Creating a new society is no small project, especially on a scale like Russia. Apart from the considerable practical challenges involved, it also requires symbols bold enough to represent the underlying ideals. avant-garde artist Vladimir Tatlin He took it upon himself to create just such a symbol in the years after the Russian Revolution. The result was officially known as the “Third International Monument”, named after the organization tasked with promoting world communism (often abbreviated as the Comintern). But more commonly called Tatlin’s TowerPerhaps it pays homage to the artist’s particular vision, and is too ambitious to begin actual construction.
“As part of a larger plan to replace old imperial monuments with monuments to the revolution, this gigantic structure was both a symbolic sculpture and a functional piece of architecture.” write Smart History”Charles Kramer and Kim Grant. A 1,300-foot (400-meter) steel and glass bridge designed to span the Neva River in St. Petersburg monument It would surpass the Eiffel Tower in Paris in both size and complexity. ”
In fact, it’s probably taller than the Empire State Building, which hasn’t been built yet, at least not including the antenna. Tatlin’s Tower consists of “an upwardly spiraling, contracting double helix supported by huge diagonal beams” and contains four substructures, each rotating at a different speed.
Yes, it is rotating and “completes a complete revolution according to the importance of the institutions doing business inside.” Tim Brinkof writes: think big. “The cube containing the parliament was supposed to rotate once a year. The pyramid above, which housed the offices of party officials, would have taken a month. The information center at the top would have rotated once a day, giving a 360-degree view of Petrograd,” as St. Petersburg was known in 1920. 1991, after the end of the Soviet era. ) For more information on how it all worked, please visit: Architecture Enthusiast video at the top of the postand The Sideprojects one just above..
“Tatlin Tower was designed at a time when the communist regime was still in its infancy and party leaders were trying to establish a new and distinct socialist identity through art,” Brinkov writes. Idealized representations of the ruling class were actively discarded along with the ruling class itself, so the Bolsheviks welcomed any style that could strengthen the revolutionary cause, including complete abstraction. Sadly, many party officials approved Tatlin’s design but did not mandate any resources for construction. “Russia would go bankrupt if it tried to obtain the tremendous amounts of iron and iron required for the framework of the tower.” Perhaps Leon Trotsky, one of the project’s opponents, was right to call it “unrealistic and romantic.” Perhaps that’s why Tatlin’s Tower remains an object of fascination more than a century later.
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Based in Seoul, Colin Mbemust write and broadcastIt’s about cities, languages and cultures. he is the author of the newsletter books about cities books as well Home page (I won’t summarize Korea) and korean newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter. @Colinbemust.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
