ABSTRACT
In the wake of glasnost, the projects of a number of young Russian architects came to light that had been produced, allegedly at least, as a form of rebellion against the authoritarian Soviet State. Two of the better-known proponents of the underground Paper Architecture movement were Alexander Brodsky and Illya Utkin. In the 1980s, Brodsky and Utkin ignored laws forbidding them to practise architecture outside the state system and produced a series of dark etchings of unbuildable fantasy designs. A recurring theme in their work, and indeed in the work of all of the Paper Architects, is the dissolution of scale. This chapter traces the origins of their fascination with sub-verting scale to the strategies employed in the state architecture of Stalin and Brezhnev. Drawing on the philosophy of Jacques Rancière, this chapter investigates the use of scale in two closely related projects by Brodsky and Utkin: ‘Columbarium Architecture’ (1984) and ‘Columbarium Habitabile’ (1986). Finally, the chapter offers some notes about the problems of the dissolution of scale as a political tactic.
