It’s difficult to imagine two more diametrically opposed nations than the United States and the Soviet Union. While the U.S. typically vilified the Soviets, the USSR had more of a love-hate relationship with the U.S., as evident in Soviet architecture and other forms of cultural expression. “Generations of Russian politicians, intellectuals, and engineers envisioned modeling their country after the United States, hoping to cast it as a new America,” says historian Jean-Louis Cohen. His exploration of the topic, Building a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture, is on view through April 5, 2020, at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.
One section of the exhibition, “American Industries for Russia: Taylor, Ford, and Kahn,” examines the influences of U.S. manufacturing and business practices on the USSR. One notable example of direct engagement occurred in 1929, when the Soviet trade representative in the U.S. hired the Detroit architecture firm of Albert Kahn to design a tractor factory in Stalingrad. The following year, the firm's role grew when it became consulting architects to Stalin’s government.
The vibrant avant-garde cultural scene of early revolutionary Russia, exemplified architecturally by El Lissitzky’s Constructivist designs, gave way under Stalin’s absolutist rule to a more conservative form of expression. After World War II, as U.S. architects embraced progressive Modernism, Soviet architects adopted a monumental classical idiom. One famous specimen, the Hotel Ukrania in Moscow, nonetheless echoed the setback Art Deco skyscraper style that American architect Hugh Ferriss made famous with his moody renderings.
