Modernism and Mobilization: From Viktor Sokolsky’s Economic Principle to Interwar Architectural Planning

[摘要] Influential before the revolution of 1917, the work of the now-forgotten Russian imperial military architect Viktor Sokolsky (1869–1913) on the efficiency of construction continued to be studied in the aftermath of the revolution. An analysis of its influence reveals how modern architecture converged with military history, blurring the established historiographic boundaries between the radical and the regressive. Among the projects that developed Sokolsky’s intentions is Moisei Ginzburg’s Narkomfin building in Moscow (1928–1930). The genealogy of this modernist icon reveals its roots in a typology well developed in imperial military architecture: barracks. This example demonstrates that the emergence of modern, mass, warfare led to an elaboration of the principles of modernist, mass architecture with its ethos of hygiene, efficiency, and economy.

[学科分类] 内科医学

[关键词] military architecture;the barrack;Narkomfin;Moisei Ginzburg;typification