>sotsgorod/ brigade ernst may/ cities and plans

The international ÔBrigada MayaÕ included specialists for architecture, urban design, public parks, transport, hospitals, schools etceteras. With Ernst May as their super manager, modern architects like Mart Stam, Hans Schmidt and Magarethe Schutte-Lihotzky worked for the Standardgor Project, a trust for standardised industrial cities.

An important project was the design of the sister-cities Magnitogorsk in the Urals that was rich with ore, and Novo Kuznetsk in Siberia with an abundance of coal. The working method was to make long journeys by train to study the terrain and to develop the plans in Moscow. Drawings and statistics were then sent to the building sites. Architectural designs were standardised, and used on many locations.

Even the city-plans were recycled again and again for more efficiency. But the building process was slow, the quality low and often the plans were sabotaged by the Soviet bureaucracy. In 1933 the Standardgor Project was abolished and the specialists were relocated to the Gorstroy Project. May left the Soviet Union out of frustration and the brigade fell apart.

Magnitogorsk
Novo Kuznetsk

print: "control p"