Cambridge University visit to Moscow, Scandinavia 1968
In the summer of 1968 I and two other students from Cambridge University, John Livingston and Jonathan Boorstin drove 6,000 miles across Europe to visit Moscow and see the work of the Russian Constructivists, Le Corbusier, Melnikov and others, and on through Leningrad (as it then was) to Helsinki to visit the works of Alvar Aalto. The project was sponsored by the University and encouraged by my teacher Richard Saul Wurman. We were accompanied by my Slovak girlfriend Vera.
We drove through Czechoslovakia weeks before the Soviet Union crushed the Prague Spring and witnessed the armored divisions heading towards the Czech border as we drove north towards Moscow.
In Moscow we visited Le Corbusier’s Centrosoyus Building and Melnikov’s strange little house as well as visiting Moise Ginsberg’s Narkomfin Housing project and other sites from the pioneering period after the Russian Revolution in the 1920’s before Stalinism took over.
In Finland we were able to visit Aalto’s office and to see many of his most significant designs including the Paimio Sanatorium, the Otaniemi University, Saynatsalo Town Hall and the civic buildings in Seinajoki.
We returned through Sweden paying homage to Gunnar Asplund’s Stockholm masterpieces, the Library and Woodland Crematorium.
Red Square Moscow with St Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin
A 5,000 mile journey over 6 weeks across the Iron Curtain from London to Moscow and back via Scandinavia during the summer of 1968.
Le Corbusier’s Centrosoyus Building, 1931
The Narkomfin Building was in a shocking state of disrepair when we visited it in 1968, but has now been superbly well restored in 2019.
The community building on the left contained dining, recreational and educational facilities for the residents and was linked by a bridge to the second level corridor serving the lower dwelling units,
Plans and sections showing the compact units and the main corridors. This pioneering design was the model for ideas behind Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles in 1951, and the post war housing in Britain proposed by the Smithsons for Golden Lane in the Barbican London, and Ivor Smith at Park Hill Sheffield.
Ginsberg influenced Le Corbusier with his rooftop terrace. Corb must have seen this building when he visited Moscow when building his Centrosoyus Building.
A beautiful tensile design using the same design principles as a bicycle wheel.
The entry canopy is similar to Aalto’s Paimio Sanatorium of the same year.
One of two newspaper office buildings designed in Moscow. The original design proposed a tower.
Melnikov’s famous Tram Workers Club that has inspired architects such as Stirling and Gowan in their Leicester Engineering Building, and my father’s design for the College of Engineering and Science for the Central London Polytechnic of Central London.
Another of Melnikov’s clubs.
Melnikov’s own house consists of two interlocking cylinders, one of which contained his art studios. Lighting was through hexagonal double glazed windows.