February 28, 2017

Design Museum Explores Unrealized Architecture of Moscow After the Russian Revolution

El Lissitzky’s concept for the opera Victory Over the Sun, 1923, is appearing at the Design Museum, London. Image courtesy of the Van Abbemuseum.

What a century it’s been. It was 1917 when the Bolshevik Revolution exploded, resulting in the Soviet Union declaring Moscow as the capital. “Imagine Moscow: Architecture, Propaganda, Revolution”—running March 15 to June 4 at the new home of the Design Museum, London—looks back at the city in the 1920’s and ’30’s via models, plans, and drawings for projects that were proposed but never realized. Among them are the Palace of the Soviets, architect Boris Mihailovich Iofan’s concept for the world’s tallest building, and Cloud Iron, a complex of ground-scrapers envisioned by El Lissitzky. The latter’s series of prints for an avant-garde opera are also being presented alongside posters, magazines, textiles, and porcelain. “Designs from this period inspire the work of contemporary architects,” curator Eszter Steierhoffer says. “And the radical ideas remain relevant to cities today.”

Here, a look at the new museum’s interiors by John Pawson:
 

Design Museum in London by John Pawson. Photography by Hufton + Crow.
 
Design Museum in London by John Pawson. Photography by Hufton + Crow.
 
Design Museum in London by John Pawson. Photography by Hufton + Crow.
 
Design Museum in London by John Pawson. Photography by Hufton + Crow.
 
Design Museum in London by John Pawson. Photography by Hufton + Crow.

> See more from the February 2017 issue of Interior Design

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