Rhythm in Architecture

Rhythm in Architecture is the first ever translation into English of a key early Modernist text, written by the celebrated Soviet Constructivist architect Moisei Ginzburg and first published in Russian as Ritm v Arkhitekture in 1923. Ginzburg is most famous for his Narkomfin Building in Moscow, completed in 1932, which he described as a “social-condenser”: a radical experiment in communal living. While Ginzburg’s second book Style and Epoch, published in 1924, is often seen as the manifesto for Russian Constructivism, Rhythm in Architecture—which preceded it—can be seen as his attempt to create a synthesis in thinking about architecture as a whole, seeking to show how “the true essence of all works of architecture” are ”inspired by the laws of rhythm”. Rhythm in Architecture is republished in cooperation with the Ginzburg Design Practice run by Moisei Ginzburg’s grandson, Aleksey and his partner Natalia Shilova. It is the first of a planned series of reprints of Ginzburg’s four books, Home, 1934 and Industrialising Housing Construction, 1937 as well as Style and Epoch, 1924—the only one previously available in English.