Graduate Program in Media + Modernity | Princeton University

Richard Anderson

"Wolkenbügel: El Lissitzky as Architect”
[Response Serguei Oushakine]

Tuesday, February 18, 2025 @5pm ET

N107 (School of Architecture)

After achieving international acclaim as a painter and designer, El Lissitzky set out in 1924 to convince the world—and himself—that he was also an architect. He did this with a project for a “horizontal skyscraper,” which he gave an obscure and untranslatable name: Wolkenbügel. In this presentation, Richard Anderson presents his book on Lissitzky’s most complex and often misunderstood spatial idea.

Richard Anderson is Professor of Architectural History and Theory at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Ludwig Hilberseimer's Metropolisarchitecture and Selected Essays (2012; fourth print edition 2019), Russia: Modern Architectures in History (2015), and Wolkenbügel: El Lissitzky as Architect (2024). He is currently Elizabeth and J. Richardson Dilworth Member at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Serguei Oushakine is Professor of Anthropology and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton. He has conducted fieldwork in the Siberian part of Russia, as well as in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. His research is concerned with transitional processes and situations: from the formation of newly independent national cultures after the collapse of the Soviet Union to post-traumatic identities and hybrid cultural forms.

M+M strives to make everyone feel welcome. If you are concerned that Betts Auditorium will not provide adequate physical accommodation for you, please contact us in advance to discuss it.