SPACE

Two new methods of architectural propaedeutics based on Ladovsky’s psychoanalytic method and I. Golosov’s theory of building architectural organisms were formed with the appearance of two innovative centers – Obmas and the workshop of Golosov and Melnikov at the faculty of architecture. In 1922-1923 Ladovsky’s method was used as a basis for both architectural propaedeutics and the propaedeutic discipline Space.

Practical necessity forced Ladovsky to switch to the allocation of methods of building a three-dimensional composition, based not on the study of the classics, but on the study of the basic elements of architecture.

“As can be seen from the assignment, the main work in it is to identify for the viewer the geometric qualities of the parallelepiped. But what does it mean to reveal the geometric image? Will we see any other form in a mathematically correct parallelepiped – a ball, a cone, a cylinder, etc. No, we won’t see a ball, a cylinder, etc., but we also won’t see a parallelepiped with the geometrical features that were given in the assignment…
Is it possible to let the architect, building the form, not know how it will be perceived by the viewer? Such an assumption would mean a complete lack of principle and the impossibility of any kind of mastery in the field of geometric expressiveness. It is necessary to establish the position that the architectural-geometric side of the material form is such a development, in which the viewer really sees its geometric characteristics to the extent necessary for the case”.

N. Ladovsky

Ladovsky consistently worked with students on one “architectural element” after another, first on abstract tasks, and then immediately on specific ones – the so-called production ones. Ladovsky’s method led to the rapid generation of professional techniques and means of new architecture.  

Based on VKHUTEMAS by S.O. Khan-Magomedov,
book 1, chapter Working groups of INHUK and objective method, P. 36–37