Decorative Elements in the “Stalinist” Architecture of the MSSR. From Sketch to Realization Cover Image

Elemente decorative în arhitectura „stalinistă” a RSSM de la schiţă la realizare
Decorative Elements in the “Stalinist” Architecture of the MSSR. From Sketch to Realization

Author(s): Alina Ostapov
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, History of Communism
Published by: ArtPoligraf SRL
Keywords: MSSR; architecture; Stalinist; politics; decoration; pediment; capital; sculpture;

Summary/Abstract: With the end of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin’s governance, the period of totalitarian Stalinist architecture ended. From monumentalism, aesthetics and unique buildings, architecture was oriented to industrialization, prefabrication, project-type and economy, characteristic of the reign of Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. After the monotony, it was passed to the architectural plasticity, brutalism and Soviet modernism characteristic of the time of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev’s rule. Creative ambitions change with the succession of Soviet political leaders. Later, the arts did not know so many political “conductors”, the architecture developing more freely and diversified. The research focuses on the analysis and detailed descriptive study of ornaments on some components of “Stalinist” buildings in the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic. The author presents for the first time the orig inal sketches of the architects. The images are a collage of past drawings and current photo fixations. Such an approach allows a visual comparative analysis between what was proposed by the author and what was achieved. The architects’ sketches allow the correct “reading” of the decorative elements, because today the buildings no longer keep the original version. Unfortunately, the decorum of socialist classicism has not been preserved over the years and it has been mutilated or even intentionally removed.

  • Issue Year: IV/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 106-118
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Romanian