Authors

Lisitsyn Vassily G.
IRKUTSK ARCHITECTURAL POSTCONSTRUCTIVISM

Architecton: Proceedings of Higher Education №3 (35) September, 2011

The article considers postconstructivism, one of the last stages in Soviet architectural constructivism. Analysis is performed with reference to the built environment of Irkutsk. The author describes the principal buildings of Irkutsk dating back to the mid-1930s and outlines the general characteristics of provincial postconstructivism. The principles of form generation in architectural postconstructivism are identified in the context of the political and economic transformations that took place in the Soviet Union in the first third of the 20th century.

The author starts off by presenting the main principles underlying the differentiation of postconstructivist buildings from those in other styles. He mentions the so-called "transition period" in the architecture of the 1930s that linked constructivism with neoclassicism and identifies factors that gave rise to the ideas and the typological principle behind the design and construction of architectural projects in Irkutsk. The article describes a number of postconstructivist buildings of Irkutsk that provided a basis for identifying the general principle of form generation as implemented in those projects. The author also touches upon the issue of visual identity between the Irkutsk postconstructivist projects and architectural projects in this style in other cities of the USSR, which was determined by the political realities of that period.

Thus, the article provides a fairly exhaustive account of the postconstructivist architectural style with reference to the concrete provisional city of Irkutsk.