Lessons from the Social Condensers: 101 Soviet Workers' Clubs and Spaces for Mass Assembly
11 – 19 May 2023
Book launch and exhibition opening: 10 May, 6pm
Roundtable with Anna Bokov, Adam Caruso, Florian Dombois, Sonja Hildebrand, Luca Lanini, Sol Pérez Martínez and Philip Ursprung
Coined by Soviet architects in the 1920s, the term “social condenser” came to signify the agency of architecture not only in shaping individual behaviors but also in reforming society at large. The buildings and projects designed to conduct and condense a host of collective activities are some of the earliest radical architectural experiments of the modern movement. Despite their indisputable impact on the canonized history of modernism, there has been little insight into this considerable body of architectural work.
The 101 case studies presented reflect the wide reach of early Soviet social condensers, from agitation installations to workers’ clubs, palaces of culture, and mass action theaters. Today these projects serve as precedents for how architecture can activate social collaboration and human interaction but also as a cautionary tale of utilizing architecture as an instrument of social control. Once considered revolutionary, these spatial experiments have informed numerous innovative design practices and have been assimilated into mainstream culture, from workplaces to institutional settings and public spaces.
This exhibition presents material from Anna Bokov’s newly published book with gta Verlag. It deploys the medium of a stengazeta (wall newspaper), which references a popular early Soviet mass media format used to disseminate information at the workers’ clubs and palaces of culture. The stengazeta was not only the chief means of communication with proletarian collectives through printed matter but was often itself a product of their collective labor. By reengaging this medium, the exhibition seeks to promote social condensing by bringing the public together and in conversation with the material on the wall. Most importantly, it opens the space for civil dialogue, scholarly critique, and creative subversion.
The potential for architecture to shape society and the relevance of social condensers for today and tomorrow will be discussed in a roundtable at the exhibition opening.
The exhibition is curated by Anna Bokov in collaboration with gta exhibitions.
Exhibition design by Teo Schifferli.
The project is a collaboration between gta exhibitions and gta Verlag.
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