Culture as a Battleground: Subversive Narratives in Constructivist Architecture and Stage

Design
Author(s): Roann Barris
Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 52, No. 2 (Nov., 1998), pp. 109-123
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of
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 Cultureas a Battleground:
Narrativesin Constructivist
Subversive Architecture
InRussiaof the twenties,the connectionsthat
wereforgedbetweenarchitectureandtheater
wereso strongthatthe narrativesof one cannot
be readwithoutknowledgeof the other.A lackof
awarenessof the extentof this interdependence
has obscuredunderstanding of both.Inversebut
identical,the "actingmachine"becamean envi-
ronment,andthe buildingbecamea mechanical
theater.Bothtransitionswerepredicatedon a vi-
sual languagethatunitedthe carnivalwiththe
machineandon the existenceof a newtype of
relationshipbetweenthe stage set andthe play,a
relationshipthatbecamea modelforthe
spectator'sengagementwithartandsociety.
FROM THE CONTROVERSYOVER THE VIETNAM
Veterans Memorial to the censorship of
Mapplethorpeexhibitionsand other NEA-
funded projects;from the GermanDegen-
erateArt Show to the silencingof the visual
language of Russian constructivism,
throughout the twentieth century certain
forms of imagery have been identified as
disconcertingand unsettling.Yet knowing
of effortsto suppressart that unsettles,art-
ists continue to inscribe ideology in their
creations-in ways that go beyond or even
contradictthe explicitsubjectmatterof the
artwork.In this respect,the constructivist
transformationof the social condenser/in-
dustrial machine age metaphor into a
"magicmill" or primitive machine of the
sort that one might encounterat a carnival
or fair and centralizationof a narrativeof
life as a mechanizedcarnivalmayhavebeen,
at leastin the eyes of the state, a subversive
postrevolutionact. Followingfromthis, the
constructivistimpositionof a dialogicstrat-
egy of engagedtheatricalitycould havebeen
received in one fashion only-as further
provocation to a nation that was actively
engagedin the taskof findingthe formsand
languageto expressthe ideologiesandstruc-
turesof the new communiststate.
Education,pp. 109-123
JournalofArchitectural
? 1998 ACSA, Inc.
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andStageDesign
ROANN EasternIllinoisUniversity
BARRIS,
Analysisof the constructivists'role in
this searchhas sufferedfromboth over-and
underdetermination,in either case effec-
tively underminingand misreadingits con-
tribution. For example, by now we take
almost as a truism the proposition that
constructivism,as an architecturalcredoand
as enunciatedby AlekseiGan in 1922, ex-
isted in unremitting opposition to "art."
Consequently,artistsand criticshave long
readconstructivismincompletely-as a nar-
rativeof the machineand of technological
and industrial imagery. Then and today,
they have viewed the constructivistcontri-
bution to stagedesignalmostexclusivelyin
terms of urban, machine-derived forms
functioningas an "actingmachine"and to
architecture in terms of a reductive and
functionalistformalism.'Althoughmorere-
cent revisionaryperspectivesare rereading
constructivism in terms of post-Marxist
theoriesof the commodificationof the ob-
ject,2 these approachesdo not satisfactorily
illuminatethe dialecticalvisionsof construc-
tivist architecturein Russiaof the twenties
becausethey neitheracknowledgethe influ-
ence of popular and primitive cultural
forms,such as the carnival,nor recognizea
theatricalmodel of engagedspectatorship.
Althoughvisualand textualanalysisof pub-
lished and unpublishedtexts and drawings
establishesthe goal of forging a bond be-
tween architectureand theater, the most
criticallink between them lies in the con-
structof theatricalityas a model for a new
relationshipof the stageset to the theatrical
productionand a metaphorfor the engage-
ment of architecturewith social life and of
the user/spectatorwith art, architecture,
and society.
The machineandindustrywereunde-
niablypresentin the constructiviststageset,
but they do not representits narrativesor
meaning. They servedas rhetoricalstrate-
gies-metaphors and metonymy-in a nar-
1 09 Barris
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
rativeof the reconstructionof society.As a
narrativethat reconceptualizedtheater as
carnivaland architectureandconcomitantly
reconceptualizedarchitectureas theater,it
unitedthe languageof machinesandscience
with the languageof the fantasyworld of
carnivals.Visually,such a union may seem
untenable.In fact, it was a union of process
and goals,a union thatderivedfromand re-
flecteda commitmentto kinetic, mechani-
cal, and psychological movement, to
dynamismand transformation,as the gen-
erativeprinciplesof design-of the environ-
ment, the object,and the humanbeing.To
this end, we find an increasingconfluence
between the goals of theaterand architec-
ture,such that the stageset moved from its
constructivist inception as an actual and
metaphoricalmachineto becomean encom-
passing environment, while the building
(the workers'club, in particular)changed
from its origin as an environment into a
"theatrical"machine. Both changespostu-
lated and restedon a new relationshipbe-
tween the work of art and the human
being-the human being as an "engaged
spectator,"a personwho can will and enact
transformation.Becausethe existenceof the
engagedspectatoris endemicto the carnival,
I argueherefor recognitionof a theory-and
narrative-determinedreciprocitybetween
constructivistarchitectureand theaterand
recognitionof symbolicmeaning,often in-
formedby the cultureof the carnival.
The Carnivaland the Engaged
Spectator:Modelsfor Theater
and Architecture
The wintercarnival(gulian'e)wascharacter-
ized in particularby its balagantheaters
(hastilyassemblednonprofessionalpeople's
theatersof varyingsizes,associatedwith car-
nivals), the parabolic wood slides (wood
 1. Partialviewof the gulian'e(fairground),
focusingon the "wood 2. Balagan(fairground
theater)locatedin Moscowon Devichie
mountain." Photograph of an 1859 lithograph.
(Courtesyof the Field.Postcardreproduction
of a bookengraving.
Bakhrushin TheaterMuseumfondof drawingsanddesigns.)

mountains) extending from one end of a
town to the other, and the alchemy of the
carnival, as sleds became moving stages, as
people dressed in black became stage furni-
ture for the balagan performances, as ex-
ploding harlequins were reassembled before
viewers' eyes, (Figures 1 and 2). Everything,
quite literally, was demountable and
reconstructable. The attraction of the carni-
val as a visual and ideological model for the-
ater and architecture derived from several
factors: the personal interest of Vsevolod
Meierkhol'd (and other theatrical producers
and theorists) in the folk theater and carni-
val as a means for reviving and rejuvenating
what was perceived as a lifeless theater; the
state's own interest in forging a union
(smychka) between peasant/rural art forms
and the incipient urban/worker forms of
socialist culture; and the interest of avant-
garde artists in provoking intellectual and
imagistic shifts in an inured way of looking
at reality and the world.3 This goal reflected
a desire to avoid description and its implied
willingness to accept the status quo. The
carnival, in contrast, familiarly described as
"the world upside down" and a state of in-
between, provided an indigenous and time-
less rejection of the status quo, along with a
native model of the engaged spectator.4
Thus, G. Kryzhitskii, in a book entitled The
PhilosophicalBalagan,called the balagana
model for the contemporary theater because
it united mystery with discovery, wisdom
with action, and comedy and senselessness
with mystery and tragedy. He went on to
say that the balagan would force spectators
to understand life not through their heads,
but through their entire being.5 Kryzhitskii
was not alone in his belief in the
carnivalesque or grotesque union of oppo-
sites as a strategy for engaging the spectator.
By 1906, Meierkhol'd had already em-
braced the grotesque as a means for creating
an active spectator. Calling for a rejection of
the naturalistic strategies of the Moscow Art
theater, he claimed that these strategies
eliminated mystery and "silenced" the
imagination of the spectator, thereby pre-
venting the audience from emotionally and
ideologically engaging with the play and, by
extension, with the world.6 Nikolai
Evreinov, a symbolist playwright and pro-
ducer, likewise invoked the model of the
balaganas the means of inducing "anarchic"
passion and engagement in the spectator.7
What I am proposing as a "paradigm
of the theatrically engaged spectator" begins
with the recognition of two possible rela-
tionships of the stage set to the play: one of
deepening or intensifying the play's mean-
ing and one of departurefrom this meaning,
thereby refuting the standard interpretation
of these sets as nonrepresentational ma-
chines for acting.8 One of the few writers
about constructivist stage design who like-
wise refutes this latter assumption is V.
Berezkin.9 His thesis is that constructivism
always contained the potential-even when
it remained unrealized-to define the place
of action. He therefore asserts that the set
was inherently dualistic, moving on the one
hand toward an increasingly self-contained
definition as an apparatus or machine for
acting, and on the other toward the famil-
iar role of providing a locale or sense of
place for the play's action. There are two
key limitations to his argument, however.
First, for him, the "subject" or idea con-
tained within the stage set was always a
place of action; and second, the stage set,
whether thematic or not, always partici-
pated in the play in an essential way.
My argument contradicts this posi-
tion on both grounds. In one play-set rela-
tionship, parallelism obtained between some
or all of the play's themes and the meaning
of the stage set: The stage set reflected the
play's meanings. As a spectator model, a re-
lationship of intensification presumed a re-
flective and contemplative spectator; as
such, it would not be a radicalor provocative
role unless the content of the play was pro-
vocative. In the second relationship, the set
signified independently of the play and en-
gaged in a theatricalinteractionwith the play
as a whole-theatrical in that the set func-
tioned almost as a characterwith a compet-
ing or irreconcilable point of view. This
second model, the theatrical relationship,
therefore created two conditions-one in
which the set obscured the meaning of the
play, and one that challenged the spectator
to resolve competing points of view. It was
through this act of resolution that the spec-

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tatorwouldengagewith the artworkand,by
extension, with society, becoming aroused
to initiatechangeand undergoingself-trans-
formationin the process.
NarrativeReciprocity
The argumentfor the presenceof narrative
and meaningin constructiviststagesets de-
rivesfirst from a conceptualunderstanding
of constructivist stage design as an art of
multiple engagements-an art that is re-
sponsive to the play, dialecticallyengaged
with the historyof stage design, and ideo-
logicallyengagedwith the socialand politi-
cal futureof the country-and second,from
writersof the periodwho spokemoregener-
allyof avant-garde artas possessinggoalsand
meaning. From their formulations,we can
infer the existence of congruent meanings
and goalsin the avant-gardestageset.'"The
claimof narrativealsoderivesfromrecogni-
tion that in the visual arts,a narrativemay
be discontinuousor fragmentary: It doesnot
inherently reflect a chronologicalor linear
frameworkor pattern.Perhapsmorecritical,
content is not limited to the representation
of forms;it may be embeddedin the strate-
gies of a visuallanguage.For example,dur-
ing the twenties,montage,scaledistortion,
and dispersion,as the meansof rejectingan
orderedor classicalcomposition,werestrat-
egies for a visual languageof opposition-
opposition to previousartisticnorms, and
by extension, opposition to social norms.
Further,in the departurefrom representa-
tion, visualnarrativesmayserveto conferan
explanatory,sense-making,or moralauthor-
ity on eventsthatmightotherwiseappearto
be disjunctive and to exist in a moral
vacuum." However, the ambiguity and
multivalencyof visual languagecan create
narrativeambiguity.Promotingan engaged
spectator-in a conditionof narrativeambi-
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guity-may havebeen the most threatening
aspect of constructivism for the new
regime'sgoalof ideologicalhegemony.Con-
sequently,as both theaterand architecture
becamestaginggroundsor rehearsalsitesfor
new modes of existence, culturalcriticism
becamea battlegroundin which the control
of spectatorreception-through ideological
reinterpretation of constructivist narra-
tives-was of equal or greaterimportance
thanthe controlof art.(Althoughone inevi-
tablyleadsto the other.)
The narrativesof constructivismre-
volvedarounda narrativeof the new human
being in a new world.This narrativeosten-
sibly conformed to the state's, but
constructivistnarrativespositedthe newper-
son as an individual,capableof participating
in an individualizedway in the processof
change. In this conceptualization of the
individual'srole,the constructivistnarrative
departedfromthe prevailingSovietnarrative
of an interchangeable personand collective,
a collectivethatservedas a metaphorfor the
monumentality of the state. Another dis-
crepancywith the state narrativelay in the
focus of change.The prevailingSoviet nar-
rativecentralizedthe "socialisthero":If the
individualequaledthe state, then changing
the individualwould changethe state. The
constructivistsworkingin both theaterand
architecturecentralizedthe environment,
not the "socialisthero."In this way, archi-
tecture,as the materialenvironmentof real
life, becamethe truematerial-and the new
paradigm-of the theater.The paradigmof
theateras architecturecentralizedthe belief
that the theatercould model, if not actually
build, the new world. This belief was a
sourceof consistencybetweenculturaland
politicalactivistswho, even beforethe early
twenties,had recognizedthe valueof theater
as a tool for "politicalenlightenment";by
the twenties,both groupsdefinedtheaterin
terms that closely paralleled the goals of
111 Barris
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
constructivistarchitecture:the organization
of life throughthe organizationof spaceand
materials.
In theatricalterms,this had multiple
implications,obviatingthe need to use the
set for the creationof a sceniclocalefor the
play. For some this led to a redefinitionof
the set as a frameworkfor the efficaciousin-
teraction of moving bodies in space. For
others,the theaterin its entiretywould be-
comea laboratory,showcase,andsymbolfor
the new life. The critic N. Tugendkhol'd,
for example,arguingagainsta perceptionof
the stage set as abstractform, assertedthat
artistswere drawnto the theaterbecauseit
couldcreateand producea wholenewworld
and a new life, parallelto but better than
ours: "Theateris a microcosm,"he said.12
Other statements made throughout the
twenties reinforcedthe idea of theateras a
workshopor factoryfor the productionof
the "qualified"humanand the new waysof
life.13Daily life, arguedBorisArvatov,the
theoristof productionart,was disorganized
and uncontrolled by humans; but the
theatercould demonstrateto audiencesthe
means for controlling and organizing the
dailyhabitsof life, in a contextcloserto real
life than such art formsas painting,which
remained individualistic. Theater, unlike
paintingand like the new life, wascollective
and hence more appropriateto the role of
creatingthe formsof a new collectivelife.'4
Severalyearslaterbut still in a similarmode,
the criticI. Berezarkdeclaredthat the stage
mustdemonstrate"modelsof the new habi-
tat, furnishedrationally,comfortably,eco-
nomicallyandbeautifully.The spectatorwill
be able to comparethis model living envi-
ronmentwith his own ... andwith his own
eyes become convincedof the efficiencyof
the new formulationof dailylife.""Moved
to change their surroundings,these indi-
viduals would then be moved to change
theirlives.
 Demonstrating and convincing,
while not contradictory,arenonethelessnot
identicalas goals. This differencewas cap-
tured by N. Chuzhak,who identified two
directionsfor the "artof everydaylife":an
effort to exert influence and arousean ac-
tion in the audience,and the attemptto give
the audiencethe meansfor achievingthis.16
The distinction between arousing and
equipping is significant. For the
constructivists, form was the means, but
arousalwas the goal, a goal which againad-
umbratedthe consonance of architectural
and theatricalgoals and solutions not only
with one anotherbut also with the dynam-
ics of the carnivaland the existenceof the
engagedspectator.
The paradigmof theateras architec-
turewas thereforemore than a conceptuali-
zation of theater as a laboratory for life.
Architecturalmetaphorsinfusedthe visual-
izationof the stageand the production,and
theater, in turn, became a metaphor.
VladimirDmitrievconceivedof a play'sac-
tion asthe "constructionof a buildingin this
[theatrical]space,"while SergeiTret'iakov
likenedthe scaffoldingof a building under
constructionto a model for a new type of
theaterthat would activelyengagethe audi-
ence in the mental processof constructing
the meaningof a play.17
'Whereas the involvementof architects
in theater facilitated some of the "labora-
tory"goals, architecturedid not have to be
limited to the theatricalcontext either to
centralizethe narrativeof a new life or to
centralizea narrativeof theater.Although
architectsidentified their contribution to
the theaterin termsof providingmodelsfor
the new life, they also assertedtheirleader-
ship positionas the "activebuilder[s]of the
new life, and propagandist[s]for the new
socialideas,"claimingthat this was the ep-
och of architectureand that the develop-
ment of all the fine arts now dependedon
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architecture:"It [architecture]connects art gagementis apparenthere:Althoughchang-
with the last word of industrialtechnology, ing the environmentremainedthe focus,in
with the basicproblemsof industry,with the this case certain people might have to
worker'splanfor the industrialization of the change first. Alternatively, the architect
country."'1 But, PavelNovitskii added, the might representthe user,becominga model
key to this omnipotencelay in the nature of for futureengagedspectators.However,this
architectureas artandscience:"Architecture wasproblematicif the architectwasnot pro-
unitesthe most utilitarianpracticewith bold letarian,and in fact, a substantialbody of
and unbridledinnovation.Architecturenot criticismattributedarchitectural "failure"to
only is an accounting; it is also an invention, the architect'snonproletarianorigins.22
a utopian plan, a stubborn work of fan- Architecture paralleledtheaterin a dif-
tasy""-fantasy, presumably, in its commit- ferent way: It became a "stageset" for the
ment to creatinga nonexistentenvironment new life. Although constructivistsrejected
that would elicit and supportnew ways of the use of constructivismas a "style"or fa-
living.Novitskiidid not mentionthe userof cadeor the meansof "updating" an old form
this new environment,although only two andlikewiseunitedagainstthe eclecticuseof
yearsearlier,in the catalogof the FirstExhi- old or bourgeoisstyles, they remaineddi-
bition of ContemporaryArchitecture,he vided on the role that nationalistand rural
had written that "the building must serve forms should play in the new architecture.
life,"thatit mustfullyanddirectlyanswerto Ivan Matsa,for example,spoke of the folk
the intendedgoalsfor its use.20 beginningsof architecture and the attributes
For Mozei Ginzburg, however, the of folk architectureas a meansof opposing
user'slife unambiguouslybecamethesource class-basedtendencies(presumably referring
for the new environment. Everyarchitec- to bourgeois-derived architecture).23Another
turalformwould be the solution to a prob- writer,who callednineteenth-century eclec-
lem in which a scheme of daily life ticisma formof theatricalstagedesignin ar-
movement, from ordinary to unusual, chitecture,believedthatan emphasison mass
would be graphicallydeveloped and ana- and space could be found in both peasant
lyzedto determineits environmentalneeds: wood architectureand contemporaryarchi-
"Acalculationof the movementsof the mis- tecture(Figures3 and4). This commonality
tress of the house from table to oven or of would unite folk formswith the new archi-
the dinnerfromkitchento dining room, or tecture,whichin turnwouldbe a "stageset"
the move from bedroom to bathroom, in for the Russianlife in whichthe peasantand
the eyes of the new architectis exposed to the workerwereunited.24
such a clearaccountingand also directsthe In the constructivistconceptualization
work of design formulationas do the silos of architectural formas an expressionof the
and machines in a mill."21Ultimately, he movementof life processes,architecture be-
hypothesized, this would create a new archi- came virtually anothertheater. The beliefthat
tecturalorganismbecauseit would be based movementin spaceshouldbe reflectedin the
on a new life. In termsof architecture,then, building's form contributed to the
one meaningof the engagedspectatorwas constructivistsenseof architectureas a uto-
someonewho would first engagein chang- pian and utilitarianfantasy.Whereasthe ra-
ing daily life and then commit to these tionalistarchitectNikolaiLadovskii described
as
changes they were manifested in architec- architecture as the creationof spatial"won-
ture. The complexity of the model of en- ders"comprisingmovement, the intellect,
November1998 JAE52/2 1 12
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and sculptural form, Ivan Golosov called on
architectsto use rhythm as a metaphor for the
life processes incorporated within a build-
ing.25 Golosov spoke of "the rhythm of
masses"as the new startingpoint for architec-
tural design; for Ginzburg, movement was
not an aesthetic metaphor. Promoting the
graphic analysis of daily life movement as a
basis for the conceptualization of a structure
suggests an immediate parallelto a director's
analysis of the interaction between biome-
chanical acting patterns and a kinetic stage
set-one that finds visual confirmation
through the examination of directors'scripts.
Finally, movement also supplied the basis for
a psychological narrative,as contemporaryar-
chitects advocated a more grandiose under-
standing of spatial experience connected with
modern forms of travel,high technology, and
high-speed forms that produced a psychologi-
cal effect. As a result, architecture had to
strive to be "the expression of the new under-
standing of space."26To the extent that these
conceptualizations of movement negotiated
the plan and facadeof the building, the move-
ment of life became a theatricaland "master"
narrativefor constructivist architecture.
Movement as a metaphor for process,
transformation, and life and movement as a
kinetic and conceptual reality may have
been more fundamental to constructivism
than materials and efficacy, the more typi-
cal characteristics of postrevolution think-
ing about art. Movement and stasis,
whether psychological or functional, ex-
pressed a fundamental dialectic in
constructivist architecture-that between
freedom and nonfreedom.27 Nonfreedom
derived from technical constraints on the
ability to erect masses in space, while free-
dom informed the organization of space on
the basis of use, aesthetics, and ideological
decisions. The synthesis of freedom and
nonfreedom brought architecture close to
the spirit of mathematics. The idea of free-
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dom in architecture was furthered by the
constructivist definition of architecture as
an act of will, of remaking the world.
In a recent analysis of this dialectic in
constructivist architecture, Natal'ia Eneeva
looks to logic for an explanation. She finds it
in the rejectionof Aristotelianlogic, a logic of
categorizing the real and known world, and
its replacement by Ernst Cassirer's"project"
logic, or a logic of producing the unknown
from discovered principles. Eneeva sees this
change as the result of a new relationship to
nature, in which the world became a crude
monster, too terrifying to gaze on. In the at-
tempt to escape from the known and
unhomely world, the process of thought, the
equation, rather than the solution, consti-
tuted the aesthetic, an aesthetic and concep-
tual inversion that was ideologically and 3. Ruralwoodarchitecture
fromKizhi.(FromKizhi:Pamiatniki
DrevnerusskogoZodchestva[Leningrad/Moscow,1965] p. 43.)
concretely manifested in constructivist archi-
tecture. This inversion radicallytransformed
architecture, redefining it as a two-dimen-
sional or graphic function and as a perpetual
motion machine.28Circulation, centripality,
transparency,and machinism became the new
values of an architecturethat metaphorically
participated in an almost medieval narrative
of the contest between dragon and man, with
the dragon taking the form of the bourgeois
world and man taking the form of the new
communist world. This medieval narrative
received a futurist expression in Vladimir
Maiakovskii's play Mystery-Bouffewith its
battle between the "clean"and the "unclean."
The 1920 set for this play is regardedby some
critics as an antecedent of constructiviststage
sets. Although I dispute this claim, I recognize
the medieval-futuristnarrativeas an anteced-
ent of constructivist narratives.
The involvement of architects in the
theater, the conceptualization of architec-
ture as a synthesis of reason, fantasy, and
movement, and the expectation of an en- 4. Melnikov's clubin Moscow(1927-28).
Burevestnik
Photographbythe author,1993. Comparespace andmassing
gaged spectator presented a conflation of northernwoodarchitectureinFigure3
in the eighteenth-century,
architecture and theater and confirmed the andthisexampleof architecture of the twenties.
113 Barris
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
reciprocityof narratives.Fromthe perspec-
tive of narrative,one of the strongest ties
betweenconstructiviststagedesign and ar-
chitecturelay in a transformationor trans-
lation of the imageof the perpetualmotion
machineor the turbine,dynamo,and social
condenser, spewing forth new ideas and
new people to change the world. Art, as a
dynamo,would energizethe person,inten-
sify the individual'sexperienceof realityand
emotions,and ultimatelyinducea desirefor
change.Translatedinto the languageof car-
nival, the narrativeof the human turbine/
social condenser became a narrativeof a
magical machine capable of transforming
the old culture, the old world, and "old"
people,into new and revolutionaryagitators
and realities.This, then, was a narrativeof
5. Photograph froma performanceof the originalproductionof TheMagnanimous
Cuckold.
magic, the uncanny,westernisms,and the TheaterMuseumcollectionof photographs.)
(Courtesyof the Bakhrushin
expectation of a theatrical encounter be-
tween the individualand the social world.
As admirableas thesegoalswere,magicsug- lationshipof stage set to play, the creation pretation of the set as a machine and the
gests irrational,unpredictable,and uncon- of a theatricallyengagedspectator,and the embodimentof ideas about the role of the
trollable change, a type of change that graphic and conceptual inversions of machineand industryin societyignoredthe
subvertedthe state'simageof a new human constructivistarchitecture.Upon entering set'sevocationsof ruraland primitivearchi-
beingwho participatedin,without shaping, the theater,contemporaryobserversfaceda tecturalforms along with its allusionsto a
the mythsof the emergingnew socialorder. skeletal,abstractset with covert references poster for a play performed at a popular
Thus, while superficiallya narrativeof the to ruraland folk architectureand theater, pantomime theater in the 1870s (Figure
new human being and the new order, containing only those elements directly 6).30WherePopova'sconstructionconsisted
constructivistnarrativesof theater,turbines, needed for the action-window frames, of a rampand stairsleadingup to a multi-
and carnivalswere narrativesthat made the stairs,doors,and turningwheelsthat punc- level horizontal platform representing a
activetransformationof peopleand life into tuated the dialogueand gesturesof the ac- barnlikestructureembracedby threewheels
a teleological,process-drivenspectaclewith tors (Figure 5). This set was not a passive of varyingsizes, the poster for the panto-
an unpredictableoutcome. object of contemplation, as the painted mime similarlydepicteda staircaseleading
backdropsof the pasthad been. Coming to to a higherhorizontalsurfacewith threein-
Visualizing theNarratives life as a "machinefor the actor'splaying," terlockingwheelsand pistonson the oppo-
The paradigmaticconstructiviststage set, this machinedid more than determineand site side. The pistons led to a central
Velikodushnyi (TheMagnanimous
Rogonosets respondto the actors'increasinglydynamic structurethat consistedprimarilyof a large
Cuckold-designer: Liubov' Popova; pro- actions; for Boris Arvatov, it conjured up basininto which old ladieswere being sub-
ducer:VsevolodMeierkhol'd;1922-3), was the industrialera and its "healthyrelation- merged. They would then walk out as
the first complete and incontestablevisual ships"of machinesand industryto things, young girls througha doorwayon the bot-
statement of the narrativeof the magical people, and materials.29 tom floor. The title of the pantomimewas
machinein all its complexity.Settingdirec- Althougha few writerseventuallydid TheMagicMill that TurnsOld Womeninto
tions for subsequent stage design, the set referto the balaganor the fairlikecharacter- Young.AlthoughPopovawasthe recognized
and productionembodiedthe theatricalre- isticsof the production,the prevailinginter- designerof the set, given Meierkhol'd'sex-

November1998 JAE52/2 1 14

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6. Posterfromthe balaganpantomimeplayTheMagicMillThatTurnsOldWomenintoYoung.
(Reproduced inAlekseev-lakovlev,
tensive interest in carnival and fairground
theaters, as well as his personal collection of
newspaper clippings for an intended but
never written history of the Russian carnival
theater, the resemblance of Popova's design
to this poster is not fortuitous.31However, if
Popova's set was indeed connected to this
image and to folk theater, then its meaning
both included and exceeded the machine-
technology narrative.
As an assemblage of the traditional
and recognizable parts of a mill in an allu-
sive but innovative form, the set was both a
reincarnation of the magic mill and its
product. More than an abstracted illustra-
tion of the play's locale, Popova's set trans-
formed the nineteenth-century play into a
new play, becoming a social condenser/
magic mill for the transformation not
merely of old people but also of an old soci-
ety. In this light, the union of a bourgeois
farce with a revolutionary staging became an
allegory for the replacement of the passive
bourgeois spectator with the actively en-
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RusskieNarodnyeGulian'ia 1948].)
[Leningrad/Moscow,
gaged Communist. This allegory was in
turnsubsumedwithin the moreencompass-
ing parableof the transformation of culture,
a parablethatsome believedwould not have
been possiblewith a more realistartbut re-
quired instead a folkloric fantasy deliber-
ately derived from the balagan-and the
fantasy in this case may have been an at-
tempted equationof enchantedmills with
VladimirLenin'sgoal of the electrification
of the countryside.32
A stageset that evokedan enchanted
mill and became a magical transforming
machine/metaphorfor the creationof new
ideasfromold directlycontradictedthe tex-
tual developmentsof this playin which the
charactersdefeat themselvesby not chang-
ing. A banalstoryaboutlove and the possi-
bility of adultery, the central plot line
concerns the creation of "reality." The
miller, believingin a betrayalthat did not
actually occur, tries to entrap his wife by
creatinga situationthat ensuresthat it will
takeplace-in essence,he engineershis own
I 15 Barris
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betrayal. However, the polarization of the
narrativesof the play and of the stage set was
a metanarrative about the ability of visual
art creations to function independently as
thought-inducing dynamos. By choosing
this play, in fact, Meierkhol'd may have de-
liberately been referring to eighteenth-cen-
tury French fairground culture and comic
plays that were performed with nonsense
syllables and gestures; by then making the
stage set and the actors' movements carry
the real plot, he strengthened that connec-
tion. In effect, he asked the audience to re-
spond to the nonverbal part of the play as
though that was what mattered-to ignore
a text that was considered crude and
nonrevolutionary but not to ignore the
"meaning" of the performance. Some critics
approximated an interpretation of this sort:
They rejected the play and praised the set,
comparing the production to a rehearsal,
which, they claimed, was more important
than a finished product because a rehearsal
suggested the idea of planning and con-
structing. The play, they said, was a bomb
thrown at the old theater, but the set
"trained" the actor, operating indepen-
dently of the play's content and making it
into an agitational spectacle.33
Not only did the set "train"the actor;
Meierkhol'd intended to train the audience.
His goal for the production and the stage
machinery was the provision of a schematic
construction that would later serve workers
as a model for their own efforts and lay the
foundation for a new theater. Meierkhol'd
emphasized this in a letter to the editors of
Izvestiia in 1922 and in a substantially simi-
lar text written a few years later.34In both,
he expressed his goal of using the staging to
provide a basis for a new technology of act-
ing to take place in a new scenic environ-
ment, one without wings and portals
framing the stage. This environment had to
reveal the lines of construction in an ex-
 tremely schematized manner. Although
Meierkhol'd was not speaking about archi-
tecture, his statement illuminates the
graphic inversion of architecture associated
with the stasis-movement dialectic and the
adoption of the project logic system of
Cassirer. This was not lost on at least one
reviewer, who saw in this production the
outline of the movable theaters of the fu-
ture: theaters that would travel and in which
everything inside would be in a state of con-
tinual movement." This positive appraisal
and the ones noted earlier were not uni-
formly shared, however. To the extent that
the production modeled a theatrical para-
digm of conflicts between form and mean-
ing, the play polarized critics, some of
whom denounced Popova's set as a machine
unconnected to the theatrical action and as
an attempt to murder the theater. Others
went on to liken the production to an in-
comprehensible balagan.36
The set and production became a
constructivist paradigm because of the eli-
sion of graphic, conceptual, and kinetic
forms of dynamism, all of which called for
a theatrically engaged spectator. The visu-
ally suggestive set asked for the spectator's
mental participation to fill in the blanks of
the set in order to visualize it as a complete
scenic locale. That this visual participation
7. and8. LiubovPopova'sworkingdrawings(1921-22) forthe was intentional is reinforced by
set of TheMagnanimous Cuckold,showingevolutionfroma
descriptiveset to one thatis more
morearchitecturally Meierkhol'd's statements and is revealed by
schematic.(Theoriginaldrawingsare inthe Tret'iakovMuseum the evolution of Popova's design, which
fondof drawings.)
moved from a more architecturally dense
and complete design to the final, more skel-
etal version (Figures 7 and 8), a path that
was essentially replicated one year later by
Victor Shestakov for Meierkhol'd's produc-
tion of Ozero Liul' (Lake Liul 1923-24)
(Figures 9 and 10). Kinetic dynamism was
manifested in the actors' patterns of move-
ment, which occurred vertically and hori-
zontally and in real and projected space, as
well as in the set's movement, while a more
November1998 JAE52/2 1 16
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ideological form of kinetic dynamism was
implicit in the expectation that viewers
would become the actors of their own pro-
ductions. Conceptual dynamism was
present in another way. Hinted at in The
Magnanimous Cuckoldbut more fully actu-
alized in productions such as Lake Liul'or
(TheMan
Chelovek,Kotoryibyl Chetvergom
Who Was Thursday-producer: Aleksandr
Tairov; designer: Aleksandr Vesnin; 1923-
24), a critical conceptual dynamic of this
group was the allegorization of the Russian
idea of a peasant-worker union (smychka).
These later productions, often com-
pared with one another, concerned anarchy
andsubterfuge.TheMan WhoWasThursday,
based on a Russian translation of the G.K.
Chesterton novel, was a complex story in
which a band of anarchists, named for the
days of the week, is infiltrated by police,
themselves disguised as anarchists.37In the
Russian version, Thursday, the character
most definitively known to be an anarchist,
brings order following an uprising staged by
the masqueradingdetectives. Metaphorically,
the messageof the play seemed to be that dis-
order was either the prelude to order or even
a new form of order, a message dynamically
expressedin the stage set. Infiltratingand vir-
tually subsuming the entire stage, the set be-
came a mechanical container, almost a
theater in itself. The multilevel structure, the
compartmentalized areas for acting, the
ramp, and moving lifts, and the cinematically
influenced staging all compounded initial
expectations of disorder. However, as more
than one writer observed, the movement of
actors and set seemed to follow a mathemati-
cal plan that restricted and almost mecha-
nized the movement. Vesnin confirmed his
intention of doing this in his autobiographi-
cal writing; it receives visual confirmation
from his working drawings.38
LakeLiul'painted a pictureof a capital-
ist bacchanaliain an atmosphereof crime and
 a comparablesequenceof developmentto thatin Popova'ssketches.
9. and 10. VictorShestakov'searlyandfinalsketchesforthe set of LakeLiul',demonstrating
(Fromthe Shestakovfondof the RussianArchivesof LiteratureandArt.)

competitionovermoney,power,andlove.At
the heartof the dramalies a conflictbetween
two millionaires,a fatherandson, with addi-
tional intriguecreatedby the entranceof a
third person, an adventurereventuallyre-
vealedto be a formerrevolutionary. Intended
as a negativecharacter,he evokedthe ideaof
a personwho couldcompetesuccessfully with
the private entrepreneursassociatedwith
Lenin'sNew EconomicPlan(NEP).The au-
dienceembracedthis entrepreneurial revolu-
tionary;the criticsdid not, althoughin some
cases,they blamedthe ideologicalfailureof
the playon the staging."The set did, in fact,
generatean ambivalentresponse-it wasdu-
alistic, and dynamically and visually un-
stable.Lessmechanizedandlessarchitectural
than Vesnin'sset, Shestakov'sset suggested
scaffoldingforan unfinishedbuildingandthe
frameworkfor an outdoor theater (Figure froma performance
11. Photograph of LakeLiul'.(Courtesyof the
of the originalproduction
TheatreMuseumcollectionof photographs.)
Bakhrushin
11). Yetto a greaterextentthanVesnin'sset,
it appearedto concretizethe locale of the
play, causingsome observersto consignthe
set to the realmof more traditionaldecora-
tion. Still other reviewerspraised(or con-
demned)the productionasan "Americanized
urban"spectacle.40

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12. Watercolor sketchof the set forA Windowon the Country.
Farmandfairequipmentwas wheeledontothe stage through
the open, slopingareainthe frontcenter.(Fromthe Shestakov
fondat RGALI.)
Vialov'ssketchof a modelfor a playwitha
13. Konstantin
or heroictheme.(Reproduced
revolutionary in Ekho1923; a
copywas inthe Shestakovfondat RGALI.)
In both Thursdayand Lake Liul'a cin-
ema-montage effect, facilitated by lighting
and the movement of characters,lifts, doors,
electronic signs and shadows, and an archi-
tectural, machine-influenced assemblage
united the urban entertainment of (Ameri-
can) slapstick chase movies with the primi-
tivist architectural forms suggestive of
(Russian) demountable, carnivalistic struc-
tures. The message of such a union was the
idea of the "urbancarnival"-a union of ru-
ral and urban, festival and technological
forms, a visual and social smychka of the
peasant and the worker, but here united in
terms of Russian and American, or native
and western, culture. Smychka did not yet
exist, and in the terms of these productions,
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
it was not clearly desirable. It was primarily
in this sense that these two productions
called for an engaged spectator with engage-
ment revolving around the issue, context,
and form of smychka. These productions
were somewhat unique in that the sets shared
a generally reflective relationship with the
plays, but nevertheless contributed to the
creation of a theatrically engaged spectator.
In a still later play such as Okno v
derevniu (A Window on the Country--
Shestakov; 1927), Meierkhol'd interpolated
filmed sequences of an ideal future with a
stage that evoked the present and past. In
this "diorama" of the future, the "moving
picture" was a montage of the play and film.
The spectator had to reconcile the contrast-
ing parts of this image with one another and
with reality. Not everyone could. The pre-
cedent for this disjunction, once again, was
TheMagnanimous Cuckold,just as it was the
precedent for the next move, taken by this
production, in the evolution of the stage
construction as an encompassing theater
(Figure 12).
According to Meierkhol'd, Window,
written by a collective of authors, concerned
the "influence of the proletarian revolution
on the peasantry."The text and production
might accurately be described as a unity of
disunity, by which I refer to the overall
montaged and episodic construction: of
filmed and theatrical images, of slogans and
songs, of fairgroundamusements taken from
peasant carnivals and imported onto the
stage, of past and future.41The stage forma-
tion itself was a montage of visual refer-
ences-to a round circus, to the carnival's
parabolic wood slides, to the cinema, and to
another artist's model of a stage set for a
"revolutionary" or "heroic" play (Figure
13).42 This stage construction developed
Meierkhol'd's personal interest in a round
stage and in a complete reconceptualization
of the nature and form of theater. In a con-
November1998 JAE52/2 1 18
versation with El Lisitskii about the demands
for a new theater, Meierkhol'd expressed his
belief that the new theater should contain a
unified stage and hall space and that it should
facilitate an axonometric perception of action
as well as the perception of action in vertical
and horizontal planes. It should provide a va-
riety of playing areas, and it should be acces-
sible to people and machines-machines,
that, in fact, had created this new theater and
the new art of the theater.43Machine and car-
nival were quite literally combined in Win-
dow, a production that came closer than The
Magnanimous Cuckold to realizing the en-
compassing theater/construction. In nascent
form here, projected more fully in El
Lisitskii'smodel for Meierkhol'd's unrealized
production of KhochuRebenka(I Wanta
Child) (Figure 14), a play intended as a philo-
sophical debate, this encompassing theater
truly inverted architecture as it centralized
debate and the production of a questioning
spectator.
What these and other plays and pro-
ductions shared was the "masked" presence
of a new order, at times masked to the point
of parading as disorder and destruction. The
use of textual and visual strategies of confu-
sion and transformationand of evocations of
the peasant-worker smychka caused these
plays to transcend the narrativeof the carni-
val and the magic mill, to achieve complex-
ity and multiplicity-the multiplicity of
social themes, artistic order, and interpretive
possibilities. In this they virtually existed as
carnival and offered the viewer ambiguous
and competing patterns of meaning. The
"theatricallyengaged spectator"was the only
possible outcome, as it was in Konstantin
Mel'nikov's workers' clubs, the setting that
actualized the encompassing theater.
Almost from its inception, the work-
ers' club as an institution suffered from an
ambiguous model that envisioned the ac-
tively involved worker taking responsibility

unrealizedproduction
modelfor Meierkhol'd's
14. ElLisitskii's
in Lazar'Markovich
I Wanta Child(1929). (Reproduced
1890-1941, Gosudarstvennnaia Tretiakovskaia
Galereia,
Moscow,1929.)
for restructuringlife accordingto the new
socialist program.44Theater in the early
clubswas a centraland popularactivity,one
thatwasoften autonomousandworker-pro-
duced,ratherthanprofessional.45 Advocates
of autonomoustheatercalledfor the use of
sketch-like,vaudevilleforms, derivedfrom
the circusand Meierkhol'd'sbiomechanical
and grotesque model of theater.46There-
fore,with the emergenceof workers'clubs,
whathadbeen narrativereciprocitybetween
theater and architecture became reality:
Many of the early clubs were little more
thanworkers'theaters.Club activists,how-
ever,soon rejectedthe club as a literalthe-
ater. Professional theaters, argued
Kholostenko,had been sovietized,and club
theaterswere no longer necessary.In their
place, activists promoted a model of the
clubthatcloselyduplicatedthe modelof the
theateras a laboratoryfor life: "Our clubs
should become schools for the production
and reconstructionof daily life, studios of
the fabricationof humanmaterial."''47How-
ever,the club as school,laboratory,and fac-
tory was an architecturalprescriptionfor a
club without a theaterand for a club type
thatwould reflectthe formsand demandsof
the new life. Whereasthis initially placed
multiple and competing demandson club
interiorspace, the goal was a standardized
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of
15. Rusakovclub,Moscow,designedby Mel'nikov, by the author,1993.
1927-28. Photograph
Lisitskii,
solution to space, to clubs, and (presum- architecturalformswas labeleda failurein
ably)to life.41 the expressionof a working-classideology.
According to N. Lukhmanov, Mel'nikov had defied the searchfor
Mel'nikov'sclubswith mechanicalwall sys- standardized solutionsby prioritizinghetero-
tems, a solutionthattreatedinteriorspaceas geneityandprocess.Movingwalls,a worker-
kineticanddynamic,unitedtechnology,sci- producedtheaterof the grotesque,andin the
ence,andartto createa prototypicalsolution caseof the Rusakovclub (1928) (Figure15),
for the needsof the new club architecture.49 thevisualevocationof a well-knownMoscow
However,allowingforthe possibilityof con- balagantheater:Mel'nikov's"solution"to the
tinuedspacefor a club theatersuggestedthe club was none other than a balaganized
possibilityof inappropriate use of the club's magicmachinethat transformedspaceinto
space;this, in turn,was perceivedas a state- alternatingsettingsforpolitical,educational,
ment that contradictedthe ideologicallyde- and culturalactivities.Yet it was both more
sirable role of clubs. Unequal space and less than that. It was a buildingas ma-
allocation-wasalso believedto detractfrom chine (one criticismleveled at Mel'nikov's
the exteriorform of the club, resultingin a clubs),and it was the firsttrueembodiment
building that was an aggregate of parts, of Meierkhol'd's encompassing theatricalma-
ratherthan a monolithic and monumental chine-but as a buildingin whichsocialand
unity,qualitiesbelievedto be essentialto the politicallife, not theatricalmontages,was to
communicationof the natureand function be staged.
of the clubs;further,a club that reflectedan Another objection to Mel'nikov's
aggregatedor individualizeduseof spacewas clubs existed. Mel'nikov's solution to the
a club that did not conformto standardized problemof changingclub functionsshared
models.Signsof increasingindividualization a common and theatrical premise with
in Soviet society in the late twenties were Ginzburg'sproposalsfor the designof com-
opposedby a renewedemphasison the col- munal housing: architectureas a stage set
lective and the collectivehero, especiallyin for the performanceof daily life. As indi-
The collective cated previously, an implicit demand on
the beginningof the thirties.50
thrustaffectedarchitectureas a callfor stan- this conceptualizationof architecturewas
dardizedsolutions.Thus, the attemptto cre- that the ordinarydailylife movementsthat
ate buildings that were not just stenciled governed the architecturaldesign would
1 19 Barris
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correspond to a newly envisioned order of
daily life. Here I want to suggest an analogy
between the spectator as future actor and
the architect, with the architect as a surro-
gate for the club/building's future users.
Whereas the actor dynamically engaged the
machine for acting, role-modeling (in
Meierkhol'd's eyes) a spectator/actor of the
future, the architect engaged the
unallocated space of the future building,
role-modeling decisions about space to be
made by future occupants. Mel'nikov's
clubs, a product of this engaged interaction,
would continue to allow for engaged inter-
actions. In his creation of a mechanized en-
vironment open to perpetual change by new
users, Mel'nikov's architecture became an-
other manifestation of the magic mill and
the theatrically engaged spectator.
The Receptionof Constructivist
Architectureand Stage Design
The narratives and metaphors of construc-
tivism-the magic machine/social condenser,
the urban carnival, the active reconstruction
of society-were inherently connected to re-
ception, or the effect produced on an envi-
ronment of users or an audience. The
language of constructivism, in all its forms,
was a language that would reconceptualize
the present and the known world and inspire
further reconceptualization in the minds of
spectators. To this end, it was a language
dominated by strategies of transformation,
destabilization, and the amalgamation of the
real world and a fantasy world, creating a
liminal or ambiguous zone of existence be-
tween art and life. The constructivistsderived
their strategiesand devices from a multiplic-
ity of sources: the fairground and carnival,
people's theaters, other spectacle art forms
such as the circus and the cabaret, cinema,
avant-garde art, revolutionary mass celebra-
November1998 JAE52/2
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16. PlansubmittedbyVOPRAforthe Palaceof SovietsCompetition,
movementof masses throughthe palaceandthe square.(Reproducedin SovetskaiaArkhitektura
[19311:51.)
tions, the world of technology. On a meta-
artistic level, the formation of the language
was itself a paradigm for constructivism; on
an embodied level in stage sets and architec-
ture, one of the driving narrativeswas a nar-
rative of the union of seemingly diametric
opposites-magic and technology; a folk, ru-
ral culture and a new urban culture; conceal-
ment and revelation-above all, a narrative
of process as opposed to stability, stasis, and
monumentality.
These "unharmonious eccentricities"
were recognized-and rejected, either
through statements about what socialist art
should be or through the negative appraisal
of what it should not be." In the first cat-
egory, we find a statement that, paradoxi-
cally, invoked an architectural metaphor,
calling for a theater that would be the dra-
matic equivalent of a skyscraper, as the fit
expression of the ideas of socialism.52Criti-
cism of the second type took several forms,
from rejecting the artist for having the
wrong background to a more astute recog-
nition of the way these productions denied
unitary interpretations. Such criticism ac-
cused Meierkhol'd, for example, of creating
depraved humans, on the one hand, and
mechanized humans, on the other, thereby
forcing spectators to determine for them-
selves the definition of a human being. This
was nihilism, declared R. Pel'she, and "es-
thetics upside-down, which understands
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nEPCiERTMBA 51
showingthe choreographed
4
neither the ideology nor the esthetics of the
proletariat."" If we are inclined to link this
criticism to the biomechanical acting style,
we must nevertheless recognize two factors.
First, for Meierkhol'd, biomechanics and
constructivist stage sets were inherently con-
nected, such that the set fluctuated between
determining the actors' movements and be-
ing controlled by actors. The human actors
eventually "mastered"the mechanical actor,
as one writer observed, but the confusion
between the two was more apparent to
other observers."54Second, a similar criticism
was levied against the stage sets: The sets did
not provide clues to the locale of the play or
to the ideas in the text, and when they
seemed to do so, they were erroneous or
misleading.55Pel'she acerbically identified a
gap between the forms of a production and
its content, a gap that was so great that re-
alism and fantasy appeared to be capri-
ciously united. Given the goals and
strategies of constructivism, he was un-
doubtedly correct, although not in his attri-
bution of capriciousness. To Pel'she, the
result of this "capricious union" was the ab-
sence of meaning, an accusation not far re-
moved from that of another critic who
claimed that the left saw no difference in
media: Everything from a street to a balagan
became the same-the creation of theater,
culture, and life, without hierarchies or
boundaries.56 If the balaganization of the
theater was believed to rob it of its Without reviewingthe projectssubmitted yieldedto the monumentalandfrozenstasis
agitational mission and revolutionary pa- for this competition,theirreceptionand fi- of ritual,of the sculpturalfrieze,and of the
thos, as some critics believed, then a loss of nal formsilluminatethe architectural order paintedflat-theatrical "skyscrapers" ineffa-
boundaries would rob life itself of revolu- of the thirtiesand the emergingnarrativeof bly linked to place, time, and a prescribed
tionary pathos, prevent the communication the mathematicaland the sensualunited in moral.Architecturebecamethe expression
of profound meaning, or communicate the a metaphorof orderand perfection:a nar- of unifiedandfinalizedrevolutionary truths.
wrong meaning-and this was the underly- rativeof imperialcultic rituals.Thus, these The narrativeof transformation,conveyed
ing fear of the void.57 However, the com- future palaceswere conceptualizednot as throughparablesand metaphorsof folk ma-
parison to a balaganwas made in some cases unitarybuildings,but as sequencesof uni- chines, magic, dynamosof perpetualmo-
for almost precisely the opposite reason, fied spacesfor the display of mass actions tion, and a noncategorizinglogic, expressed
claiming that in the revolutionary theater, and physicalculture,with the elementsof in a visual languageof metamorphosisand
the unification of the heroic and the balagan the demonstrationincorporatedinto the ar- process-in short,life as theaterand carni-
compelled the spectator to feel and relive chitecturaland artisticformulation.Forex- val-was inherently too unstable for a
the agitations of the surrounding revolu- ample,the plan submittedby VOPRA (the postrevolutionary societyseekinga convinc-
If viewers wanted to believe in All-UnionAssociationof Proletarian
tionary life."58 Archi- ing narrative-image of resolution.
a decisive and generalizable solution to agi- tects) called for the infusion of thematic
tating experiences, the evocation of the content into the palaceand square(Figure
balagan was something to reject. 16). This content, the expression of the Acknowledgments
The response, manifested through greatness of the country, would be rein-
criticism, competitions, and exhibitions, forcedby planned,live action. But, warned This paper develops researchand writing
was precisely that-a rejection of the VOPRA,althoughthe union of columnsof completed for my dissertationwhich was
balagan in art and life, a rejection of the demonstrators with the congresswould cre- supportedby an IREXgrantfor researchin
magic machine, and a rejection of the the- ate a grandspectacle,the use of the square Russia,a Social SciencesResearchCouncil
atrically engaged spectator." Whereas the for demonstrations and meetingswould not dissertation grant, and the Samuel Kress
"theatrical" relationship could have been have the characterof an outdoor theateror predoctoralfellowshipfrom the Centerfor
seen as leading to an engaged spectator who carnival.It would be characterizedby the Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. I
changes himself and society, a goal that pre- "creationof a visualandpsychologicalunity would like to thankreviewersfor their edi-
sumably corresponded to that of the state, of the whole congress."Other entriesalso torialcommentsand questions,and in par-
the state rejected this model-in theater, ar- included programdescriptionsconcerning ticular, I want to acknowledge Edward
chitecture, and life. Prior to the actual speci- the waysin which the spacewas to be used Wolner for his help in preparinga shorter
fication of content, in theater the for massdemonstrations.The senseoverall versionof this essayfor presentationat the
implementation of question-and-answer is that theseactionswerebeingplannedfor, 1998 conferenceof the SocietyforArchitec-
periods after performances, the call for ac- and in such a way that spontaneousaction, turalHistorians.I hope I havesucceededin
companying librettos to explain the play's outside of the plans,would not exist.60The- recycling his perspicacious commentary
meaning, and audience surveys to deter- ater? Perhaps,but theatrical?No longer. back into this manuscript. Translations
mine the success of these goals attested to As the spectacle became choreo- from the Russianaremy own.
the government's increasing assertion of graphedinto this prescribedpsychological
choreographed and scripted responses in all and visualunity of congressesand demon-
domains of life. In architecture, the most strators, of workers and architectureand Notes
convincing demonstration of this develop- sculpture expressing the monumental
ment was the Palace of Soviets competition. achievementsof the country'sconstruction, I havefollowedthe Libraryof Congresstrans-
literationsystemfor Russiantitles and names. I have
The Palace of Soviets Competition of the successof the five-yearplan and the
also adhered to the tendency not to include the
explicitly overturned the constructivist nar- technologicalandsocialgrowthof socialism, publisher'sname for Russiansources,a tendencythat
rative of transformation and imperma- the metamorphosisand impermanenceof presumablyreflectsthe fact that publishingwasa state
nence-the narrative of the carnival. the carnivaland the magicalfolk machines enterprise.Generally,most books on Russianart have

121 Barris

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the imprintof SovetskiiKhudozhnikor Iskusstvo,and
technicaland architecturalbooks have that of Nauki.
Some publishers'namesarethe name of the city with
the word for publishertruncatedand attachedto the
city name. Unless otherwisenoted, all fonds (collec-
tions) referredto in these notes arein the RussianAr-
chivesof Literatureand Art-RGALI).
1. Elena Rakatina, "Novye Printsippy
StsenicheskogoOformleniiav SovetskoiTeatral'noi
Dekoratsii20kh Godov"(Ph.D. diss., Moscow Insti-
tute of the History of Art, 1970). An exception is
ChristinaLodder,"ConstructivistTheatreas a Labo-
ratory for an ArchitecturalAesthetic,"Architectural
AssociationQuarterly11/2 (1979): 24-35.
2. For an exampleof this approach,see Chris-
tina Kiaer,"Rodchenkoin Paris,"October75 (winter
1996): 3-35.
3. Lunacharskiicalledfor the creationof a po-
liticallyusefulstageto be built on the basisof interac-
tion with the progressiveelementsof past traditions,
including the gulian'e,while Vladimir Lenin recog-
nized the gulian'eas a fertilesourcefor the appearance
of independent,artisticactivitiesof the people. See,
for example, Evgenii Mikhailovich Kuznetsov, Iz
ProshlogoRusskogo Estrady(Moscow, 1958), pp. 354-
55; and Lunacharskii,"O NarodnykhPrazdnestvakh,"
Stat'i o Teatre i Dramaturgi (Moscow/Leningrad,
1938), pp. 166-69.
4. The carnivalas "worldupsidedown"is gen-
erally associatedwith Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelaisand
His World,trans.Helen Isowlsky(Bloomington:Uni-
versityof IndianaPress, 1984). See also Peter Burke,
PopularCulturein EarlyModernEurope(New York:
Harperand Row, 1978).
5. G. Kryzhitskii,FilosofskiiBalagan(Peters-
burg, 1922). The authorwasan associateof FEKS,the
"factoryof eccentricactors."
6. Vsevolod Meierkhol'd, "The Naturalistic
Theaterand the Theaterof Mood," trans. E. Braun,
Meyerholdon Theatre(New York: Hill and Wang,
1969), pp. 23-34.
7. Nikolai Evreinov,"Teatralizatsiia Zhizni,"
Teatrkak Takovoi(1912); Nikolai Evreinov,TheThe-
atre in Life, ed. and trans. A.I. Nazaroff (London:
GeorgeG. Harrup,1927).
8. In "The ConstructivistEngagedSpectator:
A Politicsof Reception,"DesignIssues(forthcoming),
I tracethe evolutionand manifestationsof this model
of the engaged spectatorfrom baroqueVersaillesto
the late twentiethcentury.
9. V. Berezkin, Sovetskaia Stsenographiia,
1917-1941 (Moscow, 1990).
10. One example,but not the only, is in the
writing of Vladimir Mass and his assertionthat the
November1998 JAE52/2
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Left had been "groundlessly accused" of being "for
form" and against content. The only content they op-
posed, he said, was the old content. See his "O
Formalizme Levykh," Zrelishcha 28 (1923): 4.
11. James Elkins, "On the Impossibility of Sto-
ries: The Anti-Narrative and Non-Narrative Impulse
in Modern Painting," Wordand Image 7/4 (Oct.-Nov.
1991): 348-64; and Hayden White, The Content ofthe
Form (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1987). Other writers assert the presence of narratives in
nonrepresentational art. See, for example, David
Anfam, "Interrupted Stories: Reflections on Abstract
Expressionism and Narrative," in American Abstract
Expressionism, ed. D. Thistlewood (Liverpool:
Liverpool University Press, 1993), pp. 21-39. The ex-
tensive literature on reception theory is also relevant.
12. N. Tugendkhol'd, "Sovremennaia
Zhivopis' i Teatr," Kul'tura Teatra 1-2 (1922): 31.
13. In this respect, see, for example, G.
Iakulov, "Stenogramma disputa o zadachakh
sovremennogo teatra," Meierkhol'd State Theater
Fond, 963-1-15, Jan. 1920; and Pavlov, "Deviat' let
Sovetskogo Teatr," Novyi Zritel'(1926), included in a
collection in the Meierkhol'd State Theater
(GOSTiM) fond, 963-1-1196.
14. Boris Arvatov, "Teatr i Byt," Zrelishcha 55
(1923): 6; and B. Arvatov, "Ot Rezhissury Teatra k
Montazhu Byta," Ermitazh 11 (1922): 3.
15. I. Berezark, "Veshch' na Stsene," Novyi
Zritel'32-33 (1929): 10.
16. N. Chuzhak, "Iskusstvo v Nashi Dni,"
Zhizn'Iskusstva25 (1925): 5.
17. Vladimir Dmitriev, exposition notes for
Zori, 1918, in the Meierkhol'd fond, 998-1-2878; and
Sergei Tret'iakov, "Iskusstvo v Revoliutsii i 30. The poster is shown as an unpaginated il-
Revoliutsiia v Iskusstve," Gorn Kn. 8 (1923): 111-18.
18. Pavel Novitskii, "Vsia Vlast'
Arkhitekture," Arkhitektura i Vkhutein 1 (1929): 2.
19. Ibid., p. 3.
20. Pavel Novitskii, article from the catalog for
the First Exhibition of Contemporary Architecture,
reprinted in Iz Istorii SovetskoiArkhitektury,vol. 2, ed.
V.E. Khazanova and K.N. Afanes'ev (Moscow: 1970;
1984), p. 77.
21. Victor A. Vesnin and Mozei Ia. Ginzburg,
"Sovremennaia Arkhitektura" [1927], in the Vesnin
fond, 2772-1-3, p. 11; Mozei Ginzburg, "Tselevaia
Ustanovka v Sovremennom Arkhitekture" [1927], re-
printed in Khazanova and Afanes'ev, eds., Iz Istorii
Sovetskoi Arkhitektury, vol. 2, pp. 74-76.
22. This type of criticism was directed at
people in theater as well as at architects. An accessible
example can be found in the minutes of a Production
Art Section meeting from June 1930, included in
1 22
Khazanova and Afanes'ev, eds., Iz Istorii Sovetskoi
vol. 2, p. 46.
Arkhitektury,
23. Ivan Matsa, Besedy ob Arkhitekture (Mos-
cow, 1936).
24. Aleksei Ivanovich Nekrasov, Russkoe
Na.rodnoe Iskusstvo(Moscow, 1924).
25. Nikolai Ladovskii was a member of the ar-
tistic commission of ZhivSkul'ptArkh (painters, sculp-
tors, and architects). Constructivists were also
members of this group. My material on this group and
its members comes from an unpublished manuscript
by Selim Khan-Magomedov, "ZhivSkul'ptArkh:
1919-20 gg." On Ivan Golosov, see his "O
Sovremennykh Techeniiakh v Arkhitekture," in
MasteraArkhitektury
obArkhitekture,
ed. M. Barkhin,
et al. (Moscow, 1975): 415-17.
26. Iu. Kivokurtsev, "O Sovremennoi
Arkhitekture," document theses included in the
GAKhN (State Academy of Artistic Sciences) fond,
Jan.- Apr. 1925, 941-2-26, p. 143.
27. In terms of culture as a whole, the theme
of antitheses is developed by Vladimir Paperny,
Kul'tura Dva (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1985). The antitheses of architecture are the
subject of Natal'ia T. Eneeva, "Arkhitekturnyi lazyk
Konstruktivizma i Ego Mesto v Kul'turnoi Traditsii"
(Ph.D. diss., Moscow State University, 1993); and
Natal'ia T. Eneeva, "Konstruktivizm kak Logicheskii
Metod," Iskusstvo10 (1988): 57-60.
28. Eneeva, Arkhitekturnyi Iazyk; and Eneeva,
"Konstruktivizm."
29. Ark. Pozdnev, "Material'noe Oformlenie
Spektaklia," Zrelishche 9 (1922): 9; B. Alpers, Teatr
Revoliutsii(Moscow, 1928), p. 36.
lustration in Alekseev-Iakovlev, Russkie Narodnye
Gulian 'ia (Leningrad/Moscow, 1948).
31. Meierkhol'd fond, 998-1-844/855, has
materials for and on the history of the balagan.
32. The parable idea is implied in an article by
A.A. Gvozdev, "Etika Novogo Teatra," Teatral'naia
Kritika (Leningrad, 1987): 30-32, and also arose in
conversation with A. Senkevich in Moscow. On folk-
lore: A. Zvonak in 1934 proposed this explanation of
Meierkhol'd's use of folk theater devices (in the Zograf
fond, 2723-1-482, pp. 10-14).
33. Various reviews in the Meierkhol'd fond,
998-1-3351. Generally, my references to uncited re-
views are to incompletely identified reviews that were
either in this fond, the fond for Meierkhol'd's theater
(fond 963), or the A.V. Fevral'skii fond (2437).
34. Meierkhol'd, "Pis'mo v redaktsiiu," in
Fevral'skii's collection of reviews, 2437-2-125; and
Meierkhol'd, "Kak Byl Postavlen 'Velikodushnyi
Rogonosets'" [1926], reprinted in Stat'i, Pis ma, Rechi,
Besedy, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1968), vol. 2, p. 47.
35. M. Zagorskii, "Velikodushnyi Rogono-
sets," Teatral'naia Moskva 38 (1922): 9.
36. Reviews in the Fevral'skii fond.
37. Copy of the text in the translator's fond,
2280-1-19. There is also a poor photocopy in the
Union of Theater Workers library.
38. K. Feldman, "Chelovek, Kotoryi byl
Chetvergom," 7 Dnei (Dec. 18, 1923), in the
Kamernyi Theater fond, 2030-2-54. The sense of met-
ronomic order in the set is also felt by K. Derzhavin,
Kniga o Kamernom Teatre (Leningrad, 1934). Vesnin,
notes for an autobiography, Vesnin fond, kniga 1573/
543, 5-1-1 (Shchusev Museum). In the Luk'ianov
fond at RGALI (2700-1-43), there is a microfilm of a
book that contains a series of drawings that emphasize
the evolution of Vesnin's set as a series of mechanical
elements that are eventually assembled into a whole
that resembles the final set: I. Kleiner, exemplar of
MoskovskiiKamernyiTeatr(1930).
39. "Nadezhdi Teatra," Krasnaia Niva, in the
Fevral'skii fond, 2437-2-130; Ot glavrepertkoma,
"Teatra i Muzyka," Pravda, in the Meierkhol'd fond,
998-1-3354.
40. S. Mokul'skii, "Gastroli Teatr Revoliutsii,"
Zhizn'Iskusstva, 17 (1925): 9-10; Evg. Kuznetsov,
clipping from Krasnaia Gazeta, evening edition (Apr.
20, 1925), in the Fevral'skii fond 2437-2-130. There
are others with a similar thrust.
41. My sources for this play were reviews in a
folder at the Moscow Library of the Union of Theater
Workers; Meierkhol'd's "directorial explication" in
the Meierkhol'd theater fond at RGALI (963-1-523
and 517); and a notebook in the Shestakov fond at
RGALI (2343-1-286).
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42. A model designedby KonstantinVialovin
1923; a clipping was included in Shestakov'snote-
book, in his fond.
43. "Proektteatral'nogo zdaniia," Protokol
besedy Meierkhol'das Lisitskim,in the Meierkhol'd
fond in the BakhrushinMuseum (305776/1034).
44. On the ambiguityof club models and the
role of theater, see John Hatch, "The Formationof
Working Class Culture during NEP: The Workers'
Club Movement in Moscow, 1921-23," in The Carl
BeckPapers(Pittsburgh:Universityof PittsburghCen-
ter for Russianand EastEuropeanStudies,1990); and
G. Gorzka,"ProletarianCulturein Practice:Workers'
Clubs, 1917-21," in Essayson RevolutionaryCulture
and Stalinism, ed. J.W. Strong (Columbus, OH:
Slavica,1989): 29-55.
45. Lynn Mally, "AutonomousTheater and
the Originsof SocialistRealism:The 1932 Olympiad
of AutonomousArt,"RussianReview52 (Apr. 1993):
198-212.
46. Ibid. Debate over the use of these forms
can be tracedin much writingof the period-reviews
and organizationalstenograms.
47. Kholostenko,"PutiKluba,"Sovremennaia
Arkhitektura 5 (1928): 138.
48. Protocols for these standardclubs exist;
see, for example, Pletnev, documents on workers'
clubs, Proletkul't fond, 1230-1-370; and Ignatii
Khvoinik,VneshneeOformlenieObshchestvennogo Byta
(Moscow, 1927).
49. N. Lukhmanov,Arkhitektura Kluba(Mos-
cow, 1930).
50. This argument,as well as the relationship
between form and meaning, is made by Paperny,
Kul'turaDva.
51. The phrase"unharmoniouseccentricities"
1 23 Barris
was used by S. Margolin,"BalagannoPredstavlenie,"
a clipping in the Fevral'skiifond, 2437-2-127, in a
commentaryabout the appearanceof balagan-influ-
enced stagingsin the theater.
52. R. Pel'she, Nasha Teatral'naiaPolitika
(Moscow/Leningrad, 1929), pp. 35-36. A similar
statement, but without the referenceto skyscrapers,
was madeby a speakerat a Prolet'kultdebate(Pletnev,
thesisstatementsin the Proletkul'tfond, 1230-1-464,
undated).
53. R. Pel'she, Puti SovremennogoTeatra
(Moscow/Leningrad,1929), p. 26.
54. B. Alpers, Teatr Revoliutsii (Moscow,
1928), p. 36.
55. P. Novitskii, "Razmyshleniia o
Teatral'nykhKhudozhnikakh,"Teatri Dramaturgiia
No. 7 (1935): 4.
56. Ia. Braun, "Za Teatr Cheloveka,"
ProgrammyMoskovskikh Gos. i Akad. Teatrov i
Zrelishchnykh Predpriatii10 (May 15-20, 1923): 3-6.
57. This wasa recurringtheme,especiallywith
referenceto the earlierproductions,such as TheMag-
nanimousCuckoldand a productionnot discussedin
this essay, TheDeath of Tarelkin.
58. Markov, Noveishie Teatral'nyeTecheniia
(Moscow, 1924).
59. The reception of constructivismis com-
plex and deservesgreaterexposition than is possible
here. Fora detailedand documentedstudy,see Chap-
ter 5 of my dissertation,"Chaosby Design: Russian
ConstructivistStageDesign and Its Reception"(Uni-
versityof Illinois, 1994).
60. My primarysourcefor the Palaceof Sovi-
ets competition is SovetskaiaArkhitektura, no. 4
(1931).