Jack Gell 1204373
Monument to the Third International, Architectures potential
The Tower as It would stand in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) My generation has been brought up in fear of the future, with lectures at schools or on television, powerful short films achieving instant worldwide attention, and articles splayed across social sites. Such must be the proof of an unsettled forthcoming; as we twitch glances to the fuel dial between periods of ignorance. I see a world that knows its future but is not lenient enough to change the way it works. A passion for design through Secondary School and Sixth Form brought on the view that architecture is the choice of a sensitive big thinker, with excitement for the futures possibilities. But a lot of the contact I have had so far shows stubbornly applied architectural morals of the past, not supporting the evolution of my generation of thinking. It is only recently I have discovered Constructivism, and experienced the peace of mind of knowing that such futuristic morals and utopian dreams have been previously explored. Autonomous art and architecture, which constructivism rejects, no longer has a place in modern society. There is no longer weight behind art that falls under liberation, as it has explored almost all it can. It is individualism that is holding back the art world, as seen with many architects i have come into recent contact with; it is far easier and less productive to show off your differences, and emphasize the areas in which you excel, than to seek a stream of thinking and form the confidence and security of a collective with equal power and responsibility. A lack of continuity in thought, seen in conflicts between tutors ideals, lead to great compromises and therefore very anticollective results. The blinkered egos of big name architects resort to composing ‘rules’, like commandments, to keep continuity, and justify their stubborn natures. But these rules will remain engraved in their identity, not flexing under the earths new balancing points.
Jack Gell 1204373
Monument to the Third International, Architectures potential Tatlin, one of the most important minds of the Constructivist, did not formally study architecture, but instead art, sculpting and constructing in all mediums. His approach to design is excited yet humble, and a breath of fresh air. He acknowledged the worlds specialists, each honed in their own field. This took him away from architectures black and white, where instead of dictating each detail with his own less refined solution, he tapped into the vast web of technological experts, that wouldn’t just solve, but embellish his original idea. Tatlins tower was a monument to the Russian Revolution, to a relationship between the State, and art. But this is art liberated of its modern day politics, of which it questions and questions, and instead freed to integrate internationally with areas outside of art, igniting power in all fields. It was to correspond to all artistic forms at that time, showing the dynamism of a revolutionary socialist society.
The interior volumes and their exoskeleton
Lesser known was the proposal for within the angular steel exoskeleton, where three great rooms of glass, harmonically sized, would spin atop of one another. The lower, a cube holding legislative assemblies, rotating fully once a year. The middle a pyramid, where executive bodies meet, rotates once a month, and the top, a cylinder, containing information services, once a day. A hemisphere atop also houses radio masts and projectors to display slogans and headlines around the monument.1 2 3
1
Michael Creig, ‘Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde (Pt2 Tatlins Tower)’ YouTube username: Michael Creig (2007) < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P18XmwRKgM > 2
(No named Auther), ‘Tatlins Tower, Anenberg Courtyard 2011, 2012 Fact Sheet’ The Royal Academy of Arts (2012) < http://static.royalacademy.org.uk/files/downloadafactsheetontatlinstowerandtheroyalacademysrecreation1240.pdf> 3 John Milner, ‘ Vladamir Tatlin and the Russian AvantGarde’, (London, Yale University Press, 1983), p.61
Jack Gell 1204373
Monument to the Third International, Architectures potential On recreating the model of the tower to exhibit at the RA, the structural engineer calculated that the actual 400 meter structure would collapse under its own self weight, due to the use of long thin columns. This is not too surprising, as Tatlin left the work lacking vast details, prompting the collaboration of specialist designers. 4 The study of Architecture and its lack of excitement has exhausted my once shameless enthusiasm. But Tatlin has been such an inspirational discovery for me, Whilst reading Vladamin Tatlin and the Russian Avant Garde I was shocked by the parallels in philosophy between Tatlin and myself. I have discovered a man that had set out and succeeded along a path that I am about to take. Within this writing I will discuss these similarities and the ways they came to form this uncompromised monument to his beliefs. I have formed these into three categories; his relationship with technology, his faith in humanity, and the monument as a tribute to human possibility. Technology Tatlins befriends technology. Not seeing it as a mathematical path leading to the one distilled answer. But instead a scrapyard of inventions that when combined, forms a solution with far less sterile results. 5
Howles moving Castle, Japanese anime
Tatlin much like myself held a passion for sailing, traveling the world aboard sailing vessels of many varieties. Such experiences in the mercy of earths power are extremely humbling, and 4
Jeremy Dixon, ‘ ReCreating Tatlin’s Tower ’ , Royal Academy of Arts: Past exhabitions: 23 Septermber 2011 29 January 2012 (2012) < http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/thearchitecturespace/pastexhibitions/recreatingtatlinstower/ > 5 Silim O.Khan, ‘ Pioneers of Soviet Architecture’, (London, Thames and Hudson, 1987) p.64
Jack Gell 1204373
Monument to the Third International, Architectures potential stretches one's perception of possibilities; obvious in this monuments fantastic ambition. It is only since discovering Tatlin's connections between sailing and architecture, that I have found my own. Living aboard a sailing yacht, you are surrounded by specialist units that excel in performing one task. A yacht is not an engine to which the sailor sits behind, but instead a highly complex collaboration of articulated controls, that together can, under the right hands, becomes a spectacle of intricate movements and great power. As a sailer, Tatlin seems to resolve his designs with the beautiful functioning yet perceived chaos of a sailboats rigging. Leaving structure and machinery honest and celebrated.
Strong connections can be made between the raw mechanical kinetics of a yachts rigging and Tatlin's design for the monument. With its primary structural column resembling the rake of a mast under full sail, and interior vertical movement in lifts and hanging rooms, relating to the shrouds and lines of these ships, upon which Tatlin sailed the world. Perhaps also related to living at see, is his rebellion against humanities evermore dry perception of comfort. We are seeing this more now, due to the likes of eco homes, in which an architect has created a mathematically ideal environment for the human body. But one doesn't feel alive in a house with consistent air temperature, light levels with a common practical layout. Tatlin never seemed to acknowledge these sterile architectural components in the monuments design, but instead made it a place to experience, intense movement and agitation 'you must be mechanically taken up, down, carried away against your will' Whereas most architects treat comfort as something that the occupant is to ignore, this tower was to form tension and relief in all the senses, giving higher highs and lower lows to the monuments victim, creating a far more dynamic and artistic architectural experience. 6 Tatlin did not fully dictate the monuments form technically, as there was little consistency 6
Norbert Lynton, ‘Tatlin’s Tower Monument to a Revolution’ (London: Yale University press, 2009), p.134.
Jack Gell 1204373
Monument to the Third International, Architectures potential between drawings and models; instead structural coherence and viability were sacrificed to expressive qualities. This loose framework of a design allows technology to breath, providing an open stage to specialists. This method was only possible due to Tatlin's confidence that: ‘modern technology fully allows for the possibility of constructing such a building’ p60 And that he would orchestrate such a creation.7 Humanity In discovering more about Architecture, it seems that the most successful architects are those that dictate the order of aesthetics, laying refined architectural systems that they believe to be the one and only solution for the future. This hushed God complex concerns me, as surely none of these powerful men and women would have been happy with the extent to which these systems were realised, rendering the greatest architectural minds disappointed at how unaccepting humanity is to change. The architecture of today should be a collective effort, the next shift in style will not be the cause of one person, as the era of independence and self expression has passed. Almost a century ago Tatlin was part of this wave of coherent collective thinking that lead to the Russian revolution. Whether it does or does not come in the form of a revolution, in my lifetime vast changes in thinking will need to occur in order for our world to withstand its exponential environmental pressures. Thus an international collective force will need to form. Tatlin is not a dictator, but an conductor of the times arts. Tied so closely to the current art scene he was supported by schools of like minded youthful artists. He was not plotting an attempt to reinvent civilisation like some architects around this period, but instead a spark of enthusiasm to help the world progress. ‘Not a creator priest, but a master executing a social brief’8 This stance avoided the accusation of pretentiousness, as his work is not solely his, instead a collaboration of perhaps more so: artists. It is as if his structure stands as a vertical contemporary gallery, displaying the latest in constructivist art. He is not leading this socialist revolution, but enticing it out of the people. By synthesising these many branches of art, as well as technology, Tatlin was attempting to form the power of the greatest artistic collective: 'A brotherhood of artists and architects will be born and will create not only temples to human ideals but also complete artistic towns. To link art with life' 9 A monument This leads me to the final heading, the monument as a temple to art, and a statement of the 7
Milner p.60 Milner p.59 9 Lost source 8
Jack Gell 1204373
Monument to the Third International, Architectures potential future. The awe and mystery inflicted on the people living amongst such an incomparable structure as a cathedral, today has no equivalent. There spire touching heaven, and designed strictly under the word of God; a monument like this would loom over a town or city, setting an undertone of religious authority to any activity. Since the worldwide decline of religious power (inversely proportional to the increase in technological advancements); the intricate power of monuments like these have been somewhat forgotten. Tatlin could see that cathedrals and temples were no longer economical in a world of ever increasing population, and limited resources. Therefore the great complexities of each religion’s order (designed to illude power and enforce once belief), would no longer be developed or even acknowledged in modern religious design. In Tatlin's lifetime he saw mostly figurative monuments carrying a conspicuous message, with the statue of liberty being completed at the time of his birth, and the Eiffel Tower just a few years after. Tatlin rejected this movement, as such a simple message would never convulse the foundations of Russia. Eiffel built to demonstrate a method of construction, whereas Tatlin was to illustrate the communist revolution.
Thus Tatlin was inspired by a church like structure, displacing tradition not only architecturally but traditionally. The Tower was to be 400 meters tall to loom in such a way as a steeple would, to the smaller buildings beneath. A visible reminder of a utopium constructivist future, seen from even beyond the city that houses it. This was to be laced with invented or modern apparatus; 'models which stimulate inventions in the business of creating a new world and summon producers to take control over the model which stimulated inventions' 10 Making the tower a catalyst of thought, promoting agitation and propaganda. 10
Lost source
Jack Gell 1204373
Monument to the Third International, Architectures potential
Bruegel's tower of babel, and Confusion of Tongues
Such an ordeal must have lead Tatlin to the form of early monuments within Christianity, where such abstract concepts behind life were expressed with power and grandiosity. The tower of Babel, described in the Book of Genesis, speaks of a united humanity formed after the Great Flood, sharing the same language, and therefore of ultimate power: ‘And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.’11 (For reasons I am not to sure of, God then confounded their speech and scattered them about the earth) The illustrations of this city, are perhaps the first explorations into utopium architecture, and therefore contains the ingredients for Tatlin's monument to form that one ruling language in art and technology. As people of today’s society climb the rungs to power, one is bombarded helplessly with the benefits of working within a developed system. A politician has devoted his life to his career, which hangs on every word he says publicly, it is not people like this that push radical change, not only due to their career, but also as words (as opposed to art, sculpture and architecture) can be so easily dismissed and ignored. But we are soft to everything we witness, like the subliminal qualities of advertising, architecture has the ability to shift the tracks we follow, planting seeds of thought that can trigger huge waves of like minded power. Tatlins Tower is the ultimate example of this. Its sheer size would shine down and stretch the imagination of all in sight, as the pinnacle of what is humanly possible. 11
Genisis 11:6, King James Bible, Cambridge Eddition
Jack Gell 1204373
Monument to the Third International, Architectures potential Bibliography Dixon, Jeremy, ‘ReCreating Tatlin’s Tower’, Royal Academy of Arts: Past exhabitions: 23 Septermber 2011 29 January 2012 (2012) < http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/thearchitecturespace/pastexhibitions/recreatingtatlinstower/ > Crieg, Michael, ‘Architecture and the Russian Avantgarde (Pt2 Tatlins Tower)’ YouTube username: Michael Creig (2007) < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P18XmwRKgM > Kahn, Silim O., ‘ Pioneers of Soviet Architecture’, (London, Thames and Hudson, 1987) Lynton, Norbert, ‘Tatlin’s Tower Monument to a Revolution’ (London: Yale University press, 2009) Milner, John, ‘ Vladamir Tatlin and the Russian AvantGarde’, (London, Yale University Press, 1983) (No named author), Genisis 11:6, King James Bible, Cambridge Eddition (1611) (No named auther), ‘Tatlins Tower, Anenberg Courtyard 2011, 2012 Fact Sheet’ The Royal Academy of Arts (2012) < http://static.royalacademy.org.uk/files/downloadafactsheetontatlinstowerandtheroyalacademysrecreation1 240.pdf >