After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the photographer Richard Pare spent 14 years in Russia capturing the forgotten architecture of the early post-revolutionary years. From 1922 to 1932, a little-known group of visionary architects designed buildings that reflected the communal ideals of a nation. With an honest eye and a wide lens, Pare redeems those efforts, tracing the rise and fall of Russian modernism—from the open expanse of Vladimir Shukhov's hyperboloid Shabolovka Radio Tower to the closed fortress of Aleksei Shchusev's Lenin Mausoleum. Now on display at MOMA through October 29, and in an accompanying monograph from The Monacelli Press, Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture, 1922–32 is a provocative record of a moment that might have otherwise been lost. Here, the photographer talks about his journey and where the future may lead.
Men's Vogue: So, 14 years. Did you have any idea at the outset that this would be a 14-year endeavor?
Richard Pare: Not at all. Russia had always been in the back of my mind as a sort of mysterious place, and suddenly the wall came down and it was possible to actually go. So with the seeds of the image and then arriving in Moscow, it became logical to look and see what was left of the avant-garde. It seemed like an enormously rich subject that nobody knew anything about.
MV: You began your work in Moscow. Did you have any idea the places your work would take you?
RP: I thought that Moscow would be a project in itself and that would be enough, but with the amount of encouragement that I was getting from people who saw the pictures, we decided that we would extend it further. I'm just hoping that I can somehow or other find the funding to continue and get more material. The story is really very delicate and fragile in the way it's poised now and all kinds of different pressures are coming to bear. The threat is great because with small buildings standing on important lots in the middle of major cities, suddenly the land underneath them is worth an incredible amount of money. The temptation is to build a 25-story apartment block and there goes the avant-garde.
MV: Older cities in the United States—Charleston, South Carolina, for example, have systems in place in terms of preserving historic buildings—is there anything like that over there?
RP: It's just beginning. There's a new organization called MAPS—Moscow Architectural Preservation Society—which is doing its best to raise the profile of not just the avant-garde buildings, but of all the historical structures in Moscow that are in need of conservation, or preservation, or both. There's been an amazing amount of key historic buildings in Moscow just wiped away over the last four years by the sheer pressure of speculation.
MV: Obviously your photographs document a transition that was occurring during the time in the minds of architects and in what they were trying to achieve, but there's also this other physical transition that you've been able to witness over the years. How have you actually seen the buildings change?
RP: Oh, yes. There are one or two gone already. And several buildings have been renovated, shall we say. Restored would not be the right word. The Palace of the Press in Baku, for example; they've ripped out the old windows and replaced them with mirrored glass and it changes the character totally. The whole fragile balance of the composition is destroyed. That's one of the reasons I decided that I really had to get on with it, publish it, start exhibiting the work, because of the pressure that's being exerted everywhere.
