Course Syllabus

Architecture and Socialism

Reinhold Martin

Spring 2023

A6516

 

Wednesday 11:00-1:00

409 Avery Hall

Office hours: 203 Buell Hall, by appointment

email: rm454@columbia.edu

 

 

Historically, socialism has been—and remains—an international project. In architecture, this project has most commonly been studied through the building programs and urbanism of the Soviet bloc and more recently, through Soviet-led development programs. Widening the frame globally, the seminar will study the architecture of a loosely defined, heterogeneous, and often contradictory “socialist international” throughout the twentieth century, in cases ranging from national economic planning to postcolonial development to municipal housing. To do so, we will introduce examples from around the world—Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and North America—in which state policies, building types, construction methods, design practices, political ideologies, and architectural theories have offered systemic alternatives to capitalist hegemony. Such work has been variously associated with communist, socialist, and social democratic regimes or ideologies, some of which have been revolutionary and others reformist in character. Taking each on its own terms and critically in context, and emphasizing links between them, we will ask in each case how architecture meets political economy, guided by the socialist project.

 

We will begin with background on the concept, political project, and history of socialism, and of the various forms it has taken around the world from the late nineteenth century to today. We will frame this history within a debate—reform or revolution?—that took place in Europe around 1900 and has been repeated in different forms worldwide through today, with a notable implications for architecture. We will then proceed, week by week, through a series of architectural examples from around the world. We will assess each in relation to the form taken by the socialist project in that context, and its relation to anything like global or international socialism. We will also consider the contradictions made evident by or addressed in each case, and the contrary interests and counter-forces that have often prevailed. In this way, we will historicize, critically interpret, and compare significantly different works of architecture from many different contexts around the world; in turn, we will consider the degree to which those many contexts might also be understood as one—a world history of the socialist project, through architecture.

 

To do so, the syllabus is organized into three parts: three introductory weeks, eight weeks of case studies, and two final sessions for student presentations. For convenience, the case studies are organized roughly by region: a convention that, as we shall see, will likely prove inadequate to our object, and will also be subject to critique along the way. Rather than follow a strict chronology, we will therefore move back and forth across the twentieth century, evaluating each case against the historical background with which we began.

 

 

Course Requirements

 

Requirements include participation in weekly discussions, presentation of selected materials in class, and a final research paper or visual essay.

 

Weekly discussion posts

 

Students are each expected to post weekly questions to a semester-long, online discussion of the readings and related topics through the “Discussion” function on Canvas. Postings should be brief (one paragraph) and related to specific readings, Questions from this discussion will be incorporated into each week’s class.

 

Presentations

 

Each student will be required to:

 

1. Make a brief (5 minute) presentation of one or more buildings or projects related to one of the weekly topics for Weeks 4-11. Sign-up is available on Canvas.

 

2. Develop their example from Weeks 4-11 into a more detailed presentation (7 minutes) with an emphasis on context and interpretation, to be presented in a concluding session in Weeks 12-13.

 

Research Paper or Visual Essay

 

Each student will be required to make a final submission in one these formats:

 

Option 1

An academic research paper on a topic related to the subject of at least one reading listed in the syllabus and/or the material presented from Week 4-11.

 

Papers should be 15-20 pages, 12-point double-spaced, approx. 4,000-5,000 words plus footnotes (PhD students: 20-25 pages, approx. 5,000-6,000 words).

 

All papers should follow bibliographic, footnoting, and other guidelines outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style, 17^th ed. (available online through CLIO).

https://www-chicagomanualofstyle-org.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/book/ed17/frontmatter/toc.html

 

Option 2

 

A visual essay on a topic related to the subject of at least one reading listed in the syllabus and/or the material presented from Week 4-11. This can take the form of an illustrated PDF document (20-25 pages) or an illustrated video (10 minutes). This should not simply repeat the class presentation; it should develop and present a well-crafted argument, with detailed visual analysis, that is comparable to a conference presentation.

 

Final papers and visual essays are due at 11:59pm on 5 May 2023, submitted as a PDF on Canvas (see Assignments).

 

All required readings will be available on Canvas, as e-books through CLIO, or online as indicated.

 

Grading

 

Grades for the class will be determined as follows:

 

Participation / presentation            30%

Final paper / visual essay                70%

 

Students with limited experience in writing research papers or writing in academic English are STRONGLY encouraged to seek support at the Columbia College Writing Center:

http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/uwp/writing-center

 

Students should adhere to the guidelines regarding academic honesty described in the GSAS Statement on Academic Honesty, available at:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsas/rules/chapter-9/pages/honesty/index.html

 

 

 

 

Readings

 

 

Part 1: Background

 

1. Socialism: Concepts

 

Axel Honneth, The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal, trans. Joseph Ganahl (New York: Polity Press, 2017), Introduction and Chap. 1, “The Original Idea: The Consummation of the Revolution in Social Freedom,” 1-26.

 

Michael Harrington, Socialism: Past and Future (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1989), Chap. 1, “Hypotheses,” 1-27.

 

John B. Judis, The Socialist Awakening: What’s Different Now about the Left (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2020), Introduction, “Socialism Old and New,” 16-37.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15586903

 

Further Reading

 

Emmanuel Akyeampong, “African Socialism; Or, the Search for an Indigenous Model of Economic Development?” Economic History of Developing Regions 33, no. 1 (2018): 69-87.

 

Liu Kang, “Maoism: Revolutionary Globalism for the Third World Revisited,” Comparative Literature Studies 521, no. 1 (2015): 12-28.

 

Tony Wright, Socialisms: Old and New, 2^nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1996), Chap. 1, “Traditions,” 1-13.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14176465?counter=1

 

Friedrich Engels, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” [1880], trans. Edward Aveling, in Robert C. Tucker, ed. The Marx-Engels Reader, 2^nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), 683-717.

 

For Reference

 

Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders, Socialist Thought: A Documentary History, Rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

 

Warren Lerner, A History of Socialism and Communism in Modern Times: Theorists, Activists, and Humanists, 2^nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993).

 

Pablo Gilabert and Martin O’Neill, "Socialism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/socialism/

 

Amy Lynn Buzby, “Socialism,” in Mark Bevir, ed., Encyclopedia of Political Theory, 3 Vols. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010).

https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/politicaltheory/n422.xml

 

History Archive, marxists.org [international socialist documents]

https://www.marxists.org/history/index.htm

 

 

2. Reform or Revolution?

 

Eduard Bernstein, The Preconditions of Socialism, ed. Henry Tudor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), Foreword, 1-8; Chap. 2a, “The Pitfalls of the Hegelian Dialectical Method,” 29-36; Chap. 4a, “The Political and Economic Prerequisites of Socialism,” 98-109; Chap. 4c, “Democracy and Socialism,” 136-159.

 

Rosa Luxemburg, “Social Reform or Revolution” [1900/1908], in Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, ed. Dick Howard (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 52-134 (esp. Part 1, 52-93).

 

Amy Allen, “Revolution, History, and the Beyond of Capitalism: Re-Reading the Luxemburg-Bernstein Debate,” Revolution 13/13, “On ‘Critical Genealogy’ with Bernard Harcourt,” 11 June 2022.

https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/revolution1313/amy-allen-revolution-history-and-the-beyond-of-capitalism-re-reading-the-luxemburg-bernstein-debate/

 

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), “Architecture or Revolution” in Towards an Architecture, 2^nd ed. [orig. 1923, 1928], trans. John Goodman (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2007), 291-307.

 

 

3. Historical Socialisms

 

Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Program” [1875, 1891], in Robert C. Tucker ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2^nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), 525-541.

 

Eric Foner, “Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?” History Workshop 17 (Spring 1984): 57-80.

 

Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 (New York: Vintage, 1994), Chap. 2, “The World Revolution,” 54-84; Chap. 13, “‘Real Socialism,’” 372-400.

 

Jeremy Friedman, Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021), Introduction, “Socialist Revolution as a Global Process,” 1-17.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15883477?counter=1

 

For Reference

 

Harry W. Laidler, History of Socialism: A Comparative Survey of Socialism, Communism, Trade Unionism, Cooperation, Utopianism, and Other Systems of Reform and Reconstruction (London: Routledge, 1969).

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14681929

 

Peter Lamb and James C. Docherty, Historical Dictionary of Socialism, 2^nd ed. (Lanham, MA: Scarecrow Press, 2006)

TOC only

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/5986141

 

Moral & Political Theory Read Rm, 504 Butler (Non-Circ) HX17 .D63 2016

 

James Mark and Paul Betts, eds., Socialism Goes Global: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonization (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16758627?counter=1

 

Michael Harrington, Socialism: Past and Future (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1989), Chap. 6, “The Third Creation of the World,” 152-187.

 

R. Keith Schoppa, The Twentieth Century: A World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16758943?counter=2

 

 

Part 2: Architecture

 

4. The Soviet Union

 

Cristina E. Crawford, Spatial Revolution: Architecture and Planning in the Early Soviet Union (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022), Chap. 8, “Socialist Urbanization through Standardization,” 248-284.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16296079

 

Alla Vronskaya, Architecture of Life: Soviet Modernism and the Human Sciences (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022), Chap. 4, “Organicist Aesthetics of Soviet Standardization,” 107-139.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16755459

 

Daria Bocharnikova, “Inventing Socialist Modern: Housing Research and Experimental Design in the Soviet Union,” in Can Bilsel and Juliana Maxim, eds., Architecture and the Housing Question (New York: Routledge, 2022), 631-654.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16610535?counter=1

 

Further Reading

 

Jean-Louis Cohen, Building a New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture, trans. Luba Markovskaia (Montréal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2020), Chap. 2, “Taylorism and Fordism for the Soviet Industrial Development,” sections 1-4, 97-144.

 

Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, trans. Pellegrino d’Acierno and Robert Connolly (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), Chap. 5, “Toward the ‘Socialist City’: USSR, 1917-28,” 149-170.

 

Daria Bocharnikova, “The NER Project: A Vision of Post-industrial Urbanity from Post-Stalin Russia,” The Journal of Architecture 24, no. 5 (2019): 631-654.

 

For Reference

 

Richard Anderson, Russia: Modern Architectures in History (London: Reaktion Books, 2017).

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15306200

 

 

5. Eastern Europe

 

Ana Miljački, The Optimum Imperative: Czech Architecture for the Socialist Lifestyle, 1938-1968 (New York: Routledge, 2017), Chap. 3: “Architecture for All: Nationalization of Czechoslovakia’s Architecture,” 89-121.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15117291

 

Virág Molnár, Building the State: Architecture, Politics, and State Formation in Postwar Central Europe (New York: Routledge, 2013), Chap. 2, “Building Socialism on National Traditions: Socialist Realism and Postwar Urban Reconstruction,” 30-68.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14682893

 

Maroje Mrduljaš, “Architecture for a Self-Managing Socialism,” in Martino Stierli and Vladimir Kulić, eds., Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2018), 40-55.

 

Further Reading

 

Juliana Maxim, The Socialist Life of Modern Architecture: Bucharest, 1949-1964 (New York: Routledge, 2019), Introduction, 1-11.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15163805?counter=1

 

 

Michał Murowski, “The Palace Complex: A Stalinist Social Condenser in Warsaw,” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 3 (2017): 458-477.

 

Vladimir Kulić, “Building Brotherhood and Unity: Architecture and Federalism in Socialist Yugoslavia,” in Martino Stierli and Vladimir Kulić, eds., Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2018), 26-39.

 

Anna Kats, "In Postwar Yugoslavia, Mass Housing Wasn't Just Ugly Tower Blocks," Jacobin, 11 August 2021

https://jacobin.com/2021/08/yugoslavia-architecture-socialism-angola-soviet-housing

For Reference

 

Florian Urban, Neo-Historical East Berlin: Architecture and Urban Design in the German Democratic Republic 1970-1990 (New York: Routledge, 2009).

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15117435?counter=1

 

Second World Urbanity website

https://www.secondworldurbanity.org/

 

 

6. East Asia / Asia Pacific

 

Jianfei Zhu, Architecture of Modern China: A Historical Critique (New York: Routledge, 2009), Chap. 4, “A Spatial Revolution,” 75-104.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15094341?counter=1

 

Jing Xie and Wu Deng, “Socialist Architecture in Mao’s Model Village: A Case Study of Qinyong Village in Ningbo,” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 2 (2017): 293-327.

 

Cole Roskam, Designing Reform: Architecture in the People’s Republic of China, 1970-1992 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021), Chap. 3, “The Brick, the Block, and the Panel,” 76-95.

 

Further Reading

Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Making of a Political Space (London: Reaktion Books, 2013), Chap. 1, “Tiananmen Square: A Political History of Monuments,” 15-50.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14774407?counter=1

 

Max Hirsch, “East-East Architectural Transfers and the Afterlife of Socialist Postmodernism in Japan,” in Vladimir Kulić, ed., Second World Postmodernisms: Architecture and Society under Late Socialism (New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019), 198-210.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15522208

 

For Reference

 

Edward Denison and Guang Yu Ren, Modernism in China: Architectural Visions and Revolutions, (Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), esp. Chap. 8, “Dissipation, Politics and War,” 293-307.

 

 

7. South Asia / Southeast Asia

 

Anoma Pieris, “Summit Urbanism: The Anticipatory Modernism of Non-Alignment in Sri Lanka,” Harvard Design Magazine 50 (2022): 122-127.

 

Christina Schwenkel, “Socialist Palimpsests in Urban Vietnam,” Architecture Beyond Europe 6 (2014): 13-30.

 

Anoma Pieris, “Institutionalizing Sovereignty: Designs for New Universities,” in Martino Stierli, Anoma Pieris, and Sean Anderson, eds., The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947-1985 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2022), 35-60.

 

Further Reading

 

Rahul Mehrotra, “Housing in a Time of Decolonization: Architects and State Patronage,” in Martino Stierli, Anoma Pieris, and Sean Anderson, eds., The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947-1985 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2022), 122-128.

 

Farhan Karim, Of Greater Dignity than Riches: Austerity and Housing Design in India (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), Chap. 4, “Architecture of the New Villages,” 169-218.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14838524?counter=5

 

 

8. Western Europe and North America

 

Nicholas Bullock, “Building the Socialist Dream or Housing the Socialist State? Design versus the Production of Housing in the 1960s,” in Mark Crinson and Claire Zimmerman, eds., Neo-avant-garde and Postmodern: Postwar Architecture in Britain and Beyond (New Haven / London: Yale Center for British Art / Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2010), 321-342.

 

Nelson Mota, “From House to Home: Social Control and Emancipation in Portuguese Public Housing, 1926-1976,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 78, no. 2 (June 2019): 208-226.

 

Eve Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919-1934 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), Chap. 7, “The Red Hof: Social Democratic Program and Wagner School Practice,” 216-249.

 

Further Reading

 

Miles Glendinning, Mass Housing: Modern Architecture and State Power—A Global History (New York: Bloomsbury, 2021), Chap. 4, “Housing by Authority: Postwar State Interventions in the ‘Anglosphere,’” 92-140; Chap. 9, “The Nordic Countries—Social versus Individual?” 239-267; Chap. 15, “Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa,” 441-478.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16063698

 

Helena Mattsson, Architecture & Retrenchment: Neoliberalization of the Swedish Model across Aesthetics and Space, 1968-1994 (New York: Bloomsbury, 2023), “Corporatism,” 57-96.

 

 

9. Latin America and the Caribbean

 

Mauro F. Guillen, “Modernism without Modernity: The Rise of Modernist Architecture in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, 1890-1940,” Latin American Research Review 39, no. 2 (2004): 6-34.

 

Daniel Talesnik, “Monumentality and Resignification: The UNCTAD III Building in Chile,” in Patricio del Real and Helen Gyger, eds., Latin American Modern Architectures: Ambiguous Territories (New York: Routledge, 2012), 135-152.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15091008

 

Luis E. Carranza and Fernando Luiz Lara, Modern Architecture in Latin America: Art, Technology, and Utopia (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), “1961-B: Brazil,” 218-221.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15274881

 

Hugo Segawa, Architecture of Brazil 1900-1990, trans. Denilson Amade Souza (New York: Springer, 2013), Chap. 7, “The Affirmation of a Hegemony 1945-1970,” 145-186; and Chap. 8, “Episodes of a Great and Modern Brazil 1950-1980,” 187-226.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/10187804

 

Further Reading

 

Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Hugo Palmerola Sagredo, “A Panel’s Tale: The Soviet I-464 System and the Politics of Assemblage,” in Patricio del Real and Helen Gyger, eds., Latin American Modern Architectures: Ambiguous Territories (New York: Routledge, 2012), 153-169.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15091008

 

Richard Williams, “Towards and Aesthetics of Poverty: Architecture and the Neo-Avant-Garde in 1960s Brazil,” in David Hopkins, ed. Neo-Avant-Garde (Amsterdam: Brill, 2006), 197-219.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14135262

 

Miles Glendinning, Mass Housing: Modern Architecture and State Power—A Global History (New York: Bloomsbury, 2021), Chap. 14, “Latin America: Chameleon Continent,” 404-440.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16063698

 

For Reference

 

Barry Bergdoll et al. Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015).

 

 

10. North Africa and the Middle East

 

Łukasz Stanek, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020), Chap. 4 “The World Socialist System Baghdad, 1958-90,” 169-237.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14880267

 

Vladimir Kulić, “Building the Non-Aligned Babel: Babylon Hotel in Baghdad and Mobile Design in the Global Cold War,” Architecture Beyond Europe 6 (2014): 33-53.

 

Mohamed Elshahed, “Egypt Here and There: The Architectures and Images of National Exhibitions and Pavilions, 1926-1964,” Annales islamologiques 50 (2016): 107-143.

https://journals-openedition-org.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/anisl/2138

 

Further Reading

 

Omnia El Shakry, “Cairo as Capital of Socialist Revolution?” in Diane Singerman and Paul Amar, eds., Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2009), 76-98.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/11422732

 

11. Sub-Saharan Africa

 

Luce Beekmans, “The Architecture of Nation-building in Africa as a Development Aid Project: Designing the Capital Cities of Kinshasa (Congo) and Dodoma (Tanzania) in the Post-independence Years,” Progress in Planning 122 (2018): 1-28.

 

Łukasz Stanek, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020), Chap. 2 “A Global Development Path: Accra 1957-66,” 35-96.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14880267

 

Ikem Stanley Okoye, “Architecture, History, and the Debate on Identity in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 61, no. 3 (September 2002): 381-396.

 

For Reference

 

Janet Berry Hess, Art and Architecture in Postcolonial Africa (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2006).

 

Manuel Herz, ed., African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence; Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia (Zürich: Park Books, 2015).

 

 

Part 3: Presentations

 

12. Student presentations

 

 

13. Student presentations