CCA 2019: Americanizm in Russian Architecture

Building a New World:
Americanizm in Russian Architecture

November 13, 2019 - April 5, 2020

Building a new New World examines the history of Russian architecture and urban design in light of an enduring Amerikanizm. It focuses on an expanded definition of architecture and culture, as well as industrial and graphic design, music, photography, film, and literature. It also provides examples of various buildings, factories, industrial infrastructures, urban planning and product design.

The exhibition presents a wide-ranging succession of images and objects in which architecture serves as the unifying thread, including photographs, books, maps, drawings, magazines, portraits, models, postcards, and film excerpts. It examines numerous themes: imagined forms and buildings inspired by American sources, recurring investigative journeys undertaken by Russian explorers, political leaders, and architects; the multitude of Russian publications devoted to the United States, ranging from technical reports to poetry and novels.

Jean-Louis Cohen, the exhibition’s curator, stated:

“The bilateral relationship between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America was paradoxical. Americans never aspired to turn their nation into a ‘new Russia,’ neither from a political nor a cultural standpoint, while generations of Russian politicians, intellectuals, and engineers envisioned modelling their country after the United States, hoping to cast it as a new America.”

CCA Director Mirko Zardini explained:

“Through the CCA’s critical curatorial framework and calculated exhibition design, Cohen interprets Amerikanizm as a multifaceted phantasmagoria—borrowing Walter Benjamin’s term for the stimulating and ominous spectacle of the commodity—that helped shape not only the built form but also the consciousness of one of the greatest global powers.”

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Building a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture is the result of extensive research by curator Jean-Louis Cohen and features drawings, photographs, posters, books, publications, models, historical documents, and films from both Russia and the USA. The decades-long dialogue between Russia and the USA is reflected in the materials on display, which include rarely seen Russian holdings from the CCA’s own collection—including rare books and magazines, evocative drawings, and important photographs—shown alongside loans from important international institutions and lenders including, among others, the Alex Lachmann collection, with 33 objects on view in the exhibition; an emblematic and rare illustration from the MOMus - Museum of Modern Art - Costakis Collection in Thessaloniki, Greece; the Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation in Vienna; the Library of Congress; posters and key visuals from the Collection Merrill C. Berman; and works on loan from the Albert Kahn records at the Bentley Historical Library of University of Michigan and Albert Kahn Associates, Inc. The exhibition content is structured along specific themes including America and the Modernization of Czarist Russia; American Industries for Russia: Taylor, Ford, and Kahn; Amerikanizms of the Avant-Gardes; Amerikanizm in Stalinist Architecture and Culture; From War to Triumph; and The Post-Stalinist USSR: Reaching and Surpassing America. Throughout the succession of images and projects on display, architecture embodies the phenomenon of Amerikanizm that was also apparent in literature and film. Indeed, throughout the exhibition, film remains an important leitmotif, with excerpts from works by Sergey Eisenstein and Grigory Alexandrov, Mikhail Chiaureli, Esfir Shub, Frank & Lillian Gilbreth, Lev Kuleshov, Sergey Komarov, Alexander Medvedkin, Mikhail Kalatozov, and Charles & Ray Eames on display in key locations within and between galleries.

THE PUBLICATION

Building a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture is accompanied by a book of the same title by Jean-Louis Cohen, available in English and French editions in February 2020. Co-published by Yale and the CCA in English and Hazan and the CCA in French, the book follows the themes of the exhibition within a broader interpretive narrative and is illustrated by 450 colour and black and white images of drawings, photographs, maps, charts, and posters. The book will be available online and in-store through the CCA Bookstore, and distributed to select bookstores internationally.

RELATED PROGRAMS

Public programs related to Building a new New World will include a series of talks titled Search for a new New World by invited guests whose work relates to the themes explored through the exhibition. Adding examples beyond the terrestrial focus of the exhibition, this series looks to Russian science fiction as a site of social and technological fantasy: reflection and experimentation beyond what was possible in Russian reality. In parallel to the exhibition chronology, Russian society is read through four case studies from science fiction texts, images, and films. 

Click on images to enlarge them.

All photos © Nadia Slejskova.

For more information about CCA projects, visit the CCA website.