1927, represented the
complex course of history through “hyperbolizing” one fig-
ure, Lenin.33 This dual vision, for an assembly building as a
memorial on the one hand, and a site for mass spectacle on
the other, manifested a dichotomy inherent in the typology.
The search for a monumental structure symbolizing the
proletariat was resolved by the end of the decade with the
orchestrated collective experiences.
While workers’ clubs were not theaters, they included a
theatrical component—typically an auditorium with a stage,
used for meetings, lectures and performances. Nikolay
Ladovsky, leader of a competing movement in Soviet archi-
tecture called Rationalism, produced one of the more inter-
esting solutions for a workers’ club stage in his proposal for
the Kostino labor commune [trudkommuna] in 1927. FIG 7 In
his project the stage is positioned as a hinge between the
auditorium and the dining hall, allowing it to operate simul-
taneously in both spaces with spectators on both sides.
The plan is organized along a central axis in a telescoping
configuration with staggered chambers, which could be
used as rehearsal spaces, and movable walls flanking the
main auditorium. A stepped volume on the auditorium side
reflects the sawtooth roof of the dining room. Ladovsky’s
flexible organizational solution allowed for a wide range of
activities, from more customary performances to proces-
sional events such as marches or mass celebrations.39
Synthetic Theater, 1930. Soviet Architecture, No.1, 1932.

three-stage international competition for the Palace of

Georgy Krutikov, analysis of stage configurations for

Soviets—featuring a monumental figure of Lenin.34

The principle function of a building for mass assembly

was to “conduct” Soviet ideology in a more “condensed” way.
The term “social conductors and condensers of socialist
culture” [provodniki i kondensatory sotsialisticheskoy
kul’tury] was coined by Constructivist architects in the late
1920s and popularized on an international level in the 1970s
by historian Anatole Kopp.35 The idea of a condenser was that
society would function in an analogous way to electricity: its
revolutionary current would get “intensified” via its trans-
mission through the charge carriers of modern architecture.
Constructivists juxtaposed the new architecture with
buildings such as the “speculative tenement house,” the
FIG 8

private residence, or the “gentlemen’s club,” all products of

 Meyerhold’s radical approach to theater design was
symptomatic of the revolutionary dictum that the theatri-
cal act should engage the audience as active participants.
Thus, it aimed to educate, agitate, and ultimately empower

Nikolay Ladovsky, competition entry for

the masses. This approach generated new public space

Synthetic Theater, Sverdlovsk, 1930.

typologies that explored the agency of architecture in reor-
ganizing modes of social interaction and political engage-
ment. Such was an objective of the national competition for
a Synthetic Theater [Sinteticheskiy Teatr] for Sverdlovsk
(now Yekaterinburg), a city in the Ural Mountains, held in
1930. Among the eleven participants there were represen-
tatives of both Constructivist and Rationalist camps. The
teams included members of Constructivist OSA (acronym

FIG 12
for Organizatsiya Sovremennykh Arkhitektorov, translated
as Organization of Contemporary Architects), Rationalist
Asnova (acronym for Assotsiatsia Novykh Arkhitektorov,
translated as Association of New Architects) and ARU (ac-
ronym for Assotsiatsia Arkhitektorov-Urbabanistov, trans-
lated as Association of Architects-Urbanists). The project
by Constructivist architect Moisei Ginzburg was awarded

Nikolay Ladovsky, competition entry for

first prize.

Synthetic Theater, Sverdlovsk, 1930.

Asnova team: Zalesskaya, Korzhev,

FIG 11
entry for Synthetic Theater, 1930.
Prokhorova, Turkus. Competition

Soviet Architecture, No. 1, 1932.

ARU team: Krutikov, Lavrov, Popov (bottom).

FIG 9

Competition entry for Synthetic Theatre.

FIG 10

72 The Construction of Soviet Culture: From Mass Spectacle to Synthetic Theater

 73 Anna Bokov

Karo Alabyan, Vladimir Simbirtsev, Red Army Theatre

Nikolay Ladovsky, competition entry for

(Teatr Krasnoy Armil), Moscow, 1934–1940.

Synthetic Theater, Sverdlovsk, 1930.
FIG 12

FIG 14

movement through the auditorium (top), Yerevan. Soviet Architecture, No. 1, 1932.
Gevorg Kochar, Mikael Mazmanyan, Palace of Labor and Culture, Scheme of

All of the competition entries addressed the relation-

ship between the stage and the auditorium and proposed
the transformation scenarios for the auditorium hall into
different types of venue. In his analysis of the projects,
architect Georgy Krutikov—a former student of Ladovsky
and a graduate of Vkhutemas —made a comparative chart
of the stage and seating configurations.40 FIG 8 The project
by the Asnova team was the most radical in that regard,
offering the most flexible solutions for the relationship be-
tween stage and auditorium in theater performances, mass
spectacles, circuses, and congressional assemblies. The
stage wrapped around the seating so that the audience
FIG 13

was placed in the center of the theater. FIG 9 ARU’s design

combined the theater typology with that of a tribune. The
symmetrical complex intended to draw crowds in via its
axial “arm,” which functioned as an extension of the stage
projected into the city. FIG 10 In most of the proposals the
open space in front of the theater was as important as the
interior. The programs of Ladovsky and Asnova initiated
the theater in the outdoor plaza, similar to classical and
baroque masterpieces such as Saint Peter’s Square, by
Bernini, and ensembles of Roman villas. The role reversal
between theater and plaza recalled Bakhtin’s idea of a
“profane” plaza in front of a sacred edifice, interpreted as
an inversion of a cathedral. He assigned primary impor-
tance to the plaza as a space for mass celebrations where
all participants are both spectators and actors. This new
paradigm of an anti-cathedral, where everyone was indoc-
trinated with a mass identity espoused by Communism,
was instrumental in the creation of the proletarian culture.
FIG 11, 12
Although a Synthetic Theater was never built in Sverd-
lovsk, it was widely publicized and its design ideas influ-
enced multiple other projects, including the Theater for
Mass Spectacle in Novosibirsk (1931) by architects Alek-
sandr Grinberg and Mikhail Kurilko; the Red Army Theater
in Moscow (1930), completed in 1940 and shaped as a
five-point star, by architects Karo Alabyan and Vladimir
Simbirtsev; and the Palace of Labor and Culture in Yere-
van (1931) by Gevorg Kochar and Mikael Mazmanyan. FIG
13 Civic demonstrations and military parades were incor-
porated into theatrical performances and at the outset of
World War II military troops marched through the stage of
the Red Army Theater on their way to the front lines, truly
merging “art into life.” FIG 14
1 Vsevolod Meyerhold, “The Reconstruction of the
Theatre” (1927), in Meyerhold on Theatre, trans. and
ed. Edward Braun (London: Methuen, 1998).
2 Meyerhold, “Reconstruction.”
3 Vsevolod Meyerhold, “Actor of the Future and Bio-
mechanics” (first presented in 1922).
4 Vsevolod Meyerhold [V. E. Mejerhol'd], Stat'I, Pis'ma,
Rechi, Besedy [Articles, Letters, Speeches, Conver-
sations], vol. 2 (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1968), 488; my
translation. Unless otherwise noted, all translations
are my own.
5 Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament: Weimar
Essays (1927), trans. and ed. Thomas Y. Levin (Cam-
bridge, MA; London, England: Harvard University
Press, 1995), 75.
6 P. A. Markov, The Soviet Theatre (London: Victor
Gollancz, 1934).
7 N. A. Gorchakov, The Theater in Soviet Russia (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 201.
8 Vsevolod Meyerhold, “Velikodushnyy rogonosets”
[Magnanimous Cuckold] (1922), in David Zolotnits-
kiy, Budni i prazdniki teatral'nogo Oktyabrya (Lenin-
grad: Iskusstvo, 1978), 22.
9 Vsevolod Meyerhold, “Printsipy Teatralnogo Okty-
abrya” [Principles of Theatrical October] (1920),
in Selim Khan-Magomedov, El Lissitzky (Moscow:
Russkiy Avangard, 2011).
10 Meyerhold, “Printsipy.”
11 Meyerhold’s State Theater [Gosudarstvennyy teatr
imeni Meyyerkhol'da] was housed in the former
“Zor” Theater, at Triumfalnaya ploschad (Maya-
kovsky square), in central Moscow, 1920−38. The
building was demolished and a new one designed
by Constructivist architects Mikhail Barkhin and
Sergey Vakhtangov started construction in 1938.
After Meyerhold’s arrest and execution in 1940, the
theater building was completed (although reduced
in scope) and repurposed as the Tchaikovsky Con-
cert Hall [Kontsertnyy zal imeni Chaykovskogo].
12 Leon Trotsky, “Revolutionary and Socialist Art,” in
Literature and Revolution (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo
Krasnaya Nov', Glavpolitprosvet, 1923).
13 Anatoly Lunacharsky, first head of the People’s
Commissariat of Education [Narkompros] and
mastermind behind the Soviet higher educational
system, postulated that “if there is truly a proletari-
an concept, it is the word ‘we.’” Richard Stites, “Uto-
pia in Space: City and Building,” in Revolutionary
Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life (New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
14 Katerina Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural
Revolution (Harvard University Press: Cambridge,
MA; London, England, 1995), 243, 248.
15 Khan-Magomedov, El Lissitzky. Vsevolod Meyer-
hold eventually published the program in the bro-
chure “Rekonstruktsiya teatra” [Reconstruction of
Theater], 1929−30.
16 John Willett, introduction to Erwin Piscator, 1893–
1966: An Exhibition by the Archiv der Akademie der
Künste Berlin, in cooperation with the Goethe Insti-
tute, ed. Walter Huder (London: Methuen, 1978).
17 Walter Gropius, introduction to The Theater of the
Bauhaus, ed. Walter Gropius and Arthur Wensinger,
74 The Construction of Soviet Culture: From Mass Spectacle to Synthetic Theater
trans. Arthur Wensinger (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan
University Press, 1961).
18 Oskar Schlemmer, Theater at the Bauhaus (1925),
https://thecharnelhouse.org/2013/07/20/theater-
buhne/.
19 Oskar Schlemmer, Theater at the Bauhaus.
20 Oskar Schlemmer, Theater at the Bauhaus.
21 Gropius, Introduction to The Theater of the Bauhaus.
22 Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vasily Kamensky, and David
Burlyuk, “Dekret No. 1 o demokratizatsii iskusstva”
[Decree No. 1 on the Democratization of Art],
Gazeta futuristov (March 1918).
23 Iskusstvo Kommuny (The Art of the Commune)
Petrograd, 1918–1919 was a weekly newspaper,
published by IZO Narkompros. The first issue came
out on December 7, 1918 and featured the poem by
Vladimir Mayakovsky “The Order to the Art Army.”
24 Katerina Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural
Revolution (Harvard University Press: Cambridge,
MA; London, England, 1995), 243.
25 Vladimir Mayakovsky, “An Order to the Art Army,” in
Iskusstvo Kommuny [Art of the Commune] (1918).
(Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, 1955–61).
26 Proletkult is an abbreviation for Proletarian Culture.
27 Alexander Bogdanov, O proletarskoy kul’ture
1904–1924 [On Proletarian Culture 1904–1924]
(Leningrad and Moscow: Kniga, 1924), 105.
28 “Throw away the art of the past” [Iskusstvo proshlo-
go—na svalku] was a famous revolutionary Prolet-
kult slogan from 1919.
29 Zhivskulptarkh acronym for Zhivopis’, Skul’ptura,
Arkhitektura, translated as Commission for Paint-
erly and Sculptural-Architectural Synthesis, an
organization that was active between spring 1919
and fall 1920 in Moscow. Zhivskulptarkh was es-
tablished to investigate an architectonic synthesis
of spatial arts. It was the first avant-garde organi-
zation to proclaim architecture its central activity.
Originally it was Sinskulptarkh (Sculptural-Architec-
tural Synthesis), at the end of 1919 was reformed as
Zhivskulptarkh.
30 Vkhutemas Russian: Вхутемас—acronym for
Высшие художественно-технические мастерские
(Vysshiye Khudozhestvenno-Tekhnicheskiye Mas-
terskiye), translated as Higher Artistic and Techni-
cal Studios. Vkhutemas was an interdisciplinary
design school founded in 1920 in Moscow, Russia,
on the basis of the First and Second Svomas (Free
State Art Studios)—former crafts school and fine
arts college. In 1927 Vkhutemas was renamed
Vkhutein, an acronym for Высший художественно-
технический институт (Vysshiy Khudozhestvenno-
Tekhnicheskiy Institut), translated as Higher Artistic
and Technical Institute.
31 Nikolay Punin, Pamyatnik III Internatsionala [Monu-
ment to the III International], Petersburg: Izdanie
Otdela Izobrazitelnykh Iskusstv, 1920. Author’s
translation.
32 Katerina Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural
Revolution (Harvard University Press: Cambridge,
MA; London, England, 1995), 248.
33 Katerina Clark, 248.
 75 Anna Bokov

34 Katerina Clark, 248. Quote from S. Gres, “Plan

velikikh rabot: Film A.Rooma,” Rit, no. 19 (April 6,
1930), 12.
35 Anatole Kopp, Ville et révolution: Architecture et
urbanisme soviétiques des années vingt (1967)
[Town and Revolution: Soviet Architecture and City
Planning, 1917–1935], trans. Thomas E. Burton (New
York: George Braziller, 1970), 94.
36 Gan and Ginzburg, “Rezolutsiya”, 94.
37 Gan and Ginzburg, “Rezolutsiya”, 94.
38 Alexey Gan and Moisey Ginzburg, eds., “Rezolutsiya
po dokladam ideologicheskoy sektsii OSA” [Resolu-
tion on the Reports of the Ideological Section of the
OSA], Sovremennaya Arkhitektura [Modern Archi-
tecture] 3 (1928): 78.
39 Nikolay Ladovsky, “Proekt planirovki trudkommuny
Kostino,” [Planning of labor commune Kostino]
Stroitelstvo Moskvy [Construction of Moscow] 7
(1929): 17.
40 Georgy Krutikov, Bolshoy syntetichesky teatr v
Sverdlovske [Big Synthetic Theater in Sverdlovsk]
Sovetskaya Architektura [Soviet Architecture] 1
(1932): 73.