A Heritage, a Project, an Art Space: How White Tower is Describing Now?

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of discursive transformation in discussion about soviet avant-gard architectute. The traditional "discours of heritage" is criticized as an approach oriented in the past. The key question is which practice makes visible actual live of constructivist objects in Russian cities. Despite the growing interest of Russian researchers to the quotidian of the provincial avant-garde, non-academic languages which describe avant-garde architecture remain unexplored. This article is aimed at reconstructing a range of practices, which makes visible today the water tower of the Uralmash socialist city (White Tower, Ekaterinburg). Content of the White Tower project's site, of group at social network Facebook and Vkontakte is investigated. On this base significant elements of Tower's representation are detected and described. The rejection of "discourse of heritage" is fixed. Author propose to define new discourses as "projective" and "art-discourse". New practices and languages allow to attract new subject to avant-garde heritage.