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Ladovsky’s Experiment
Avant-garde Center on Shabolovka
2017
2017
The exhibition Ladovsky’s Experiment was dedicated to the Psychotechnical Laboratory established in 1927 at VHUTEIN (formerly VHUTEMAS), and more broadly, to the radical reform of architectural education in Russia.
It was Nikolai Ladovsky who proposed a fundamentally new teaching methodology, breaking with the classical models that had dominated previously. His core belief—that architecture is not about harmony and proportion, but about the human being who perceives it, and that space, not form, is the primary material of architecture—was seen as revolutionary in the early 1920s.
Ladovsky’s preparatory (propaedeutic) course "Space", which was mandatory for all VHUTEMAS students regardless of their department, offered an entirely new approach to architectural design: from space to form, from model to drawing, from the abstract to the concrete.
To test students' spatial perception, Ladovsky installed five instruments or training devices in his lab, each addressing a different perceptual task: length, angle, area, volume, and space. These tools were used to assess the "spatial giftedness" of students and to conduct various psychotechnical experiments. While such devices were not uncommon in that era, Ladovsky succeeded in synthesizing international experience, especially from German and American researchers, and developed entirely new instruments tailored to architectural education.
Although no original blueprints or test result records have survived, photographs of the laboratory allowed the exhibition team to reconstruct the instruments and attempt to revive their logic and intended tasks. Alongside the "Laboratory", the exhibition displayed original student projects and architectural sketches created in Ladovsky’s studio at VHUTEIN. One section presented photographs of lost clay models made by students in the mid–1920s as part of the "Space" course.
Based on Ladovsky’s methods, his colleagues and students went on to develop the first- and second-year curriculum of the newly founded Moscow Architectural Institute (1933), which emerged after the closure of VHUTEMAS-VHUTEIN. The modeling assignments focused on revealing volume, mass and weight, rhythm, static and dynamic composition—principles that remain the foundation of the "Volumetric-Spatial Composition" course in Russian architectural education to this day.
Yet Ladovsky’s name has largely been forgotten, and few students today know the origins of these assignments or the pedagogical revolution they represent.
It was Nikolai Ladovsky who proposed a fundamentally new teaching methodology, breaking with the classical models that had dominated previously. His core belief—that architecture is not about harmony and proportion, but about the human being who perceives it, and that space, not form, is the primary material of architecture—was seen as revolutionary in the early 1920s.
Ladovsky’s preparatory (propaedeutic) course "Space", which was mandatory for all VHUTEMAS students regardless of their department, offered an entirely new approach to architectural design: from space to form, from model to drawing, from the abstract to the concrete.
To test students' spatial perception, Ladovsky installed five instruments or training devices in his lab, each addressing a different perceptual task: length, angle, area, volume, and space. These tools were used to assess the "spatial giftedness" of students and to conduct various psychotechnical experiments. While such devices were not uncommon in that era, Ladovsky succeeded in synthesizing international experience, especially from German and American researchers, and developed entirely new instruments tailored to architectural education.
Although no original blueprints or test result records have survived, photographs of the laboratory allowed the exhibition team to reconstruct the instruments and attempt to revive their logic and intended tasks. Alongside the "Laboratory", the exhibition displayed original student projects and architectural sketches created in Ladovsky’s studio at VHUTEIN. One section presented photographs of lost clay models made by students in the mid–1920s as part of the "Space" course.
Based on Ladovsky’s methods, his colleagues and students went on to develop the first- and second-year curriculum of the newly founded Moscow Architectural Institute (1933), which emerged after the closure of VHUTEMAS-VHUTEIN. The modeling assignments focused on revealing volume, mass and weight, rhythm, static and dynamic composition—principles that remain the foundation of the "Volumetric-Spatial Composition" course in Russian architectural education to this day.
Yet Ladovsky’s name has largely been forgotten, and few students today know the origins of these assignments or the pedagogical revolution they represent.
Curator
Aleksandra Selivanova
Reconstruction Author & Designer
Anton Ketov
Research Team
Aleksandra Selivanova
Anna Borunova
Yana Safronova
Anton Ketov
Tatyana Zaitseva
Exhibition Architecture
Aleksandra Selivanova
Graphic Design
Azat Romanov
Coordination
Evgenia Khaet
Anna Borunova
Aleksandra Selivanova
Reconstruction Author & Designer
Anton Ketov
Research Team
Aleksandra Selivanova
Anna Borunova
Yana Safronova
Anton Ketov
Tatyana Zaitseva
Exhibition Architecture
Aleksandra Selivanova
Graphic Design
Azat Romanov
Coordination
Evgenia Khaet
Anna Borunova
