A special issue of The Journal of Architecture - entitled The Social Condenser: A Century of Revolution Through Architecture, 1917-2017 - edited by Michał Murawski and Jane Rendell (UCL Bartlett School of Architecture), has been published.
The special issue is devoted to the Social Condenser: a concept first formulated by Soviet Constructivist architects in the 1920s to crystallise the revolutionary content and potential of architecture and planning; and one which has exerted a powerful impact on architectural theory and practice for the past hundred years.
The special issue features an Introduction by Michał Murawski, as well as his article on the Palace of Culture and Science a Stalin-era Social Condenser in Warsaw. The issue also features contributions by Victory Buchli (UCL Anthropology), Anya Bokov (Harvard GSD), Andrew Willimott (Reading), Nick Beech (Queen Mary History), Owen Hatherley, Andrea Phillips, Jane Rendell and Jonathan Charley; as well as seven 1920s texts by Constructivist architects, including Moisei Ginzburg and Ivan Leonidov, published in English for the first time; and an interview with architects Alexey Ginzburg and Natalya Shilova.
The full journal issue is available here (please email m.murawski@qmul.ac.uk if you cannot access the content):
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2017.1322815
The launch event will be held on June 14th at 7pm at the Calvert 22 Foundation in London. Register here:
http://calvert22.org/events/a-century-of-revolution-in-architecture-and-urbanism-19172017