The Bauhuas in Ural
When we start talking about the Bauhaus, one of the most influential art school of the 20th century appears in our mind. Until the present day, the Bauhaus is the synonym of utopian place for Avant-garde artists during radical political changes. Today, the Bauhaus is one of the most inspirational educational establishment in the fields of architecture, art, and design. The Bauhaus was a unique school, in which the formation of idealistic principles was influenced by such areas as expressionism, constructivism, as well as the ideas of the British Arts and Crafts Movement. The Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius as a school of arts in Weimar in 1919. Bauhaus was a combination of crafts and arts, and it was a new concept opposed to the traditional academic studying process. The uniqueness of the school was the collaboration of the professional skills, which were studied by masters - craftsmen, and aesthetic inspiration emanating from artists. The Bauhaus existed from 1919 to 1933, which, on the one hand, was not so long, but on the other hand, it had a very intense and dynamic life, leaving behind a world architectural and social heritage. After closing the Bauhaus, some of its members left Germany and emigrated; others continued to work successfully in Germany. Not so well known information, that it was a relationship between the Bauhaus and the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, which determined the formation of the Soviet architecture at the time of industrialisation. According to the agreement in 1930, German architect and town planner from Frankfurt am Main, Ernst May, formed his group of architects and highly qualified specialists from Germany and went to the Soviet Union to build new cities and villages. It was not by chance that Ernst May was chosen as the engineering chief of the project of construction social architecture. He had already successfully experienced urban design as a main architect of Frankfurt am Main. Members of May’s group were specialists from Bauhaus, including Fred Forbat and Johannes Niggemann, Dutch architect Mart Stam and his colleague from the magazine ABC Contributions on Building, Hans Schmidt, and also the first female architect in Austria, Margarete Schutte Lihotzky, who designed the Frankfurt kitchen. The primary goal for May’s group was to share their experience and learn Soviet architect in the accelerated method of project development. Ernst May and his team were responsible for the important construction projects of housing developments for Kuznetsk, Prokopievsk, Nizhnii Tagil, Orsk, Leninakan, Makaevka, Shcheglovsk, Chibinogorsk, and Magnitogorsk, which were the most important of May’s commissions. Ernst May and his team used the same methods that were used to construct a new social area in Frankfurt for planning and creating the Magnitogorsk. But the classification of the Soviet working force was practically absent. Runaway peasants, ex-prisoners, and children formed the working brigades. The socialist city (Sotsgorod) in Magnitigorsk is a unique architectural complex in the left-bank part of the district, a monument to socialist town planning. It was first block that was biult in Magnitigorsk. It located between the streets of Mayakovsky, Kirov, Tchaikovsky and other Pushkin. Its feature is in a grouping of buildings around public centers - gardens. Nowdays the first Socgorodok in Magnitogorsk, the biggest problem is the dilapidated state of communications, roofs, and facades. Of course, during the last years, the houses were partially repaired within the framework because of the federal support program, but the situation has not changed: you can still see the abandoned, destroying buildings.