The New Citysmall

Imagining the new socialist city, this collection ranges from children’s books about cities of the future and studies of Garden Cities, to Taylorist manuals for Soviet construction workers, and Constructivist plans for newly-built cities, such as Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine). Theoretical texts on Constructivism and Neoclassicism are presented alongside technical manuals on earthen construction, fire safety, wood-beam construction, and prefabricated housing, with a special focus on American architectural developments from a Soviet perspective. The collection includes leading periodicals on urban planning, industrial construction, and the architecture of Moscow and Leningrad. They capture the changes in Soviet architecture in the 1920s–1950s and showcase plans for buildings that were projected but never built, existing only on the pages of these publications.