From ‘Red Manchester’ to ‘Red Disneyland’

The author studies the role of constructivist architecture in the cultural and historical heritage of the city of Ivanovo (known as Ivanovo-Voznesensk before 1932). Due to its becoming a large textiles center by the turn of the 20th century, the city transformed into the center of a new governorate in 1918 and the center of a major industrial region in 1929. As its population was rapidly growing, certain housing issues needed to be addressed and the new administrative status of the city implied the development of a proper infrastructure. This determined the formation of Ivanovo-Voznesensk as a model socialist city of pioneer architectural and engineering solutions. There appeared work settlements that realized the idea of a ‘garden city’, and in the second half of the 1920s – early 1930s, a few constructivist buildings designed by Moscow, Leningrad and local architects were built. During the 1950s, some of them were remodeled, and later on in the 1970s two unique buildings were demolished. Until the late 1990s, the architectural heritage of the 1920s – 1930s had not been regarded as an important part of the cultural heritage of the city. It was only as late as the 21st century that the value of the avant-garde heritage (whose part is the remaining constructivist ensemble of the city) was recognized by means of the activity of the Ivanovo Fine Arts Museum and the Museum of Industry and Arts. At present, more and more emphasis is put on the use of early Soviet culture in representation practices both by the media and administrative structures, controlling the work with the cultural heritage. According to the author, the fact that Ivanovo was at different stages of Soviet history represented as a ‘red Manchester’, the ‘homeland for the first Soviet’, and the ‘third proletarian capital’ makes it possible to use the architecture of the city as a unique symbolic asset in the project of ‘red tourism’

Archaeology · Art · Cultural center · Cultural heritage · Human settlement · Political science · Sociology · The arts · Visual arts · History · Landscape and Cultural Studies · Law · Sustainable Urban and Rural Development · Urbanization and City Planning · Architecture

• Here will be a garden-city

  Open Access•Elena Efremova, Е А Ефремова•Quaestio Rossica•2015

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