#Ilya Utkin

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ALEXANDER BRODSKY (1955) & ILYA UTKIN (1955) // 1987/1990

Constrained by the Limitations of Soviet-Era Architecture, the two artists imagined Fantastical Structures on Paper.

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Alexander Brodsky y Ilya Utkin

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Book 524

Brodsky & Utkin: The Complete Works

Lois Nesbitt

Princeton Architectural Press 2003

Alexander Brodsky (b. 1955) and Ilya Utkin (b. 1955) are Russian architects, who worked along side each other through the Soviet regime and the dawn of Glasnost, as part of a loosely organized group known as paper architects—a vein of visionary architecture that proposes metaphorical and fantastical designs. Usually entering their work into international competitions, their work was a response to the state sanctioned architecture that consisted of standardised and often poorly constructed buildings in Soviet Russia. Borrowing from architectural styles throughout history with ideas that seem more appropriate in a Borges short story, the two came up with some incredible designs (e.g. Museum of Disappearing Buildings, Columbarium Habitabile, Crystal Palace, Electronic Donjon, Villa Claustrophobia, etc.) that together feel like a walk through a city as drawn by Edward Gorey.

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Villa claustrophobia, Alexander Brodsky & İlya Utkin

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Prorok. Istoriya Aleksandra Pushkina

Prorok. Istoriya Aleksandra Pushkina (2025) #FelixUmarov #YuraBorisov #PaulinaAndreeva #AnyaChipovskaya #SergeyGilev #IlyaLyubimov Mehr auf:

Jahr: 2025 (Februar) / Пророк. История Александра Пушкина Genre: Biografie / Drama Regie: Felix Umarov Hauptrollen: Yura Borisov, Paulina Andreeva, Anya Chipovskaya, Sergey Gilev, Ilya Lyubimov, Evgeniy Shvarts, Roman Vasiliev, Kai Aleks Getts, Ivan Zlobin, Yuriy Utkin, Lyudmila Grigorash, Ilya Vinogorskiy, Kirill Kovbas, Nikita Krahmalev, Pavel Kuzmin, Vadim Pirozhenko … Filmbeschreibung:…

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Alexander Brodsky - Ilya Utkin

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dwelling house of winnie the pooh in a big modern city, 1983  - alexander brodsky and ilya utkin

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Brodski y Utkin

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Dwelling House of Winnie The Pooh In A Big Modern City, 1983  - Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin 

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Villa Nautilus, 1990

[moma-prints]

A Glass Tower, No. 1, Alexander Brodsky, Ilya Utkin, 1984, printed 1990, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

Gift of Dorothy Blau Size: plate: 30 11/16 × 22 3/16" (78 × 56.3 cm); sheet: 42 1/2 × 30 11/16" (108 × 78 cm) Medium: Etching

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/63606

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Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin - Paper Architecture

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“Villa Nautilus” (1990)

Alienation through Resistance

Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin

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Cancelled 6/21/90

Alexander Brodsky

Ilya Utkin

Cancelled 6/21/90 by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin, is the new publication of their defaced iconic works. Produced in between 1979 and 1989, the 29 etchings, a series of visionary architectural proposals submitted to national and international competitions in opposition to the Soviet architecture of the time, are the founding artworks of the Russian architectural movement “Paper Architecture”. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet system, the engraved copper plates travelled to USA for the production of a limited commercial edition of the works, which requested for the original printing plates to be destroyed. From Autumn 1989 to Spring 1990, from Communism to Capitalism, the mutilated etchings bare the mark of that transition. In Cancelled 6/21/90, published by l’Esprit de l’Escalier, the deep diagonal trench is the cancellation of the artwork as much as the creation of a new one. [publisher’s note]

The scale of it is around a1 really massive! this is just a small version, but in these massive etchings they create scenes and so much ambition- one of my favourites is the long dinner table on top of a skyscraper with the fuming city below

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Alexander Brodsky

Born in 1955 in Russia, Moscow. Architect, sculptor. Known from ‘paper architecture’ - visionary architecture, that exist only on the paper. It presents utopian ideas produced by the imagination. These architectural drawings on paper allow insight of the unusual perception of the worlds that are impossible to visit everyday, except through the visual dramatization of the designed, imaginative environment. 

Paper Architects operating in Russia in the 1980s, whose work centred around a refusal to take part in state sponsored architectural production of low-quality, standardised buildings.

‘Brodsky and Utkin’s projects do reflect the heinous results of a Soviet Union’s spectacularly inept urban planning. They diagnose the modern city as a sick, possibly dying organism. Their mission is to save it via imaginative transofrmation. A core concern is the effect of cities on the human psyche: What is it like to live in such environments? How might they be improved? Does our built enviornment mirror our impoverished souls, or is it the cause of our contemporary malaise?’ 

Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin, “Hill with a Hole” (1987/90)

Scholarship has shown that the whimsical and constructivist etchings (kwasoryt) of Brodsky and Utkin translate mere illustrations into narratives through the introduction of human characters. These were narratives that voiced man's alienation within the urban world and provided a commentary on the loss of Moscows historical architectural heritage.

Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin, “Villa Nautilus” (1990). It was a competition, where Tadao Andao was in jury. It is about resistence to modern life. Double dwelling house. Two equal spaces - outside on the top or in the basement. The guys who lives there resist to live in the middle of the cars. The whole day he is resisting. 

Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin, ‘’Island of Stability’’. Sculpture museum, symbol of stability. In the modern city, where everything is changing to fast. The stones never change the location.

Brodsky & Utkin ‘Glass Tower’ 

‘Each individual is invited to climb the tower’s staircase; once inside the glass room at the top his or her form is magnified hundreds of times, filling the cylindrical tower like an enormous holograph visible across the rooftops of the city. A diagram discreetly inserted at the bottom of the page compares the tower with the pyramids: in ancient civilizations the tiny corpse of the pharaoh was hidden within a windowless stone tomb; modern man dreams rather of exhibiting himself on a colossal scale.’

His buildings have been applauded for their tendency to incorporate traditional elements of Soviet architecture, such as form, material and techniques, into modern and unique structures. Whilst his earlier etchings and installations are an obvious reaction against the dehumanising nature of Soviet approved architecture and the lack of care for traditions, the anxiety and chaos of these works are not apparent in his built projects.

A. BRODSKY, SCHIZZO PER PROGETTO WINZAVOD, MOSCOW, 2007

A. BRODSKY, COMA, GUELMAN GALLERY, MOSCOW, 2000

The model presents the city of Venice, sinking in the oil. Brodsky imagined it as a city being on the surgery table being treated by the bad people.

A. BRODSKY, FABRIKA, UNFIRED CLAY, 77X77X20CM, 2013. Unfired clay is very fregile but remain the favourite material of Alexander Brodsky. 

A. BRODSKY, ICE BAR, KLAZMINSKOYE RESERVOIR RESORT, MOSCOW REGION, 2002

Although aesthetically very different, his reuse of old windows, bits of timber and glass to make new structures is similar to the approach taken by the Dutch practice, 2012 Architecten, of recycling materials without reprocessing.

Restaurant near Moscov. It was built without any drawing. Brodsky built only a model, that client accepted and wanted to start the construction as quickly as possible. Brodsky was sitting on the chair and giving commands. The idea was to bring the columns not vertically, but in 95°, like the trees around. 

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Restaurant Atrium in Moscow features false windows, columns that stop short of the ceiling, and faux-marbre surfaces made of plaster of paris (gips modelarski).  (...) They are interested in permanent versus throwaway materials.