Edward Robert de Zurko: Origins of Functionalist Theory (1957)

“The main purpose of this book is to study the idea of functionalism from a historical point of view. The research media are the literary sources of functionalism. Early functionalist trends in writings on architecture shall be analyzed and compared with each other and with modern interpretations of the concept. By means of this es­sentially semantic study I hope to demonstrate (1) the antiquity of functionalist ideas, especially the tendency to connect ideas of use with ideas of beauty; (2) the variety of guises assumed by this type of theory; and (3) the recurrent ideas which have generally charac­terized functionalist theory.” (from the Introduction)

Publisher Columbia University Press, 1957
265 pages
via Charles

PDF (9 MB)

Julia Vaingurt: Wonderlands of the Avant-Garde: Technology and the Arts in Russia of the 1920s (2013)

“In postrevolutionary Russia, as the Soviet government was initiating a program of rapid industrialization, avant-garde artists declared their intent to serve the nascent state and to transform life in accordance with their aesthetic designs. In spite of their professed utilitarianism, however, most avant-gardists created works that can hardly be regarded as practical instruments of societal transformation. Exploring this paradox, Vaingurt claims that the artists’ investment of technology with aesthetics prevented their creations from being fully conscripted into the arsenal of political hegemony. The purposes of avant-garde technologies, she contends, are contemplative rather than constructive. Looking at Meyerhold’s theater, Tatlin’s and Khlebnikov’s architectural designs, Mayakovsky’s writings, and other works from the period, Vaingurt offers an innovative reading of an exceptionally complex moment in the formation of Soviet culture.”

Publisher Northwestern University Press, 2013
SRLT series
ISBN 0810128942, 9780810128941
322 pages
via Sorin

Review: Boris Dralyuk (NEP, 2013), Tim Harte (Slavic Review, 2014).

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2022-11-12)

See also the science-fiction film Aelita, Queen of Mars, dir. Yakov Protazanov, 1924, 111 min, based on Tolstoy’s novel.

Stanislaus von Moos, Chris Smeenk (eds.): Avant Garde und Industrie (1983) [English/German]

Collected papers from a symposium held at the Department of Architecture at Delft University of Technology in May 1981.

Contributions in English from Niels L. Prak, Leonard K. Eaton, Tim Benton, and Jan van Geest; in German from Franziska Bollerey, Hanne Bergius, Stanislaus von Moos, Andreas Haus, Flip Bool, Martin Steinmann, and Otakar Máčel.

Publisher Delft University Press, Delft, 1983
ISBN 9062751091
176 pages
via TU Delft

PDF (29 MB)