Contemporary Architecture (journal)
In 1925, the Artistic Division of the People's Commissariat for Education of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic decided to organize the publication of a new architectural journal.
And in precisely the same way, Contemporary Architecture widely opens its pages to all its like-minded people, scattered not only within confines of the USSR, but throughout the whole world.
"[4] The more theoretical articles in the journal repeatedly underscored that constructivism was not a new style, but an entirely new method of creativity that demanded a correspondingly new attitude towards design, function, and form in the production of art.
The journal's final issue was published in 1930 and included an editorial piece, entitled "1926-1930," summarizing the activities and achievements of Contemporary Architecture and OSA during those five years.
Other editors who joined later include: Vyacheslav Vladimirov (1926), Sergei Maslikh (1926), Ivan Matsa (1926), Pavel Novitskii, (1926), Alexander Pasternak (1927), Alexander Nikolsky (1927), Mikhail Barshch (1927), Ivan Leonidov (1928), Nikolai Krasilnikov (1928), I. Muravev (1928), N. Sokolov (1928), M. Kholostenko (1928), F. Yalovkin (1928), Roman Khiger (1928), and Anatolii Fisenko (1928).
From the beginning, Contemporary Architecture was committed to the socialist project and the constructivist ideology: "Constructivism, born from the revolution and forming its working method in a period of the building of new economic relationships, in a period of the building of socialism, first and foremost, more persistently than anything else dictates to the architect the invention of new types of architecture.
"[9] Thus, many of the projects and arguments that the journal put forward subscribe to a methodology that rethinks architectural forms from a functional, utilitarian, rationalized perspective.
"[10] While primarily catering to concerns relevant for the nascent socialist society of the Soviet Union, the journal was rather internationally minded, as well.
Additionally, it included a normative discussion of technology and its social implications, another theme that Contemporary Architecture frequently took up.
Modernity demands the immediate application of all the achievements of technology... for the restoration of the worker's energy spent during the day and for the liberation of his wife for participation in public life.
At the same time, people naturally organize their place of dwelling in accordance with their economic function, leading to the overcrowding of cities and the thinning out of villages.
In order to fix this settlement imbalance, Contemporary Architecture argued, industry should leave from the city centers and go out to the districts where the production of raw materials takes place.
