Establishing a Soviet Design System

In response to Khrushchev and Nixon’s “kitchen debates,” in 1962 the Soviet government established VNIITE, the National Institute for Scientific Research in Technical Esthetics (technical esthetics was a term used in the Soviet Union as an official alternative to the Western word “design”). Supported by “daughter” organizations in large industrial cities and design bureaus at many large factories, the fundamental goal of VNIITE was to develop a comprehensive scientific theory of design to serve the Soviet citizen. Its work was sustained by research and statistical analysis and was shared through conferences, design journals, and exhibitions that publicly demonstrated the country’s commitment to and success in building socialism.

These developments and publications were particularly important for the new generation of nonconformist artists, as they provided a bridge to the legacy of the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s. Initially embraced by the new Soviet regime as an essential part of building a new society, many avant-garde artists like Kazimir Malevich and Alexander Rodchenko were soon deemed too radical. Forbidden by the government, their names were forgotten for decades until they began to reemerge as inspiration for postwar design. The first publications about artists such as Rodchenko, Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, Lyubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova, and others appeared in the 1960s in design journals.

Many nonconformist artists were inspired by the avant-garde’s futuristic works to create design-related projects. Prompted by achievements of the space program, the cosmos became another important source of inspiration, one that greatly influenced both art and design.

Photo McKay Imaging

It was not until 1952 that the U.S.S.R. started to mass-produce vacuum cleaners. One of the earliest designs was based on an Electrolux model from the 1930s. The Chaika vacuum cleaner has a more contemporary design that resembles the shape of a rocket. It was inspired by a design from the Dutch brand Erres. Later Chaika models featured Soviet designs and high quality production. The vacuum cleaners were manufactured in Moscow at the Kommunar Machine-Building Factory, which specialized in producing aeronautical equipment and weaponry.

A great necessity for new furniture arose in the 1960s in connection with the beginning of mass housing construction all over the Soviet Union. To coordinate the design work in 1962, the All-Union Design, Engineering, and Technological Institute of Furniture was established. The Institute united the entire furniture industry, and determined the standards for products going into production. Zoya Vattel worked at the Institute and created furniture both for exhibitions and for mass production in the 1970s and ‘80s. Vattel's specialization was the design of custom-made furniture for the Communist party workers and the Soviet elite, including offices in the Kremlin. This collapsible chair was made of solid wood by Vattel for display at a specialized exhibition of the Furniture Institute in 1982. It was intended for mass production in various versions.

Photo Peter Jacobs

After having been officially banned for decades, in the 1960s, works by Russian avant-garde artists and designers from the 1920s began appearing in Soviet design periodicals, such as Tekhnicheskaya Estetika [Technical Aesthetics] and Dekorativnoe Iskusstvo [Decorative Arts]. At the same time, many of the theories and practices advocated by the Russian avant-garde were being revived in the experiments of Soviet nonconformist artists. For example, Eduard Shteinberg and Mikhail Chernyshev, whose works are represented in this room, were among the artists who were interested in a renewal of the ideology of Suprematism, an art movement founded by Kazimir Malevich in 1915 and focused on basic geometric forms.

Technical Aesthetics magazine was published by VNIITE from 1964 to 1992. It was the only monthly publication in the U.S.S.R. dedicated entirely to design theory and practice. The term “technical aesthetics” was used to denote design theory, and its use reflects the conceptual disposition toward this profession in the Soviet Union. Established in 1962, the Soviet design institute was dedicated to improving the quality of Soviet products through their design. This was perceived as necessary in order to counteract the reputation of inferiority attributed to Soviet-manufactured goods in comparison to their Western counterparts.

Photo Peter Jacobs

In a move that echoes the work of artist Marcel Duchamp, Mikhail Chernyshev displays a found object, in this case, a fragment of Soviet wallpaper, as a readymade work of art. Working at the intersection of Pop Art and geometric abstraction, Chernyshev often incorporated artifacts of material culture into his art. Along the bottom border, the wallpaper is inscribed with the name of the wallpaper factory. Such minutiae was a ubiquitous part of the average domestic environment, seemingly so familiar and ordinary as to appear unremarkable. As an object of Soviet design, the wallpaper swatch suggests through its unadorned realism that life itself can be art.

Photo Peter Jacobs

A major breakthrough of unofficial Russian art out from the “underground” was made by Dvizhenie [Movement], a group of artists who worked together in Moscow in the mid- to late 1960s and shared interest in kinetic objects and environments. Their practice was rooted in the principles of movement, symmetry, and synthesis. The group included Galina Bitt, Francisco Infante-Arana, Viacheslav Koleichuk, Lev Nussberg, and Natalia Prokuratova, among others. Because of their alignment with the features of the Soviet culture of that time, especially faith in the strength of scientific and technological progress, Dvizhenie [Movement] managed to secure several large state orders for technically complex designs. Their projects included illuminating the Kremlin, decorating Leningrad for the 50th anniversary of the Revolution, and creating design for several industrial exhibitions, including "Electronics-72" in Moscow’s Sokolniki Park.

Photo Jack Abraham

Lev Nussberg was the organizer of Dvizhenie [Movement] group and in 1966 formulated the Manifesto of Russian Kinetic Artists. He considered kinetic art as the highest expression of the human spirit and an instrument of the perfect harmony of man with the world and the universe. He said, “Art must follow the principle: in the endless chaos of this world to create a kind of ‘refuge’ for harmony and balance.” The photocollage featured here, a collaboration with Natalia Prokuratova, depicts a hybrid construction, combining documentary photographs of real-life contemporary figures within a sketch of a fantastical, timeless crystalline space.

Artist Konstantin Sobakin, the designer of this Sputnik (meaning “satellite”) electric samovar, was inspired by the first flights of Soviet astronauts into space. A samovar is a traditional Russian teapot used for heating hot water for tea, and its name means “self-heating.” Sobakin created his electric samovar using metal and plastic materials as trim. The samovar resembled the U.S.S.R.’s first artificial earth satellite of the same name, and has a round shape with three conical legs resembling antennas. Instead of handles attached to the samovar, the main container is surrounded by a separate ring, which symbolizes the orbit of the earth. The Sputnik samovar was often presented to foreign guests and Soviet astronauts as souvenirs.

The Spidola radio was named after a beautiful witch from the Latvian epic poem Lāčplēsis by poet Andrejs Pumpurs. It resembles a fashionable clutch handbag with its relatively small size, slightly narrowed trapezoid shape, and stylish handle. The Spidola could receive five shortwave transmission frequencies, which made it possible to listen to radio stations forbidden in the U.S.S.R. This was one of the reasons for its popularity.

In the second half of the 1980s, industrial designers moved to reduce the size of electronic equipment. Portable cassette players began to appear in response to consumer demand. The designers were faced with the task of creating a tape recorder for drivers and tourists, so it had to be sturdy and small in size in order to fit in a backpack or mount on the handlebars of a bicycle. The Saigak’s separate detachable headphones were foldable, with a special mount resembling a clothespin, and could be securely stowed in a special compartment with the device’s case. For unknown reasons, the project was not implemented and remained at the prototype stage.

Engaged in geometric and kinetic art in the early 1960s, Francisco Infante-Arana tried to extrapolate his ideas to the visible world and beyond, to the cosmos. He was fascinated with the eternity and divine mystery of nature, seeing it in synergy with the world of technology. In his Project of the Reconstruction of the Starry Sky, the artist literally redesigns the sky by organizing stars in geometric systems. The concept does not claim to be realistic; what is important here is the idea of reconstructing the universe to adhere to known forms from art and design.

This camera with a detachable handle in the shape of a gun was produced between 1965 and 1982. Photosniper was a trade name of the camera guns produced by the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Factory. This camera featured a telephoto lens and could take close-up photographs of distant objects. It also featured a grip stock and shoulder stock. The first prototype models of the camera were used by the Soviet Union during World War II for gathering intelligence, but the camera later became popular with photojournalists and nature photographers.

Molniya was the brand name of a mechanical clock produced from 1947 to 2007 by the Molniya Clock Factory in Chelyabinsk. The Soviet Defence Ministry was initially the main contractor of products from the Molniya Factory, which also produced the AChS-1M aeronautical watch, timepieces for tanks, submarines and space vehicles.

Between 1956 and 1959 a new type of social housing appeared in Moscow—five-story houses with small apartments. Since the rooms had to serve several purposes (for example, an office during the day and a bedroom at night), compact and multifunctional furniture was created for them: sliding dining tables, armchairs and sofa beds, small kitchen sets, and other interior items.

For the first time in the U.S.S.R., in 1958 an exhibition of furniture (the First All-Union Competition for the Best Furniture) was held directly in the apartments of newly-built residential buildings in the Moscow neighborhood Novye Cheryomushki (New Cherry Town). The furniture sets designed by Yuri Sluchevsky received a special prize. By 1959, the exhibition was visited by more than 40,000 people, including delegates to the World Congress of the International Union of Architects, who praised the project.