Ginzburg, M[oisei] Ia[kovlevich].

[CONSTRUCTIVIST ARCHITECTURE] Stil’ i epokha: problemy sovremennoi arkhitektury [Style and epoch: problems of contemporary architecture].

Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1924. Octavo (23 × 18.5 cm). Original photo-illustrated wrappers; 238 pp. With [41] plates of illustrations as well as additional photographs, drawings, diagrams in the text. Professional restoration to wrapper edges and spine (original spine strip lacking); light soil to wrappers; text toned due to stock; overall a good copy. Item #55127

First edition of this foundational text of Constructivist architecture, by the leading Soviet practitioner and theorist of Constructivist principles in architecture Moisei Ginsburg (1892–1946). A kind of manifesto of architectural Constructivism, the text is richly illustrated with photographs, drawings, and plans. Of special note are the illustrations of ephemeral projects such as photographs of Constructivist pavilions for the first Agricultural Exhibition held in Moscow in 1923, designed by Vladimir Shchuko and painted by avant-garde artist Aleksandra Ekster, street furniture designed by Aleksei Gan, as well as Aleksandr Vesnin’s stage designs for the 1923 production of “The Man Who Was Thursday”. Unrealised projects pictured in the volume include numerous drawings of the “Arkos” building designed by the Vesnin brothers, Konstantin Melnikov’s visionary plans for worker housing complexes, as well as proposals by a variety of architects for the House of Labour (never built), including plans by leading Constructivists such as Ilya Golosov, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (credited as G.M. Liudvig), as well as the design proposed by Ginzburg himself (with Aleksndr Greenberg).

A graduate of the Riga Polytechnic Institute, Ginzburg also studied in France and Italy before taking a teaching position at VKhUTEMAS in 1921, a school often compared to the Bauhaus in its experimental drive. In 1925 he co-founded the Ob"edinenie sovremennykh arkhitektorov (Union of Contemporary Architects; OCA), which became the main architectural organization of the Constructivists. Starting in 1926, Ginsburg co-founded the architectural journal CA (Sovremennaia Arkhitektura) along with the Vesnin brothers, and served as its editor until the final issues in 1930. Ginsburg’s most famous designs, also belong to this period, such as his building for the Gosstrakh employees in Moscow (1926) and the Narkomfin building (1928–1930), which was cited by Le Corbusier as an influence on his later work. One of 2000 copies.

As of May 2025, KVK, OCLC show six copies in North America.

Price: €1,200.00

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