Experimental Soviet taxi, 1964 (by artists and constructors Y. Dolmatovsky, A. Olshanetsky, A. Chernyaev).
Experimental Soviet taxi, 1964 (by artists and constructors Y. Dolmatovsky, A. Olshanetsky, A. Chernyaev). © Archives of Moscow Design Museum

The first London Design Biennale, to be held Sept. 7–27 at Somerset House, will be devoted to industrial design and new technologies. Russia will be represented by an exhibition from the Moscow Design Museum called “Discovering Utopia: Lost Archives of Soviet Design." The theme of the biennale is 'utopia,' in honor of the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia.

On the eve of the event, RBTH spoke to the head of the Moscow Design Museum, Alexandra Sankova.

RBTH: Then why did you choose Soviet design and not some other historical period?

A.S.: Many people abroad think that Russia first had avant-garde art, and then a blank period, just copying of Western designs, and that right after the 1990s it was flooded by Western brands. We wanted to show that there was Soviet design, even a whole system of design.

In the West at that time, there was market competition and consumerism, with new car models and other goods released one after another. We had a planned economy, regulated by the state. Basically, there were just three car styles, three types of milk cartons and six kinds of telephone sets. There was a constant shortage of consumer goods, with people waiting in line for hours to buy something. That is why our design followed a completely different path of development. Nobody knew our designers, while in the West, designers were stars, like actors.

Furthermore, the theme of the London biennale is 'utopia.' So we wanted to present the utopian side of Soviet design – just look at how many astonishing futuristic projects came out of the All-Union Research Institute of Technical Aesthetics (VNIITE). And those designs were never produced on a large scale because the country simply did not have enough industrial capacity to do it.

RBTH: Does the exhibition feature any projects that could be implemented today?

A.S.: With some modifications and additions, I think all these projects could be put to use. VNIITE had a Theory and History Department as well as an Ergonomics Department [studying how work environments could be improved to optimize productivity]. All the design principles were thoroughly developed not only from the aesthetic and functional points of view, but also from the point of view of process optimization, of increasing productivity.

The theoretical work from those departments could inform the development of present-day projects. They devised many fundamental things that should at least form part of the training of future designers.

We are convinced that the time has come to remember the unique experience of VNIITE, its projects and designs that were ahead of their time. Soviet design has its own identity and its own history, which we would like to show to others. I believe that the VNIITE ‘school’ deserves to have a place in the history of world design. 

The exhibition ‘Discovering Utopia’ will introduce visitors of the Biennale to the never-before-seen records of Soviet design. Reconstructing an information storage system used in post-war Soviet scientific research institutes the exhibition will show unique archives of 1960-1980’s designs from the Museum’s collection. The exhibition is conceived as a single installation featuring light boxes with digitized images of projector slides capturing the realized and unrealized design projects by Soviet designers, shots of exhibitions and conferences held by VNIITE, day-to-day activities in a Soviet design studio. 
 
The project will feature a documentary short by director Andrey Silvestrov shot especially for the exhibition. The film includes interviews with Russian designers, design historians, and designers from leading Soviet manufacturers. The interviewees tell about establishing a national centralized design system in the USSR, the work of the All-Union Research Institute of Technical Aesthetics (VNIITE), and their own projects. The curator, Alexandra Sankova, believes it is important to introduce visitors not only to objects of Soviet design, but also to the people who created them. The film adds an element of a ‘personal presence’ to the exhibition and creates an atmosphere of a Soviet design bureau.
 
In the past, Russian history has been known to take sharp and sudden turns. The thing that remained the same was the designers’ aspiration to create the material culture of their age. Soviet designers were dreamers, creating an ideal material environment for the modern man. Daring projects, many ahead of their time and beyond the capabilities of modern industry were in essence utopian – perfect and not possible to manufacture. (from the exhibition website)