THE EMERGENCE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN IN THE POST-SOVIET AREA. THE INFLUENCE OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
Authors: Vergunovа Natalia 
Published: May 2023

The beginning of industrial design’s formation (“production art”) started in the 20’s years of the last century. As it was the time of ambiguous and controversial phenomena, the further refinement and clarification of theory based on factual data is required. At that time the concept of new relations between art and production was developed, as well as its ideological saturation and functional purpose. One of the key elements in this concept is the phenomenon of constructivism and its impact on the emergence of industrial design in the post-Soviet space. These fundamental and often irreconcilable complexities and contradictions can be traced in numerous articles of theorists: N. Punin, B. Kushner, A. Ghan, M. Ginsburg, N. Chuzhak and others. Each of them has a personal point of view in terms of semantic content of “constructivism”. Their vision of constructivism is essential for reconsidering and refinement of those processes in context of socio-economic and cultural formations of that time. The aesthetics of artistic designing was based on rejection of artistic idea as well as decorative elements and other old forms of art so orientation towards the functional requirements in everyday things was the priority. It was happening due to the fact that old forms of art represented a certain social position of human in a society where the relations of people are often replaced by the relations of things. Another reason for abandoning the artistic forms of past also has to do with the social area of that time when useful things were opposed to pieces of art associated with luxuries that were unacceptable in those difficult and contradictory conditions of life. The theoretical support of “constructivism” term was provided by Oleksiy Ghan and his book “Constructivism” published in Tver in 1922. A. Ghan and his followers understood constructivism not only as “conventional” art, but as “intellectual and material production” associated with science and technology, which is the basis of industrial design of today. Thus, the formation of “production art” in the 20’s of the twentieth century went under the significant influence of constructivism. There are also some several conflicting points regarding the phenomenon of constructivism, namely the primary meaning of this term. Some researchers focus on the formal side of constructivism than on its social content. Meanwhile, there are several substantive levels of perception of constructivism, namely the connection with technical construction; connection with the structural organization of work of art, which also represents a certain construction; connection with construction process, for example, with methods of engineer’s work; connection with the purpose set by organization, that is, the construction of subject environment. This multilevel semantic diversity of “constructivism” term also reflects the wide range of phenomena covered by this concept. It has more than a purely stylistic sense, for example in design and architecture, and cannot be linked to the literal manifestation of an object’s construction. As S. Khan-Magomedov have noted, constructivism, first of all, was understood as a new method of designing. In other words, it is essential for solving problems of shaping, and the process of form creation is fundamental in design, especially in industrial design.