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

In Memory of My Friend

Authors

  • Elena Bagina Ural Federal University named after B. N. Yeltsin

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/projectbaikal.60.1466

Keywords:

Mark Meerovich; system-based methodological approach to the issues of history of architecture and town-planning; garden city; “socialist cities”; housing legislation; unknown projects

Abstract

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.

How to Cite

Bagina, E. (2019). Mark Meerovich’s System-Based Methodological Approach to the History of Architecture and Town-Planning: In Memory of My Friend. Project Baikal, 16(60), 18–22. https://doi.org/10.7480/projectbaikal.60.1466

Published

2019-06-16

Issue

No. 60 (2019): in good health

Section

Items about an individual

References

Meerovich, M. G. (2008a). Nakazanie zhilishchem: zhilishchnaya politika v SSSR kak sredstvo upravleniya lyudmi: 1917-1937. Moscow: ROSSPEN; “B. N. Yeltsin Presidential Center” Foundation.

Meerovich, M. G. (2008b). Rozhdenie i smert’ goroda-sada: gradostroitenaya politika v SSSR 1917-1926 gg. (Ot idei poseleniya-sada k sovetskomu rabochemu poselku [The Birth and death of the garden city: the town-planning policy in the USSR in 1917-1926 (from the idea of the garden settlement to the Soviet workers’ settlement)]. Irkutsk, Izd-vo IrGTU.

Meerovich, M. G. (2008c). Rozhdenie sotsgoroda. Gradostroitelnaya politika v SSSR 1926-1932 gg. (Kontseptsiya sotsiolisticheskogo rasseleniya – formirovanie naselennykh mest novogo tipa) [The birth of the socialist city. Town-planning policy in the USSR in 1926-1932 (The concept of the socialist settlement as formation of new-type settlements)]. Irkutsk, Izd-vo IrGTU.

Meerovich, M. G. (2018). Gradostroitelnaya politika SSSR 1917-1929. From a garden city to a departmental workers’ settlement]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie.

Rappaport, A. G. (2015). Kvadratura kruzhka [Quadrature of the Circle]. Retrieved from http://papardes.blogspot.com/