Design as Art

Boris Iofan is best known as the architect behind the Palace of the Soviets. Yet his style was not limited to the ­Socialist ­Classicism that flourished under Stalin. Rather, Iofan’s archi­tectural language boldly evolved throughout his lifetime: from his eclectic beginnings in Rome, to the grandeur of the wedding-cake style in the 1930s, and finally, to his incorporation of concrete panels under the Khrushchev government. This book presents a collection of essays, photographs, floor plans, sketches, and drawings that chart the development of the archi­tect’s variegated career which spanned nearly six decades.

Never before have so many buildings been constructed as today, and never has architecture had so many technological and design possibilities at its disposal. And yet there is a sense of unease about contemporary architecture. In their book, ­Sergei Tchoban and Vladimir Sedov show how in modern times we have lost the balance between outstanding works of architecture and the background structures that surround them, with every building striving to assert itself in relation to all the others – to drown them out if it can. Yet the ­modern age is certainly capable of developing a harmony of contrasts – it has everything it needs at its disposal. After taking the reader on a foray through 2,500 years of architectural history, the authors arrive at the anomaly of modernism. They show what contemporary architecture must take into account if it is to achieve a satisfactory overall architectural impression that is harmonious in an entirely new way.

Over 3,000 churches were built in Poland between 1945 and 1989, despite the socialist state’s hostility towards religion. We call this Day-VII Architecture. Built by parishioners from scavenged or pinched materials, the churches were at once an expression of faith and a form of anti-government protest. Their fantastic designs broke with the state’s rigid urbanism. Neither legal nor prohibited, the construction of churches during this period engaged the most talented architects and craftspeople, who in turn enabled parish communities to build their own houses of worship. These community projects eventually became crucial sites for the democratization of Poland. Unearthing the history of these churches through photog­raphy and interviews with their designers, this publication sheds new light on the architectural dimension of Poland’s trans­formation from state socialism to capitalism.

This book is a catalog of the exhibition by the architect and draughtsman Sergei Tchoban, which is scheduled for October 2020-January 2021 at The Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome. However, the book goes far beyond the format of describing the artworks presented at the exhibition. It is a research aimed at studying trends in the urban development of a contemporary European city. A native of St Petersburg who has organically absorbed the harmony of this city’s proportionality and similitude, Sergei Tchoban has always striven to understand the laws which govern the development of cities like St Petersburg and the great prototypes in whose image it was created. Is it possible to preserve these cities’ outstanding quality? And is it possible to pursue this quality today, at the current stage of development of architecture? These are the central questions posed in the exhibition and the book, which marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). One of the greatest artists of his time, Piranesi succeeded in capturing the development of the European city as a phenomenon which, despite many layers and internal contradictions, is nevertheless harmonious. In analyzing the development of the language of architecture that is characteristic of our time, Sergei Tchoban integrates individual emphatically futuristic volumes into the panoramas of streets in the European city. Subsequently, he transcribes these elements into 18th-century Roman situations recreated on the basis of motifs taken from Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Vedute di Roma. Four of these fantasies are original prints of etchings by Piranesi into which elements of an architecture of the future have been inserted using the medium of etching (executed by the architect Ioann Zelenin on the basis of ideas and sketches by Sergei Tchoban). This insertion of futuristic buildings into situations taken from, and then etchings by, Piranesi is a vivid demonstration of how contemporary architecture behaves and is perceived in the body of the European city, a city based on the harmony of similitude. Ruined masterpiece or imprint of the future? This is probably the principal question for this research. Using graphic art and etching to stage the destruction of a monument (the original of a Piranesi etching), Sergei Tchoban initiates a discussion about whether this kind of integration is merely an act of vandalism – or a way of transforming a reproduction print (many European cities created by the mighty force of the harmony of similitude are indeed very similar to one another) into an original that exists as a unique copy. Are we destroying harmony or creating a fundamentally new type of harmony? Sergei Tchoban is sure that this painful transformation of the European city has been happening for at least 100 years and that society must finally work out how to relate to this process. Essentially, it is this that is Piranesi’s true legacy: a call to an honest conversation regarding the condition of the layers and parts that constitute the European city as a highly important piece of our heritage and at the same time a space for future development.

Shoes juxtaposed with common objects that they evoke by their shape, colour, or texture become pairings of great elegance, witty and unusual, highlighting the creativity of shoe design. In this unique book, a selection of the most important Italian brands conveys the essence of the style made in Italy, with Prada, Tod s, Fendi, Hogan, Salvatore Ferragamo, Fratelli Rossetti, Cesare Paciotti, Thierry Rabotin, Pollini, and Ballin among the inspiring Italian companies illustrated in the volume. Italian shoes have always been iconic accessories, prestige symbols, and a guarantee of quality on international markets. The creative flair of Italian brands has succeeded in turning a simple functional accessory into so much more, crafting true works of art and objects of style: shoes reinterpret everyday objects and enhance their aesthetic potential. The splendid images are enlivened with quotes from style icons such as Coco Chanel, David Bowie, Victoria Beckham, and others. Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world, Marilyn Monroe once claimed, emphasizing the great importance of this iconic object in everyone s life and especially in that of women.