Behind the Iron Curtain

The prominent architect Felix Novikov was born in 1927, when the famous Constructivist Konstantin Melnikov was at the peak of his career. Novikov tells the dramatic story of Soviet architecture, portraying the conditions he worked in and how he collaborated with the government and other participants during the creative process. He further explains how Soviet design and planning institutes were organized with reference to the Union of the Architects of the USSR and describes the creative ideals of his generation of architects, who are today identified as Soviet Modernists. As a time witness, his memories cannot be recounted in their whole complexity by historians. Novikov also describes some of the conditions that affected his own creative fate and that of others. This book reflects the characteristics of Soviet life and its connections to architects' professional activity. Novikov's confessions are more than that of an architect; they give a testimony to daily life in the Soviet Union from Stalin to glasnost.