We promised to tell you about the exhibition that brought us to Winzavod’s opening night. In the intimate space of PiranesiLAB, located right by the main entrance to the cultural cluster, works by Yuri Avvakumov are on display: architectural utopias printed over pages from the Soviet newspapers Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya. Behind these works lies an entire movement of the 1980s known as "paper architecture."
The idea was simple: architecture free from regulations and client demands—pure creativity in its most literal form.
By the late 1970s, young Soviet architects found themselves in a reality where nearly all construction was reduced to standardized panel housing projects. Designing something unconventional was considered almost inappropriate. Yet the great legacy of the avant-garde remained: Tatlin, Lissitzky, and Leonidov. The gap between what architects could dream of and what they were allowed to build felt unbearable.
The solution was found on paper. Alexander Brodsky, Ilya Utkin, Yuri Avvakumov, Mikhail Belov, and other architects began creating utopian and provocative projects that existed solely as ideas and drawings, free from engineering, economic, and functional constraints.
These works were submitted to international competitions, where they unexpectedly found an appreciative audience. In 1982, Brodsky and Utkin’s project Crystal Palace won first prize at a competition in Tokyo. Soviet paper architecture soon became an international phenomenon.
Avvakumov played a key role in the movement not only as an author but also as a curator. He assembled archives, organized exhibitions, and united scattered participants into a coherent movement. His exhibition Temporary Monumentsreinterprets Tatlin, Lissitzky, and Mukhina, connecting the avant-garde with the everyday reality of the late Soviet period. The silkscreens are printed on newspapers from the era of glasnost, adding another layer of historical context.
It is symbolic that the exhibition is held at PiranesiLAB. The fantastical engravings of Giovanni Piranesi were among the movement’s main inspirations, demonstrating that architecture could exist as an artistic statement rather than merely a building.
The paper architecture movement lasted for about a decade. With the collapse of the Soviet Union came the opportunity to build for real, and most of the "paper architects" moved into professional practice. The era ended, but its influence did not. Works by Brodsky and Utkin are now held in the collection of Tate Modern, while Yuri Avvakumov continues both exhibiting and lecturing (we last saw him speaking at ARCH Moscow).
The exhibition runs through July 4. Admission is free.