The image of “Soviet modernism” in the architectural critical discourse of “Project Russia” magazine in the 1990s

Abstract

   In the 1990s, a new architectural criticism was born, strikingly different from the previous Soviet examples. From the narrowly professional genre, architectural criticism turns back into journalism, combining the artistic interpretation of architectural works and the socio-political views of the authors, placing architecture in broader cultural contexts, inheriting the practices of the pre-revolutionary period. One of the most representative examples of the new post-Soviet criticism is the “Project Russia” journal. In many articles published in this journal in the 1990s the previous architectural era is represented in different contexts, usually in specific negative ways. This article demonstrates that the particular image of Soviet modernism in the 1960s – 1980s is one of the key components of the new discursive identity of post-Soviet architectural criticism, which is being formed against the backdrop of large-scale socio-cultural and political changes.