Architecture, revolution and temporality: the Soviet avant-garde and the politics of modernism

Download
2017
Demirok, Görkem
This study aims to present a political re-reading of modernism and the Soviet Avant-garde through their conceptualizations of temporality. To that end, affirmative and negative characteristics of modernism and the avant-garde in their relation to modernity and the capitalist mode of production are examined, and their over-identification with capitalism is questioned. Thereafter, the Soviet context of modernism and the avant-garde are analyzed through the temporal conception of Bolshevism. The study claims that both the appeal of the post-revolutionary Soviet context to modernist and avant-garde visions and their liquidation originate from the insights into temporality. It aims to reveal that the constructivist theory of architectural space presents an intensified variant of modernist spatio-temporality, a dependence on the unknown, processes and mobility, and pre-assumptions of the continuous future breaks from the past. 

Suggestions

Architecture, ideology, representation : party headquarters as a new mode in representing power since the 1980’s
Yılmaz, Fadime; Sargın, Güven Arif; Department of Architecture (2009)
The main objective of this study is to question the potential of architecture as a representational medium of ideology. In order to exemplify this overlapping relationship between ideology and architecture, this study focuses on the headquarters erected by major parties of Turkey since the 1980’s. Having a significant position within society and particularly being a part of political system, parties obviously define ideological formations in order to preserve their existence and also strengthen their positi...
Architecture and public dialogue : an evaluation of the role of architecture centers
Demirel, Buket; Erkılıç, Mualla; Department of Architecture (2005)
This thesis points out the transformation in the visions of architectural institutions about architecture-public dialogue, the interrelations of architect-client to architecture-the public, in a historical perspective. It states that architecture center as a phenomenon has been emerged with the transformation of the consideration of the functions of architectural institutions from merely guaranteeing competence and integrity to stimulating awareness, accessibility, participation and collaboration of both pr...
Architectural interpretations of modernity cultural identity : a comparative study on Sedad Hakkı Eldem and Bruna Taut in early Republican Turkey
Uysal, Zeynep Çiğdem; Altan, Tomris Elvan; Department of Architecture (2004)
The thesis aims to reveal the decisive influence of the tension that stems from the contemporary searches for cultural identity on the architectural production of the early Republican Turkey. It attempts to demonstrate the conceptual and practical strategies that were devised in contemporary architecture for the resolution of the cultural tension by examining the architectural attitudes and practices of Sedad Hakki Eldem and Bruno Taut in the late 1930s and the early 1940s. In the first part, ءcultural iden...
An Aesthetic response to an architectural challenge: architecture‘s dialogue with the arts in postwar Turkey
Yavuz, Ezgi; Altan, Tomris Elvan; Department of History of Architecture (2015)
This study aims to analyze architecture’s dialogue with the arts in postwar Turkey. It attempts to comprehend the formation of the idea of ‘collaboration’ between arts and architecture and the meaning of this from the viewpoint of architectural production. Thus, it investigates the atmosphere together with the facts and actors involved in this unity, all of which contribute to uncover the intellectual background and the practice of ‘collaboration’. The ultimate goal in this study is to understand the intent...
Historical contuinity: three modernist masters, their precedents and descendants
Mollazadeh, Aslı; Balamir, Aydan; Department of Architecture (2014)
The aim of this thesis is to uncover the relation between the concept of historical continuity and architectural modernism. Modernism in architecture has often been conceived as a movement that rejects history. The buildings of modernist masters have been seen alien to their environments and the cultural values of the society. Although there have been many studies disproving this widespread opinion, the continuing effects of modernist works on today's architectural environment haven't been fully understood....
Citation Formats
G. Demirok, “Architecture, revolution and temporality: the Soviet avant-garde and the politics of modernism,” M.Arch. - Master of Architecture, Middle East Technical University, 2017.