Les grandes transformations de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme en URSS 1953 -1965. Renouvellement de la théorie et de la pratique dans l’architecture et l’urbanisme

The study of urban and architectural transformations in the vast territory of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953 has so far been the subject of only fragmentary studies. This work attempts to fill this historiographical gap by approaching architecture, urban planning, and territorial development as inseparable domains, intersecting with the history of ideas and techniques. Our research in Russian, French, and American archives has enabled us to reconstruct a map of technical delegations and professional missions sent by the USSR to various countries in the Western and Southern worlds from 1955 onwards. The aim of this compilation of sources is to reveal which countries, which models, which objects and techniques were most influential towards and from the USSR, and to reconstruct the national and international roots of the late Soviet landscape. We look at Soviet activity within various international organizations and associations, and the USSR's policy in favor of socialist standardization within the Communist Bloc and beyond in the Southern countries. Through the processing of unpublished archival funds located in Moscow, notably within the State Archives of the Economy of Russia (RGAE), the State Archives of Literature and Art (RGALI), the A.V. Shchusev National Museum of Architecture, and the Museum of the Moscow Architectural Institute (MArchI), as well as numerous professional Soviet periodicals and those of other countries, we have valuable sources to attempt to better understand the mechanisms of architectural creation and the technical and social evolution of the profession, between the end of the Second World War and the late 1960s. The aim is to study these developments through often unpublished objects, models, and drawings, buildings, urban ensembles, and landscapes, which, beyond their economic and social, political, and symbolic meanings, also touch on issues of aesthetics and art history.