Critical Soviet Design: Senezh Studio and the Utopian Imagination in Late Socialism

This is the first academic study of the socialist critical design practice known as
artistic projecteering [khudozhestvennoe proektirovanie], developed at the Central
Experimental Studio of the Soviet Union Artists between 1964 and 1991
(commonly referred to as Senezh studio). While some Soviet designers saw their
practice as ‘applied science,’ Senezh studio was established to develop practical
and theoretical tools for overcoming technocratic tendencies in Soviet design. The
aim of the studio’s founders was to create a space for design that would not be
subsumed by the constraints of technology or economics, or the bureaucracy of
Soviet central planning. Senezh studio was tasked with creating new design
methodologies that could be applied following the transition to communism to
produce a material environment that would maximise the creative and
collaborative potential of humankind. During the 1970s, however, the failures of
the Soviet Thaw became apparent and designers at the studio worked on critical
projects that highlighted how the government’s treatment of citizens, urban
heritage and the environment were materially manifest in daily life. The projects
produced at Senezh came to reflect the aspirations, hopes and anxieties of the
Soviet cultural intelligentsia during and after the ‘Thaw’ of the 1960s. Based on
archival research, extensive interviews and analysis of images in private collections
– this dissertation engages Mannheim and Ricoeur’s theories of utopia to show
how experimental design projects reflected changing relationships towards
communism, ideology, history and the state.