Page 28 - Studio International - April 1966

passionately reasoned refutation of such criticism. Is there vatory, a series of Towers and Columns, Monument for an
then, in fact, a gap between his writings and his work Airport, Project for the Palace of the Soviets, and construc-
which makes such misunderstanding possible? Only, I tions whose architectural relevance was implicit even
think, to the extent which makes it true to say that when untitled. In his work since the mid-thirties one
Gabo's work has not, in fact, been in tune with its own senses a change possibly more subtle than that from an
time, and has not yet itself fully realized its aim as a angular to a 'spheric' conception of space. After the
public art. The Bijenkorf structure in Rotterdam does, thrusting and virile energy of projects that obviously
certainly, fulfil the premise of The Realistic Manifesto that would never be built, the more yielding delicacy, fragility,
`art should attend us everywhere that life flows and and gracefulness of what Constructivism was supposed
acts . . . on working days and holidays, at home and on not to be about—objets d'art for the connoisseur. Gabo's
the road'; its creator's hopes for an art that had a social later works are marvels of exquisite invention and precise
character superior to its role as personal statement seem beauty, but they tend to have given up their former
in this instance, at least, to have been met by the very implied sense of heroic scale, although it still haunts him.
fact (which he recounts with deep satisfaction) that the Looking back at the constructive heads he first made in
citizens of Rotterdam now refer to it as 'Our Thing', not Norway in 1915, and admitting a special fondness for
even any longer as `Gabo's Thing'. But Gabo's work as a them, he has said that he still dreams of remaking one of
whole seems to be for ever waiting to rise to the sort of enormous size, so that it would function not spatially but
opportunity which suddenly (`almost by accident', he as a huge silhouette in the tradition of the giant heads of
says) offered itself at Rotterdam—an art about the defini- Buddha or of the Egyptian sculpture he admires more
tion and articulation of space repeatedly limited to func- deeply than any other art of the past.
tioning on a scale about three feet high: an art linked I suggested above that Gabo's Constructivism, in the
with modern engineering and modern architecture, and last analysis, was not in tune with its own time. What I
conducting its own intuitive research into problems of mean more precisely is that his work is conceived in the
structural stress (the engineers engaged on the Bijenkorf spirit of a twentieth century which is postulated in his
project had to concede to Gabo a structural solution writings but has not been recognized in his experience.
which was pragmatically sound but unprovable by To that extent it is deeply and romantically idealistic. He
mathematics), yet confined to the sphere of personal left Russia for good in 1922, when it became clear that
aesthetics. plans for the New Society were not going to include
Between 1919 and 1932, Gabo's practical yet visionary toleration of a new art. But Gabo is typical of those
Project for Monument for an imagination produced one 'monumental' invention after expatriate Russians who have known at first hand the
airport 1924-5
Glass and metal another—Project for a Radio Station, Monument for an Obser- sense of spiritual rebirth that the Revolution inspired: