Vkhutemas

The workshops were established by a decree from Vladimir Lenin[1] with the intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of the highest qualifications for industry, and builders and managers for professional-technical education".

[8] A preliminary basic course was an important part of the new teaching method that was developed at Vkhutemas, and was made compulsory for all students, regardless of their future specialization.

[2] Akin to the Bauhaus's basic course, which all first-year students were required to attend, it gave a more abstract foundation to the technical work in the studios.

In the early 1920s this basic course consisted of the following: The primary movements in art which influenced education at Vkhutemas were constructivism and suprematism, although individuals were versatile enough to fit into many or no movements—often teaching in multiple departments and working in diverse media.

The artistic education at Vkhutemas tended to be multidisciplinary, which stemmed from its origins as a merger of a fine arts college and a craft school.

[13] Painters and sculptors often made projects related to architecture; examples include Tatlin's Tower, Malevich's Architektons,[14] and Rodchenko's Spatial Constructions.

There was significant pressure in this respect by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, that in 1926, 1927, and 1928, required a student body composition "of worker and peasant origins", and several demands for "working class" elements.

At the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, the Soviet pavilion by Konstantin Melnikov and its contents attracted both criticism and praise for its economic and working class architecture.

Alexander Rodchenko designed a worker's club,[20] and the furniture that the Wood and Metal Working Faculty (Дерметфак) contributed was an international success.

In a report to the rector of 1923, Rodchenko listed the following subjects as being offered: higher mathematics, descriptive geometry, theoretical mechanics, physics, the history of art and political literacy.

Theoretical tasks included graphic design and "volumetric and spatial discipline"; while practical experience was given in foundry work, minting, engraving and electrotyping.

In common with other departments, it was run on utilitarian lines, but Stepanova encouraged her students to take an interest in fashion: they were told to carry notebooks so that they could note the contemporary fabrics and aesthetics of everyday life as seen on the high street.

Before her death in 1924, Popova produced fabrics with grids of printed hammers and sickles, which would predate work by others in the political climate of the first five-year plan.

[28] The founding decree included a statement that students have an "obligatory education in political literacy and the fundamentals of the communist world view on all courses".

It was in response to students' failure to gain a foothold in industry and was entitled, The Breakdown of VKhUTEMAS: Report on the Condition of the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops, which stated that the school was "disconnected from the ideological and practical tasks of today".

[34] The Modernist movements which Vkhutemas had helped generate were critically considered as abstract formalism,[35] and were succeeded historically by socialist realism, postconstructivism, and the Empire style of Stalinist architecture.