architectural modernism

Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form should follow function ( functionalism); an embrace of minimalism; and a rejection of ornament.
It emerged in the first half of the 20th century and became dominant after World War II until the 1980s, when it was gradually replaced as the principal style for institutional and corporate buildings by postmodern architecture.

Origins

File:Crystal Palace.PNG, The Crystal Palace (1851) was one of the first buildings to have cast plate glass windows supported by a cast-iron frame
File:Maison François Coignet 2.jpg, The first house built of reinforced concrete, designed by François Coignet (1853) in Saint-Denis near Paris
File:Home Insurance Building.JPG, The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, by William Le Baron Jenney (1884)
File:Construction tour eiffel5.JPG, The Eiffel Tower being constructed (August 1887–89)

Modern architecture emerged at the end of the 19th century from revolutions in technology, engineering, and building materials, and from a desire to break away from historical architectural styles and to invent something that was purely functional and new.

The revolution in materials came first, with the use of cast iron, drywall, plate glass, and reinforced concrete, to build structures that were stronger, lighter, and taller. The cast plate glass process was invented in 1848, allowing the manufacture of very large windows. The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton at the Great Exhibition of 1851 was an early example of iron and plate glass construction, followed in 1864 by the first glass and metal curtain wall. These developments together led to the first steel-framed skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, built in 1884 by William Le Baron Jenney. The iron frame construction of the Eiffel Tower, then the tallest structure in the world, captured the imagination of millions of visitors to the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition.

French industrialist François Coignet was the first to use iron-reinforced concrete, that is, concrete strengthened with iron bars, as a technique for constructing buildings. In 1853 Coagent built the first iron reinforced concrete structure, a four-story house in the suburbs of Paris. A further important step forward was the invention of the safety elevator by Elisha Otis, first demonstrated at the New York Crystal Palace exposition in 1854, which made tall office and apartment buildings practical. Another important technology for the new architecture was electric light, which greatly reduced the inherent danger of fires caused by gas in the 19th century.

The debut of new materials and techniques inspired architects to break away from the neoclassical and eclectic models that dominated European and American architecture in the late 19th century, most notably eclecticism, Victorian and Edwardian architecture, and the Beaux-Arts architectural style. This break with the past was particularly urged by the architectural theorist and historian Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. In his 1872 book ''Entretiens sur L'Architecture'', he urged: "use the means and knowledge given to us by our times, without the intervening traditions which are no longer viable today, and in that way we can inaugurate a new architecture. For each function its material; for each material its form and its ornament." This book influenced a generation of architects, including Louis Sullivan, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, and Antoni Gaudí.

Early modernism in Europe (1900–1914)

File:Schoolofart1.jpg, The Glasgow School of Art by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1896–99)
File:25bis rue Benjamin-Franklin (25437741212).jpg, Reinforced concrete apartment building by Auguste Perret, Paris (1903)
File:Vienna - PSK Otto Wagner's Postsparkasse - 5977.jpg, Austrian Postal Savings Bank in Vienna by Otto Wagner (1904–1906)
File:Berlin AEG Turbinenfabrik.jpg, The AEG Turbine factory by Peter Behrens (1909)
File:Casa Steiner - Foto Fachada Trasera.jpg, The Steiner House in Vienna by Adolf Loos, main facade (1910)
File:Woluwe-St-Pierre - Hoffmann 050917 (1).jpg, Stoclet Palace by Josef Hoffmann, Brussels, (1906–1911)
File:Théâtre des Champs-Élysées DSC09330.jpg, The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris by Auguste Perret (1911–1913)
File:01Sauvage26rueVavin.JPG, Stepped concrete apartment building in Paris by Henri Sauvage (1912–1914)
File:Wrocław - Jahrhunderthalle5.jpg, The Centennial Hall in Wrocław by Max Berg (1911–1913)
File:Fagus-Werke-01.jpg, The Fagus Factory in Alfeld by Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer (1911–13)
File:Taut Glass Pavilion exterior 1914.jpg, The Glass Pavilion in Cologne by German architect Bruno Taut (1914)

At the end of the 19th century, a few architects began to challenge the traditional Beaux Arts and Neoclassical styles that dominated architecture in Europe and the United States. The Glasgow School of Art (1896–99) designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, had a façade dominated by large vertical bays of windows. The Art Nouveau style was launched in the 1890s by Victor Horta in Belgium and Hector Guimard in France; it introduced new styles of decoration, based on vegetal and floral forms. In Barcelona, Antonio Gaudi conceived architecture as a form of sculpture; the façade of the Casa Battlo in Barcelona (1904–1907) had no straight lines; it was encrusted with colorful mosaics of stone and ceramic tiles.

Architects also began to experiment with new materials and techniques, which gave them greater freedom to create new forms. In 1903–1904 in Paris Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage began to use reinforced concrete, previously only used for industrial structures, to build apartment buildings. Reinforced concrete, which could be molded into any shape, and which could create enormous spaces without the need of supporting pillars, replaced stone and brick as the primary material for modernist architects. The first concrete apartment buildings by Perret and Sauvage were covered with ceramic tiles, but in 1905 Perret built the first concrete parking garage on 51 rue de Ponthieu in Paris; here the concrete was left bare, and the space between the concrete was filled with glass windows. Henri Sauvage added another construction innovation in an apartment building on Rue Vavin in Paris (1912–1914); the reinforced concrete building was in steps, with each floor set back from the floor below, creating a series of terraces. Between 1910 and 1913, Auguste Perret built the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, a masterpiece of reinforced concrete construction, with Art Deco sculptural bas-reliefs on the facade by Antoine Bourdelle. Because of the concrete construction, no columns blocked the spectator's view of the stage.

Otto Wagner, in Vienna, was another pioneer of the new style. In his book ''Moderne Architektur'' (1895) he had called for a more rationalist style of architecture, based on "modern life". He designed a stylized ornamental metro station at Karlsplatz in Vienna (1888–89), then an ornamental Art Nouveau residence, Majolika House (1898), before moving to a much more geometric and simplified style, without ornament, in the Austrian Postal Savings Bank (1904–1906). Wagner declared his intention to express the function of the building in its exterior. The reinforced concrete exterior was covered with plaques of marble attached with bolts of polished aluminum. The interior was purely functional and spare, a large open space of steel, glass, and concrete where the only decoration was the structure itself.

The Viennese architect Adolf Loos also began removing any ornament from his buildings. His Steiner House, in Vienna (1910), was an example of what he called rationalist architecture; it had a simple stucco rectangular facade with square windows and no ornament. The fame of the new movement, which became known as the Vienna Secession spread beyond Austria. Josef Hoffmann, a student of Wagner, constructed a landmark of early modernist architecture, the Palais Stoclet, in Brussels, in 1906–1911. This residence, built of brick covered with Norwegian marble, was composed of geometric blocks, wings, and a tower. A large pool in front of the house reflected its cubic forms. The interior was decorated with paintings by Gustav Klimt and other artists, and the architect even designed clothing for the family to match the architecture.

In Germany, a modernist industrial movement, Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) had been created in Munich in 1907 by Hermann Muthesius, a prominent architectural commentator. Its goal was to bring together designers and industrialists, to turn out well-designed, high-quality products, and in the process to invent a new type of architecture. The organization originally included twelve architects and twelve business firms, but quickly expanded. The architects include Peter Behrens, Theodor Fischer (who served as its first president), Josef Hoffmann and Richard Riemerschmid. In 1909 Behrens designed one of the earliest and most influential industrial buildings in the modernist style, the AEG turbine factory, a functional monument of steel and concrete. In 1911–1913, Adolf Meyer and Walter Gropius, who had both worked for Behrens, built another revolutionary industrial plant, the Fagus Factory in Alfeld an der Laine, a building without ornament where every construction element was on display. The Werkbund organized a major exposition of modernist design in Cologne just a few weeks before the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. For the 1914 Cologne exhibition, Bruno Taut built a revolutionary glass pavilion.

Early American modernism (1890s–1914)

File:William H. Winslow House Front Facade.jpg, William H. Winslow House, by Frank Lloyd Wright, River Forest, Illinois (1893–94)
File:Oak park house2.jpg, The Arthur Heurtley House in Oak Park, Illinois (1902)
File:LarkinAdministrationBuilding1906.jpg, Larkin Administration Building by Frank Lloyd Wright, Buffalo, New York (1904–1906)
File:Unity Temple - Oak Park IL 9 (3224132995).jpg, Interior of Unity Temple by Frank Lloyd Wright, Oak Park, Illinois (1905–1908)
File:Frederick C. Robie House.JPG, The Robie House by Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago (1909)

Frank Lloyd Wright was a highly original and independent American architect who refused to be categorized in any one architectural movement. Like Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, he had no formal architectural training. In 1887–93 he worked in the Chicago office of Louis Sullivan, who pioneered the first tall steel-frame office buildings in Chicago, and who famously stated "form follows function". Wright set out to break all the traditional rules. He was particularly famous for his Prairie Houses, including the Winslow House in River Forest, Illinois (1893–94); Arthur Heurtley House (1902) and Robie House (1909); sprawling, geometric residences without decoration, with strong horizontal lines which seemed to grow out of the earth, and which echoed the wide flat spaces of the American prairie. His Larkin Building (1904–1906) in Buffalo, New York, Unity Temple (1905) in Oak Park, Illinois and Unity Temple had highly original forms and no connection with historical precedents.

Early skyscrapers

File:Home Insurance Building.JPG, Home Insurance Building in Chicago by William Le Baron Jenney (1883)
File:Prudential buffalo louis sullivan.jpg, Prudential (Guaranty) Building by Louis Sullivan in Buffalo, New York (1896)
File:Detroit Photographic Company (0645).jpg, The Flatiron Building in New York City (1903)
File:Carson Pirie Scott building, Chicago, Illinois - Louis Sullivan.jpg, The Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building in Chicago by Louis Sullivan (1904–1906)
File:Woolworth Building and City Hall Park, New York City 1910s retouched.png, The Woolworth Building and the New York skyline in 1913. It was modern on the inside but neo-Gothic on the outside.
File:WoolworthBuilding crop.jpg, The neo-Gothic crown of the Woolworth Building by Cass Gilbert (1912)

At the end of the 19th century, the first skyscrapers began to appear in the United States. They were a response to the shortage of land and high cost of real estate in the center of the fast-growing American cities, and the availability of new technologies, including fireproof steel frames and improvements in the safety elevator invented by Elisha Otis in 1852. The first steel-framed "skyscraper", The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, was ten stories high. It was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1883, and was briefly the tallest building in the world. Louis Sullivan built another monumental new structure, the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building, in the heart of Chicago in 1904–06. While these buildings were revolutionary in their steel frames and height, their decoration was borrowed from Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Gothic and Beaux-Arts architecture. The Woolworth Building, designed by Cass Gilbert, was completed in 1912, and was the tallest building in the world until the completion of the Chrysler Building in 1929. The structure was purely modern, but its exterior was decorated with Neo-Gothic ornament, complete with decorative buttresses, arches and spires, which caused it to be nicknamed the "Cathedral of Commerce".

Rise of modernism in Europe and Russia (1918–1931)

After the first World War, a prolonged struggle began between architects who favored the more traditional styles of neo-classicism and the Beaux-Arts architecture style, and the modernists, led by Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-Stevens in France, Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Germany, and Konstantin Melnikov in the new Soviet Union, who wanted only pure forms and the elimination of any decoration. Louis Sullivan popularized the axiom ''Form follows function'' to emphasize the importance of utilitarian simplicity in modern architecture. Art Deco architects such as Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage often made a compromise between the two, combining modernist forms and stylized decoration.

International Style (1920s–1970s)

File:Villa La Roche 2013.jpg, The Villa La Roche-Jeanneret (now Fondation Le Corbusier) by Le Corbusier, Paris (1923–25)
File:Weissenhof Corbusier 03.jpg, Corbusier Haus in Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany (1927)
File:Weissenhof photo house citrohan east façade Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret Stuttgart Germany 2005-10-08.jpg, Citrohan Haus in Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany by Le Corbusier (1927)
File:VillaSavoye.jpg, The Villa Savoye in Poissy by Le Corbusier (1928–31)
File:MalletStevensMezy2.jpg, Villa Paul Poiret (1921–1925)
File:Villa Noailles (Mallet-Stevens, 1923).JPG, The Villa Noailles in Hyères by Robert Mallet-Stevens (1923)
File:Villa des frères Martel construite par Robert Mallet-Stevens au 10 rue Mallet-Stevens (Paris), en 1927.jpg, Hôtel Martel rue Mallet-Stevens, by Robert Mallet-Stevens (1926–1927)
File:Rietveld Schröderhuis HayKranen-20.JPG, Rietveld Schröder House in the Netherlands (1924)

The dominant figure in the rise of modernism in France was Charles-Édouard Jeanerette, a Swiss-French architect who in 1920 took the name Le Corbusier. In 1920 he co-founded a journal called L'Espirit Nouveau'' and energetically promoted architecture that was functional, pure, and free of any decoration or historical associations. He was also a passionate advocate of a new urbanism, based on planned cities. In 1922 he presented a design of a city for three million people, whose inhabitants lived in identical sixty-story tall skyscrapers surrounded by open parkland. He designed modular houses, which would be mass-produced on the same plan and assembled into apartment blocks, neighborhoods, and cities. In 1923 he published "Toward an Architecture", with his famous slogan, "a house is a machine for living in." He tirelessly promoted his ideas through slogans, articles, books, conferences, and participation in Expositions.

To illustrate his ideas, in the 1920s he built a series of houses and villas in and around Paris. They were all built according to a common system, based upon the use of reinforced concrete, and of reinforced concrete pylons in the interior which supported the structure, allowing glass curtain walls on the façade and open floor plans, independent of the structure. They were always white, and had no ornament or decoration on the outside or inside. The best-known of these houses was the Villa Savoye, built in 1928–1931 in the Paris suburb of Poissy. An elegant white box wrapped with a ribbon of glass windows around on the façade, with living space that opened upon an interior garden and countryside around, raised up by a row of white pylons in the center of a large lawn, it became an icon of modernist architecture.

Bauhaus and the German Werkbund (1919–1933)

File:Bauhaus Dessau 2018.jpg, The Bauhaus Dessau building, designed by Walter Gropius (1926)
Bernau bei Berlin ADGB Schule Wohntrakte vorne.jpg, ADGB Trade Union School by Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer (1928-30)
File:Haus am Horn, Weimar (Südwestansicht).jpg, Haus am Horn, Weimar by Georg Muche (1923)
File:The Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona, 2010.jpg, The Barcelona Pavilion (modern reconstruction) by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1929)
File:WeissenhofsiedlungJJPOud-pjt.jpg, The Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, built by the German Werkbund (1927)

In Germany, two important modernist movements appeared after the first World War, The Bauhaus was a school founded Weimar in 1919 under the direction of Walter Gropius. Gropius was the son of the official state architect of Berlin, who studied before the war with Peter Behrens, and designed the modernist Fagus turbine factory. The Bauhaus was a fusion of the prewar Academy of Arts and the school of technology. In 1926 it was transferred from Weimar to Dessau; Gropius designed the new school and student dormitories in the new, purely functional modernist style he was encouraging. The school brought together modernists in all fields; the faculty included the modernist painters Vasily Kandinsky, Joseph Albers and Paul Klee, and the designer Marcel Breuer.

Gropius became an important theorist of modernism, writing ''The Idea and Construction'' in 1923. He was an advocate of standardization in architecture, and the mass construction of rationally designed apartment blocks for factory workers. In 1928 he was commissioned by the Siemens company to build apartment for workers in the suburbs of Berlin, and in 1929 he proposed the construction of clusters of slender eight- to ten-story high-rise apartment towers for workers.

While Gropius was active at the Bauhaus, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe led the modernist architectural movement in Berlin. Inspired by the De Stijl movement in the Netherlands, he built clusters of concrete summer houses and proposed a project for a glass office tower. He became the vice president of the German Werkbund, and became the head of the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933. proposing a wide variety of modernist plans for urban reconstruction. His most famous modernist work was the German pavilion for the 1929 international exposition in Barcelona. It was a work of pure modernism, with glass and concrete walls and clean, horizontal lines. Though it was only a temporary structure, and was torn down in 1930, it became, along with Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, one of the best-known landmarks of modernist architecture. A reconstructed version now stands on the original site in Barcelona.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they viewed the Bauhaus as a training ground for communists, and closed the school in 1933. Gropius left Germany and went to England, then to the United States, where he and Marcel Breuer both joined the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and became the teachers of a generation of American postwar architects. In 1937 Mies van der Rohe also moved to the United States; he became one of the most famous designers of postwar American skyscrapers.

Expressionist architecture (1918–1931)

File:Berlin Grosses Schauspielhaus Poelzig Foyer.jpg, Foyer of the Großes Schauspielhaus, or Great Theater, in Berlin by Hans Poelzig (1919)
File:Einsteinturm 7443.jpg, The Einstein Tower by Erich Mendelsohn (1920–24)
File:Berlin, Mitte, Schuetzenstrasse, Mosse-Zentrum 05.jpg, The Mossehaus in Berlin by Erich Mendelsohn, an early example of streamline moderne (1921–23)
File:Chilehaus - Hamburg.jpg, The Chilehaus in Hamburg by Fritz Höger (1921–24)
File:Berlin Hufeisensiedlung UAV 04-2017.jpg, Horseshoe Estate public housing project by Bruno Taut (1925)
File:Goetheanum im Winter von Süden.jpg, Second Goetheanum in Dornach near Basel ( Switzerland) by the Austrian architect Rudolf Steiner (1924–1928)
File:Amsterdam Het Schip 006.JPG, Het Schip apartment building in Amsterdam by Michel de Klerk (1917–1920)
File:Den Haag De Bijenkorf 001.JPG, De Bijenkorf store in The Hague by Piet Kramer (1924–1926)

Expressionism, which appeared in Germany between 1910 and 1925, was a counter-movement against the strictly functional architecture of the Bauhaus and Werkbund. Its advocates, including Bruno Taut, Hans Poelzig, Fritz Hoger and Erich Mendelsohn, wanted to create architecture that was poetic, expressive, and optimistic. Many expressionist architects had fought in World War I and their experiences, combined with the political turmoil and social upheaval that followed the German Revolution of 1919, resulted in a utopian outlook and a romantic socialist agenda. Economic conditions severely limited the number of built commissions between 1914 and the mid–1920s, As result, many of the most innovative expressionist projects, including Bruno Taut's ''Alpine Architecture'' and Hermann Finsterlin's ''Formspiels'', remained on paper. Scenography for theatre and films provided another outlet for the expressionist imagination, and provided supplemental incomes for designers attempting to challenge conventions in a harsh economic climate. A particular type, using bricks to create its forms (rather than concrete) is known as Brick Expressionism.

Erich Mendelsohn, (who disliked the term Expressionism for his work) began his career designing churches, silos, and factories which were highly imaginative, but, for lack of resources, were never built. In 1920, he finally was able to construct one of his works in the city of Potsdam; an observatory and research center called the Einsteinium, named in tribute to Albert Einstein. It was supposed to be built of reinforced concrete, but because of technical problems it was finally built of traditional materials covered with plaster. His sculptural form, very different from the austere rectangular forms of the Bauhaus, first won him commissions to build movie theaters and retail stores in Stuttgart, Nuremberg, and Berlin. His Mossehaus in Berlin was an early model for the streamline moderne style. His Columbushaus on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (1931) was a prototype for the modernist office buildings that followed. (It was torn down in 1957, because it stood in the zone between East and West Berlin, where the Berlin Wall was constructed.) Following the rise of the Nazis to power, he moved to England (1933), then to the United States (1941).

Fritz Höger was another notable Expressionist architect of the period. His Chilehaus was built as the headquarters of a shipping company, and was modeled after a giant steamship, a triangular building with a sharply pointed bow. It was constructed of dark brick, and used external piers to express its vertical structure. Its external decoration borrowed from Gothic cathedrals, as did its internal arcades. Hans Poelzig was another notable expressionist architect. In 1919 he built the Großes Schauspielhaus, an immense theater in Berlin, seating five thousand spectators for theater impresario Max Reinhardt. It featured elongated shapes like stalagmites hanging down from its gigantic dome, and lights on massive columns in its foyer. He also constructed the IG Farben building, a massive corporate headquarters, now the main building of Goethe University in Frankfurt. Bruno Taut specialized in building large-scale apartment complexes for working-class Berliners. He built twelve thousand individual units, sometimes in buildings with unusual shapes, such as a giant horseshoe. Unlike most other modernists, he used bright exterior colors to give his buildings more life The use of dark brick in the German projects gave that particular style a name, Brick Expressionism.

The Austrian philosopher, architect, and social critic Rudolf Steiner also departed as far as possible from traditional architectural forms. His Second Goetheanum, built from 1926 near Basel, Switzerland the Einsteinturm in Potsdam, Germany, and the Second Goetheanum, by Rudolf Steiner (1926), were based on no traditional models, and had entirely original shapes.

Constructivist architecture (1919–1931)

File:Tatlin's Tower maket 1919 year.jpg, Model of the Tower for the Third International, by Vladimir Tatlin (1919)
File:Lenin Mausoleum.jpg, the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow by Alexey Shchusev (1924)
File:Pavillon de l'URSS Paris (1925).jpg, The USSR Pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts, by Konstantin Melnikov (1925)
File:Moscow RusakovWorkersClub 2253.jpg, Rusakov Workers' Club, Moscow, by Konstantin Melnikov (1928)
File:Будинок_держпромисловості_1.jpg, Derzhprom (the House of Industry), Kharkiv, by Sergey Serafimovich, Samul Kravets and Marc Felger (1928)
File:Mr.M. C. Dresselhuyspaviljoen, overzicht van de zuidvleugel, dan wel scheeve vleugel, tijdens restauratie - Hilversum - 20422171 - RCE.jpg, Zonnestraal Sanatorium in Hilversum by Jan Duiker and Bernard Bijvoet (1926–1928)
File:Openluchtschool - Open-air School (8157211576).jpg, Open air school in Amsterdam by Jan Duiker (1929–1930)
File:VN5 HDR2.jpg, Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam by Leendert van der Vlugt and Mart Stam (1927–1931)

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian avant-garde artists and architects began searching for a new Soviet style which could replace traditional neoclassicism. The new architectural movements were closely tied with the literary and artistic movements of the period, the futurism of poet Vladimir Mayakovskiy, the Suprematism of painter Kasimir Malevich, and the colorful Rayonism of painter Mikhail Larionov. The most startling design that emerged was the tower proposed by painter and sculptor Vladimir Tatlin for the Moscow meeting of the Third Communist International in 1920: he proposed two interlaced towers of metal four hundred meters high, with four geometric volumes suspended from cables. The movement of Russian Constructivist architecture was launched in 1921 by a group of artists led by Aleksandr Rodchenko. Their manifesto proclaimed that their goal was to find the "communist expression of material structures". Soviet architects began to construct workers' clubs, communal apartment houses, and communal kitchens for feeding whole neighborhoods.

One of the first prominent constructivist architects to emerge in Moscow was Konstantin Melnikov, the number of working clubs – including Rusakov Workers' Club (1928) – and his own living house, Melnikov House (1929) near Arbat Street in Moscow. Melnikov traveled to Paris in 1925 where he built the Soviet Pavilion for the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925; it was a highly geometric vertical construction of glass and steel crossed by a diagonal stairway, and crowned with a hammer and sickle. The leading group of constructivist architects, led by Vesnin brothers and Moisei Ginzburg, was publishing the 'Contemporary Architecture' journal. This group created several major constructivist projects in the wake of the First Five Year Plan – including colossal Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (1932) – and made an attempt to start the standardization of living blocks with Ginzburg's Narkomfin building. A number of architects from the pre-Soviet period also took up the constructivist style. The most famous example was Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow (1924), by Alexey Shchusev (1924)

The main centers of constructivist architecture were Moscow and Leningrad; however, during the industrialization many constructivist buildings were erected in provincial cities. The regional industrial centers, including Ekaterinburg, Kharkiv

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