Drawings from the Sergei Tchoban Collection

In late 2011 Beaux-Arts de Paris mounted an exhibit of a different area of his collection: drawings illustrating the neoclassical period. The current show bears witness to the extraordinary flowering in official architecture during the first two decades of the Soviet era.

The new initiatives that accompanied the transformation of Soviet society spurred a swarm of architectural ideas and concepts among both established professionals and recent graduates of the new Soviet architecture schools. The approximately forty drawings on view at Beaux-Arts de Paris display an array of projects that were commissioned by the new government and reflect the innovative approaches devised by Russian designers between 1920 and 1940, using a wide variety of graphic techniques.

Topics and periods addressed

Up until 1932, Russian architecture was notable for its highly fecund experimentation, notably thanks to the radical instructional techniques adopted at the state art schools, known as the vkhutemas. At the 1923 Crafts and Agricultural Exhibition held in Moscow in 1923, the wide range of architectural projects, plus innovative pavilions from the likes of Andrei Burov and Ilia Golossov, reflected the Constructivist movement, undoubtedly the most innovative area of Soviet architecture, including minimalist designs from Kirill Afanasyev, Moisei Ginzburg and especially Yakov Chernikhov.

A large portion of the exhibition is devoted to the construction of Lenin’s Mausoleum, a symbolic monument of Bolshevik Moscow, designed by Alexey Shchusev and erected in Red Square.

Soviet projects in the years after 1932 are represented by a number of monumental works, such as the never-completed Palace of the Soviets designed by Boris Iofan, the Meyerhold Theater and the government building in Kiev.

Commissioners: Jean-Louis Cohen, professor, New York University, and Emmanuelle Brugerolles, curator of drawings, Cabinet Jean Bonna

Exhibition Designer: Natalya Solopova, architect