Exhibition "Towns of Sverdlovsk:
from an architectural project to social experience"

In the gallery "On Shabolovka" Association "Exhibition Halls of Moscow" will open the exhibition "Towns of Sverdlovsk: from architectural design to social experience." For the first time, the exhibition was shown as part of the “Days of Constructivism in the Urals" * festival in Yekaterinburg in the fall of 2016.

The project is dedicated to the famous complexes of constructivist buildings in Yekaterinburg, which received the name "towns" in the Urals. The authors of the exhibition focus on social experiments by architects and everyday life in the scenery of the new Soviet life.

On the examples of five administrative and residential complexes of the Ural capital - the City of Chekists, the City of Justice, the Medical Town, the residential complexes of the Gospromural and the Ural Regional Council - the everyday life of people in constructivist buildings is revealed. The social side of the existence of avant-garde architecture is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers, but still rarely becomes the topic of exhibition projects.

Based on dozens of interviews, the curators reconstructed the complex picture of the everyday life of constructivist towns. The exhibition includes photographs from family photo albums, departmental museums, archives, newsreels, architectural models, furniture and household items. For Muscovites, this project can become not only an acquaintance with the avant-garde in Yekaterinburg, but also a new perspective for a look at the architecture of constructivism. In Moscow, the project was supplemented by archival materials, magazines and books of the 1920s and a life-size “model” of a living cell of the 1920s.

* "Constructivism Days in the Urals" is an exhibition and educational project aimed at preserving and popularizing the architecture of the Soviet avant-garde in the Urals.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an educational program.

Organizers of the exhibition: Gallery “On Shabolovka” of the Association “Exhibition Halls of Moscow”, State Protection of Cultural Heritage Sverdlovsk Region, Research and Production Center for the Protection and Use of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Sverdlovsk Region, Museum of Architecture and Design of the Ural State University of Architecture and Art.

House of Justice. The town of justice. Photo of the 1930s. Source: Museum of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court.

The famous open pillars of the ground floor of the Uralobsovet House (Malysheva St., 21/1), invented by the architect Moses Ginzburg, were used by the residents of the house to dry clothes. Town of Chekists. Photo of the 1930s. Source: GASO.

House of the State Industry Commission. Town of Chekists. Yard from the side of the end of the 1st building. On the left you can see the Dzerzhinsky Club. Photo of the late 1930s. Source: collection of philokartist Alexander Alexandrovsky.

Law school students in a dormitory. The town of justice. Photo of 1939. Source: GASO.

Children’s consultation at the Research Institute of OMM. Medgorodok. At the reception a healthy child. Photo 1930–40s Source: Research Institute OMM.

Operating Research Institute OMM. Medgorodok. Photo of the late 1990s. Source: Research Institute OMM.

Curators: Larisa Piskunova, Lyudmila Starostova, Igor Yankov, Nikita Suchkov

Graphic Design: Dmitry Mukhametov

Partners: Museum of Industrial Culture, Central Scientific and Technical Library for Construction and Architecture

The curator of the gallery "On Shabolovka", the head of the Center of the avant-garde - Alexandra Selivanova

Exhibition "Sverdlovsk Towns: from an Architectural Project to Social Experience" 12+

Dates: March 17 - May 9, 2017 Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. Cost: 100 p. (50 p. - discount ticket)