Constructivist Architecture - Western Constructivism

Western Constructivism

El Lissitzky's contacts in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as the impact of Melnikov's Paris Pavilion, led to many architects outside the USSR considering their work as Constructivist by the late 1920s. Architects of the New Objectivity like Lissitzky's collaborators Mart Stam and the ABC Group led by Hannes Meyer embraced Constructivism's severe geometry and technologically advanced aesthetic, despite their remoteness from their original context. The shift of the Bauhaus in 1922 towards 'art and technology — a new unity' was often considered to be a Constructivist one, while the Czech critic and designer Karel Teige's 1932 book The Minimum Dwelling uses Functionalism and Constructivism as interchangeable terms.

Perhaps the best known examples of Western Constructivism of the 1920s are some buildings in the Netherlands: The Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam (1927–31) by Leendert van der Vlugt (and Mart Stam) of the architectural firm Brinkman & Van der Vlugt, and the Zonnestraal Sanatorium in Hilversum (1926–28) by Jan Duiker (and Bernard Bijvoet). Jan Duiker's Open Air School in Amsterdam (1929–30) has a similar architectural expression as the Rusakov Workers' Club in Moscow (1927–28) by Konstantin Melnikov. The Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam and the Zonnestraal Sanatorium in Hilversum are nominated for the UNESCO World Heritage.

For the Dutch structuralists Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger the constructivist Lovell Beach House in Newport Beach by Rudolph Schindler was an inspiring model for their own architecture.

Constructivism also had a noticeable impact on Streamline Moderne.