Mark Meerovich’s System-Based Methodological Approach to the History of Architecture and Town-Planning

• Main Author: Elena Bagina
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences 2019-06-01
• Series: Проект Байкал
• Subjects: Mark Meerovich; system-based methodological approach to the issues of history of architecture and town-planning; garden city; “socialist cities”; housing legislation; unknown projects
• Online Access: http://projectbaikal.com/index.php/pb/article/view/1466

Mark Meerovich proposed a model of Soviet history of architecture and town-planning based on the principles of Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky’s activity theory. Georgy Petrovich’s students used these principles as a baseline for articulation of the issue and handling of the situation. That is why the analysis of the Soviet housing legislation, which defines the character of solutions and the activity on different levels, enabled Mark Meerovich to see architectural and town-planning problems from another point of view. He formulated a holistic concept of Soviet principles of settlement, explained the reason of the failure of the idea of the garden city in the USSR and showed the principles of arrangement of “socialist cities”, described the phenomena of “labour and household teams” and communal housing, and demonstrated the Soviet mechanisms of people management. Meerovich introduced for scientific use a lot of unknown materials concerning the activity of prominent Soviet and foreign architects of Stalin’s era.