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DOI Artikel:Idzior, Aleksandra: Imagination with no limits: the frontier in the Soviet and American projects of a "future city" at the end of the 1920s
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42379#0078
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ALEKSANDRA IDZIOR
agine a future that is different from the prevailing order of things, is
a time honoured mode for overcoming the status quo, one that allows
entry into a sphere of the imagination precisely to overcome everyday
experience. Although suggestions of idealized utopian cities are a far cry
from the “real city” promoted and built by political, administrative, civic
and business leaders, future-oriented concepts are nonetheless based on
inherited urban form and content. Krutikov and Ferriss, in their fantas-
tic representations of the metropolis, reached back to the past precisely
to reformulate and transform the present for a better and improved
future. Both the Soviet and American authors included in their projects
current elements as well as the old and still existing urban forms in
order to bring forth and emphasize the changes they were forging for the
new city. Utopian thinking, after all, involves two moments that are
inextricably joined - the first constituting a critique of a status quo, and
the second being a constructive alternative to the former.
For Krutikov and Ferriss, Moscow and New York constituted not on-
ly lived spaces, but also spaces of the imagination, provocative launching
pads from which their representations of the future metropolis could be
hurled. Just as the 1916 Zoning Law in New York would flare up Fer-
riss’s imagination and his understanding of an ideal city form where a
setback high-rise would take on a prominent role, Krutikov would con-
struct his project of the future city prompted by, among other factors, the
American skyscraper.
THE CITY OF THE FUTURE
Krutikov believed that man’s capacity for speed had increased
throughout history along with developments in transportation and that
this had had an impact on architecture. For his diploma project at
VKhUTEMASWKhUTEIN (Vysshie gosudarstvennye khudozhestvenno-
tekhnicheskie masterskie, or the Higher State Artistic and Technical
Workshops / Vysshii gosudarstvennyi khudozhestvenno-tekhnicheskii
institut, or the Higher State Art and Technical Institute) in the studio of
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ladovskii, Krutikov argued that a form of mobile
architecture could lead to the most advanced means of transportation
and modern living.9 He suggested that buildings could be released from
the ground entirely.
9 Actually, besides Krutikov several other students in Ladovskii’s atelier imple-
mented the principle of a city hovering above the earth for their graduation projects in
1928 and 1929. Viktor Kalmykov imagined at the equator a suspended city-ring, which he
called “Saturn”, which would hover in the air with the aid of rigid constructions. The ring
ALEKSANDRA IDZIOR
agine a future that is different from the prevailing order of things, is
a time honoured mode for overcoming the status quo, one that allows
entry into a sphere of the imagination precisely to overcome everyday
experience. Although suggestions of idealized utopian cities are a far cry
from the “real city” promoted and built by political, administrative, civic
and business leaders, future-oriented concepts are nonetheless based on
inherited urban form and content. Krutikov and Ferriss, in their fantas-
tic representations of the metropolis, reached back to the past precisely
to reformulate and transform the present for a better and improved
future. Both the Soviet and American authors included in their projects
current elements as well as the old and still existing urban forms in
order to bring forth and emphasize the changes they were forging for the
new city. Utopian thinking, after all, involves two moments that are
inextricably joined - the first constituting a critique of a status quo, and
the second being a constructive alternative to the former.
For Krutikov and Ferriss, Moscow and New York constituted not on-
ly lived spaces, but also spaces of the imagination, provocative launching
pads from which their representations of the future metropolis could be
hurled. Just as the 1916 Zoning Law in New York would flare up Fer-
riss’s imagination and his understanding of an ideal city form where a
setback high-rise would take on a prominent role, Krutikov would con-
struct his project of the future city prompted by, among other factors, the
American skyscraper.
THE CITY OF THE FUTURE
Krutikov believed that man’s capacity for speed had increased
throughout history along with developments in transportation and that
this had had an impact on architecture. For his diploma project at
VKhUTEMASWKhUTEIN (Vysshie gosudarstvennye khudozhestvenno-
tekhnicheskie masterskie, or the Higher State Artistic and Technical
Workshops / Vysshii gosudarstvennyi khudozhestvenno-tekhnicheskii
institut, or the Higher State Art and Technical Institute) in the studio of
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ladovskii, Krutikov argued that a form of mobile
architecture could lead to the most advanced means of transportation
and modern living.9 He suggested that buildings could be released from
the ground entirely.
9 Actually, besides Krutikov several other students in Ladovskii’s atelier imple-
mented the principle of a city hovering above the earth for their graduation projects in
1928 and 1929. Viktor Kalmykov imagined at the equator a suspended city-ring, which he
called “Saturn”, which would hover in the air with the aid of rigid constructions. The ring