Red Flag Textile Factory
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The Red Flag Textile Factory (Russian: Трикотажная фабрика «Красное Знамя»; Trikotazhnaya fabrika "Krasnoye Znamya") in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) was designed by Erich Mendelsohn in 1925-6.
Mendelsohn was the first foreign architect in 1925 to be asked to design in the USSR, on the basis of his dynamic, futuristic Expressionist architecture. A model was made of a large factory, similar though more functionalist in appearance to his earlier Luckenwalde hat factory. Mendelsohn made several trips to the USSR during its construction. He was inspired by the country's Constructivist architecture, and wrote a study entitled Russland-Europa-Amerika. However, the primitive construction techniques of the time were insufficent to realise the structure in full, and liberties were taken with Mendelsohn's design.
Mendelsohn disowned the building after its completion in 1926, although he would frequently make use of the model as an example of his approach to industrial architecture. The factory is still partly in use as storage space.
[edit] References
Kathleen James, Erich Mendelsohn and the Architecture of German Modernism (CUP, 1997, p70-7) Erich Mendelsohn, Russland-Europa-Amerika (Mosse, 1928)
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