Richard Anderson: Wolkenbügel: El Lissitzky as Architect

After El Lissitzky gained international recognition as a painter and designer, he decided in 1924 to convince the world – and himself – that he was also an architect. He did so with the project for a "horizontal skyscraper," which he gave an ambiguous and difficult-to-translate name: Wolkenbügel (cloud iron). Eight of these buildings, set on slender columns, were to be located at major intersections along Moscow's circular boulevard and integrate the flow of tram lines, the subway, and elevators. This lecture and the book of the same name explore Lissitzky's translation of visual and textual media into spatial concepts and provide a thorough study of preserved drawings and archival artifacts related to his most complex architectural design.
Richard Anderson is a professor of the history and theory of architecture at the University of Edinburgh. He is the editor of Ludwig Hilberseimer's book Metropolisarchitecture and Selected Essays (2012) and the author of the books Russia: Modern Architectures in History (2015) and Wolkenbügel: El Lissitzky as Architect (2024).