Kharkiv International Competition - the Apogee of the Soviet Architectural Avant-Garde

Abstract

One of the sides of a large study dedicated to the forgotten international competition of 1930 for the Project of the State Ukrainian Theater of Mass Musical Action in Kharkiv is touched upon in this article. Its purpose is the reconstruction of the competition events, identifying the features of the process of their organization. The competition attracted a record number of foreign contestants not only from many European countries, but also from other continents (from the USA and Japan). Why did it generate such widespread interest? Which famous architects took part in it? Who evaluated the projects and according to what criteria were the awards distributed? The author of this article is looking for answers to these questions. The problems of the research are due to the fact that the originals of the competition projects have not survived, and their photocopies and preparatory sketches are scattered in the archives of many countries. Information about the competition and its contestants is scarce and is documented in different languages: Ukrainian, German, French, Russian, Japanese, English, Croatian, Swedish. Only painstaking gathering, meaningful and comparative analysis of textual and graphical information obtained during the study, allows the author to reproduce the course of the competition, to reveal its significance for the development of architecture in Ukraine and for the world Modern Movement. The article analyses the methods that ensured a high level of organization of the competition and an open, unbiased assessment of its results. The distribution of prizes and the authors of the winning projects are also listed. The Kharkiv competition took place at a crucial period for the Soviet avant-garde: 1930-1931 were the last years of its heyday, after which it was banned and persecuted for many years. That is why it is so important to collect these lost puzzles of architectural history.