Hegel in the Spaces of Jubilation

Mikhail Ryklin

According to Hegel, symbolic architecture is the kind that containsmeaning in itself, in its inner structure, rather than serving to give formto a meaning that exists independently of it. Such structures, essentially,cannot be completed; they are directed toward infinity; their building isthe only thing that brings the builders together, since more developedforms of social bonds are not yet accessible to them. Hegel believed thatthe birthplace of symbolic architecture was the East, where the spirit hadnot yet become individualised, had not grown independent of the whimsyof the organic, natural forms that it accumulates. It has not yet becomeembodied in a community of believers who worship God in a temple. Inbuildings of symbolic architecture, nations worship their own enslave-ment by the forces of Nature, individualised, so far, only in the person ofthe Pharaoh, the Tsar, the despot who has been given complete spiritualpower over them. (Thus, these are child-nations for whom an intimaterelationship with God is impossible.) In the philosopher’s view, theprototype of such structures, and the symbols of the essential impossi-bility of their completion, is the Tower of Babel: ‘In the wide plains ofEuphrates an enormous architectural work was erected; it was built incommon, and the aim and content of the work was at the same time thecommunity of those who constructed it.’1 This tower symbolises thedissolution of patriarchal bonds, of family unity, and its replacement by‘a new and a wider one’. However, it is capable of expressing the sacredprinciple that brings the builders together in an external way only;therefore, the end of construction is synonymous with the disintegrationof bonds. The same legend [Genesis II, 1–9] says ‘that the centre ofunification in such a building was forsaken again by the peoples and thatthey separated [which] is likewise reported in this tradition’.2 Since it isonly inorganic, external, and natural, the form of the Tower of Babelinevitably turns out to be an inadequate conduit for the spiritual, holyprinciple to which it owes its existence. On the other hand, such creationsnever cease to amaze the viewer with their peculiar forms centuries later,when they have turned to ruins. Hegel’s other examples are the Tower ofBel, described by Herodotus, and the city of Ektaban in Midia.

Third Text ISSN 0952-8822 print/ISSN 1475-5297 online © 2003 Kala Press/Black Umbrellahttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/0952882032000166198

Third Text, Vol. 17, Issue 4, 2003, 353–362

1. G W F Hegel, Aesthetics:Lectures on Fine Arts, transT M Knox, vol II,Clarendon Press, Oxford,1975, p 638.

2. Ibid, p 638.

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With symbolic architecture, Hegel contrasts classical architecturebased on the development of two ‘teleological’ forms: the house and thetemple. The Greeks develop first and foremost the form of the publictemple; to that, the Romans add the form of the architecturallydeveloped dwelling of a private individual (the palace or the villa).

Both of these classical, ‘teleological’ forms of architecture wereradically undermined in the USSR. Temples were torn down en masse, orutilised for other, non-religious purposes; private homes, palaces, andestates were nationalised and for the most part turned into offices,communal apartments, or museums. (That was the essence of the famous‘withering away of private life’ of which Benjamin writes in his ‘MoscowDiary.’) Also buried under the rubble of these architectural forms weremore or less developed expressions of the spiritual, individualisedprinciple which, as posited by European metaphysics (and not just byHegel), were manifested through property ownership. Under theseconditions in the USSR, there is a new spiral of regression to the forms ofsymbolic architecture that historically preceded classical architecturalforms – i.e. the creation of temples/palaces of the people, whose quasi-religious function was to assert the people’s unity with the Party and theleader. These buildings and architectural complexes were intended not togive form to a meaning that has already evolved elsewhere (in the sphere ofthe spiritual), but to actively participate in the formation of meaning, tocreate spaces of exaltation and glorification of the ‘new life’, whose entirereligiosity has been invested in denying the transcendental. Although theoriginal revolutionary culture valued practicality and functionality aboveeverything, as early as 1924 an archaic ‘black hole’ appeared in its veryheart, in Red Square, as a forerunner of even more powerful future shocks.I am referring, of course, to the Lenin Mausoleum, which threw therevolutionary culture that regarded itself as the avant-garde of allhumanity back to an archaic stage of individuation. When discussing theEgyptian pyramids, Hegel regarded mummification as the first stage ofconcern about the fate of an individual soul, which had an entire labyrinthconstructed for its posthumous adventures. However, the act ofmummifying the leader showed no concern whatsoever for his soul: onlyhis bodily presence is sacralised, as an expression of the sublime principlethat serves as a foundation for the oneness of the leader, the party, and thepeople (the main theme of Stalin’s famous oath at the coffin of the deadleader). The full meaning of this gesture was manifested only after thecollectivisation of which it was a distant omen. The incompatibility ofLenin’s publicly displayed mummy with revolutionary culture was not, Irepeat, understood at once – but in the 1930s, there follows a large numberof similarly primitive gestures, and the revolution changes from a globalevent, primarily comprehended by the Western intelligentsia through thelanguage of Marxism, into an internal Soviet event of colossal (and, ofcourse, also global in their power) proportions. From that moment, theUSSR began to protect itself from the surrounding rationalism with thebarrier of a special, indecipherable language of trauma. It is no accidentthat all debates about the dominant architectural style got stuck in a deadend: buildings had to be simultaneously classical, modern, built in anational style, and even ‘intimate’.3 In a situation when everyone wasexpected to comply with logically incompatible demands, the status ofcontradiction changed radically: it became the natural element of the

3. V Paperny, Kultura 2,Ardis, Ann Arbor, MI,1985, pp 127–8.

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dominant collective bodies, their original way of remaining constantly inthe sphere of the sublime:

Culture can simultaneously demand two mutually exclusive things: thestandardization of construction and an individualized approach to eachbuilding, the lowering of architectural costs and the richest architecturepossible . . .4

All these contradictory commands can be fulfilled in an atmosphere ofterror, when the true architects are not yesterday’s professionals butleaders who are motivated by the unverbalised, and hence inerrant, senseof the sublime (which magically coincides with an equivalent sense in the

4. Ibid, p 166. The Palace of Soviets, Project (1930s)

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masses). What takes place is re-archaicisation of form: the temple mustbe a palace, the palace must be a ‘materialistic’ illustration of the ‘newlife’, and installed upon its roof is a statue of the leader which, in thelingo of the time, was known as the ‘crowning completion’. Stalinsuggested making the Palace of the Soviets a pedestal for a 100-metre-tallstatue of Lenin, which would have been invisible for most of the yearbecause of clouds. (Similar ‘crowns’ can be seen on the main pavilion ofthe Exhibition of Economic Achievement [VDNKh], on the model of theTheater of the Soviet Army, etc). It turns out that even collective majestyneeds sculpture to express itself – a fully depersonalised individualserving as a mirror in which the people recognises itself. Actuallymounting a sculpture on the roof of a house turned out to be possible insome rare instances (mostly at the VDNKh, where the architecture wasthe most decorative and ‘illusionist’); on the postwar ‘skyscrapers’, theplace of the ‘crowning completion’ was taken by spires. The representa-tive buildings of the time were often surrounded and filled by sculptures,ornaments, dioramas, landscaped gardens, and pseudo-scientificinstallations.

What we have before us is an architecture of colossal goal; as thepurpose fades away, the architecture begins to seem extremely eclectic.The pathos of that era was in the affirmation of the symbiosis of thepeople and the leader as a new model of individuality. Since architecturehas to contain meaning within itself, what happens is a regression to thesymbolic stage of architecture as defined by Hegel: since the meaning haslost the form of the genuine individual and has ceased to be theconsidered product of his vision, it no longer has a purposeful form. Onthe other hand, such architecture in itself is very interesting, since,according to Hegel, it is well suited to the symbolic form of art andrealises its principle best among all the arts, ‘because in its form and itsshape it is only in an external way that it can express the holy, theabsolute unifier of man’.5 Only symbolic architecture fully takes theburden of meaning upon itself; in fact, what makes it natural is the veryfact that it grows its own meaning from within, without allowing it to beimposed by any external authority – including a religious one.

At first glance, Nazi architecture faced similar problems: gigantism, amovement away from the established ideal of the Greek model towardoverloading with various symbols, an orientation toward erectingpompous representational buildings. However, it never even occurred tothe Nazis to stage the process of agricultural production, create modelpower stations or experimental plots of land, or plant tropical flora inspecially heated soil; nor did the Germans build ‘palaces for the people’equivalent to Moscow’s metro stations. Such a grandiose theatricalisa-tion of the production process presupposes radical expropriation and theconcentration of all property in the hands of the state. Yet in NaziGermany, civil society was suppressed and terrorised but not destroyed asit was in the USSR.

Hegel wrote that the works of symbolic architecture need to be readlike books, even though they are not preceded by any books (they are,actually, the Ur-books of humanity). One of the principal criticisms ofStalinist architecture was that it was ‘unreadable’, that it did not fit theeidos of collective speech. The primary interest of this culture is notliterature, as many believe, but speech, the element of oral popular

5. G W F Hegel, op cit,pp 638–9.

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expression. Speech marked the division of buildings into ‘ours’ and ‘notours’; thus, by definition, buildings could not correspond to an ideal thatcould be formulated without contradictions. Stalin’s position wasinvulnerable not because he knew something that others did not, butbecause his depersonalised name allowed some people to live anddoomed others to die. Stalinist culture inherited the problems of life-building from the revolutionary avant-garde, which had in turn inheritedthem from the traditions of Russian Cosmism. In their own ways,Vladimir Solovyov (the philosopher), Kazimir Malevich (the artist), andLazar Kaganovich (the politburo member), were all life-builders, thoughthey understood this word (i.e. life-building) in very different ways.However, in all three cases, the word claims to give life, to be endowedwith procreative ability. The specificity of Russia is that it takes allWestern ideas to exaggerated, ultra-radical extremes, so that the West, onthe one hand, initially admires the uncompromising stance of its Russianfollowers, and on the other hand, some time later, never ceases to wonderat the destructive consequences of these experiments.

Stalinist culture places itself in the service of man, opposes deper-sonalisation and standardisation, champions consideration for individ-uality and even ‘intimacy’. Each marble bench on the metro is regardedas yet another expression of concern for people. This culture alsoaspires to be artistic in everything and to elevate itself over everydaydomesticity, which the avant-gardists of the first post-revolutionarydecade tried to improve in every way they could. It is obsessed with

Metro station Novokuznetskaya, Moscow (built in 1942). Inside view. Photo: Igor Makarevich (Collective ActionsGroup), 1985

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fertility and takes any threat to potency very seriously. At the sametime, it is inclined to create mirages and phantasmagorias, because ithas things to hide and things to keep out of its inner sanctum. As aresult, the world of Good, created in pathos, becomes a mirror imageof the dislodged world of Evil. This is especially evident in theexamples of the metro and the VDNKh.

The architect must intuitively sense the unconscious of the newmasses rather than formulate contradiction-free concepts; and, since theprimary interpreter of this collective unconscious is the Party, thearchitect is called upon to translate its politics into the language of his orher profession. As a result, architecture regresses to a symbolic level,becomes part of an ideologically processed environment, is covered withinscriptions, and utilises sculpture ‘architectonically’ (in Hegel’s words),i.e. to resolve its own tasks. Despite its gigantism, it lacks completion; orrather, in order to make it complete, its meaning must acquire a sphere ofindependent existence, take the form of an individual. However, in thatcase, the need for symbolic architecture automatically disappears.Despite its seemingly apparent literature-centrism, the Stalin era expres-ses itself primarily in architecture; at any rate, it is by its architecture thatthis era is judged by external observers. Again and again, the architects’solemn declarations of service to the orthodox word turned to a series ofimprovisations that could not be subordinated to any sort of coherentlyformulated canon. Meanwhile, it was to literature that the concept of asocialist realist canon turned out to be most applicable, because of itskinship with the element of popular speech. The word insistently yetunsuccessfully dictates its will to the ‘natural’ (according to Hegel)dimension of symbolic architecture. Looking back, we see that the novelsof that era are now of interest only to a narrow circle of specialists, whilethe grandiose city-building projects of the 1930s–1950s are going toshape Moscow’s image for a long time. One might say that the peoples ofthe USSR assembled in order to erect these giant constructions in theircapital; after that, the purpose of their union became less and less clear,and it finally collapsed.

The ancient constructions that Hegel regarded as works of symbolicarchitecture were built in eras when the house and the temple had not yetbecome independent forms. It is precisely their pre-classical antiquitythat gives them a place in the history of the spirit in the philosopher’seyes. He could hardly have guessed that more than a hundred years afterhis death there would be plans to redesign Berlin, the city where hetaught and lived, in accordance with fairly archaic ideals – that thegreatness of the German people would be expressed in buildings (such asthe Dome Palace and the Reich Chancellery) that would dwarf thepalaces of Eastern despots. Philosophy has always instinctively shiedaway from terrorist excesses, expelling into nature things that, essen-tially, do not belong to it. It was willing to see symbolic architecture as anexclusively archaic form of the manifestation of the spirit, but certainlynot as a by-product of its developed state. Yet the symbolic (or similar)architecture of ‘totalitarian’ states not only obeys verbally formulateddogmas but also directly expresses things that no verbal constructs canformulate. Thus, it continuously goes beyond the bounds of thepermitted and, in its own ways, diagnoses the regimes that engender it. Itis no coincidence that Albert Speer wrote in his memoirs that he should

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have foreseen the quick demise of the Third Reich from the catastrophicgrowth in the size of the buildings Hitler asked him to design; however,he only realised this after the fact when leafing through his old drafts. Yetmost of the buildings Speer designed existed only on paper. Perhaps, too,Stalinist architecture is yet to perform a similarly critical function withregard to its own era once the current phase of acute de-sublimation isover. The sublime cannot be translated into the language of the beautifulwithout sustaining significant damage. Yet Hegel regards symbolicarchitecture not as a manifestation of the sublime – as it manifested itselfin the twentieth century – but as the most archaic, ‘natural’ stage of thedevelopment of the beautiful.

Hegel believed that the beautiful and the sublime are incompatible,and that, hence, once the archaic principle breaks through to the surface,an instantaneous and inexplicable collapse of culture presumablyfollows. When this collapse is prolonged, whole generations grow up inthe sphere of the sublime – and if they fail to make thinkable theextremes, the exceptions, and the excesses that challenge the spirit, theirexperience will yet again be dissipated and defined as philosophicallynon-existent. After all, in such an era, everything that Europeanmetaphysics regards as exceptional and unique is the rule – whileeverything that it regards as the rule is the exception. When it is given anoverly global explanation, the experience of ‘totalitarianism’ is firstdiluted and then dissolved and abolished.

For Hegel, the home – a fully enclosed space – is teleological andserves as a refuge for the individual principle. People who live in homesgather in temples (another teleological form) for the purpose ofworshipping God, a transcendental being. The connection betweenpeople who live in a home and people who pray in a temple is ideal; itneeds no expression in a material form of its own that would allow it toemerge for the first time. However, in times of powerful cataclysm, thisconnection no longer functions and the generation of meaning acquireshighly archaic traits, despite helping it realise nothing less than theproject of modernisation itself. Technology’s conquest of the worldperiodically requires the pause of dictatorship in order to continue.Classical philosophy instinctively turns away from such periods. Thus,Hegel arrogantly remarks that among the nations that erected the worksof symbolic architecture, it performs a ground-digging function equiva-lent to that of morals and institutions among civilised nations.6 Just howthese nations could have carried out gigantic construction projectswithout morals or institutions remains unclear. However, since thesemorals and institutions are not animated by the principle of individuality– and, in many cases, are openly hostile to this principle – the philosophercannot allow himself to call them morals or institutions in themetaphysical sense. Thus, extreme forms of violent oppression are giventhe alibi of inconceivability.

However, for those who live inside a ‘totalitarian’ system and have nochoice but to operate under such rule, this explanation is obviouslyinadequate. ‘However strange this may sound today’, writes Albert Speer,‘for us to say that the Fuhrer thinks of everything and governs everythingwas not an empty propagandist formula’.7 Here, the ‘Fuhrer principle’takes on a moral form which underlies actions that turn out to becompletely inhuman (and, in extreme cases, constitute crimes against

6. In Hegel’s words, ‘Theensemble of all the peoplesat that period worked atthis task . . . the product ofthe labour was to be abond which was to linkthem together (as we arelinked by manners,customs, and the legalconstitution of the state) bymeans of excavated site andground, the assembledblocks of stone, and the asit were architecturalcultivation of the country.’Ibid, p 638.

7. Albert Speer, Vospominania(Memoirs), Russich-Progress, Smolensk-Moscow, 1997, p 67.

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humanity) ex post facto, but not at the moment when they arecommitted.

Stalin-era temples are unfit for prayer since they are atheist temples;Stalin-era palaces are unfit for living since, like the metro stations, theyare public palaces. Even in the skyscrapers that were intended forresidential purposes, one is struck by the contrast between the vastlobbies, ‘leisure rooms’, and ‘Lenin corners’, and the modest size ofactual residential space. The ‘Man with a capital M’ for whom all of this

Skyscraper in Moscow. Photo: Andrei Abramov, 1976

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was being built had to live and socialise in public spaces – and thenshrink dramatically at night in order to squeeze into his private livingspace. The practical Germans were planning to carry out most of theirgrandiose construction projects after the victorious war, when theywould have vast resources at their disposal; as a result, most of theseprojects survive only on paper.

The relationship between the leader and the architect developed verydifferently in Germany and in the USSR. Hitler often said that if he had notbecome the Fuhrer, he would have become an architect. He spent hours inthe company of first Ludwig Troost and then Speer, looking over theirgrand architectural projects. In architecture, he regarded himself as theirpupil and nearly always agreed with their suggestions. In other words, thepower of the leader and the authority of the architect were not at allidentical, and Hitler often contented himself with the role of a connoisseurof a particular (fairly pompous) architectural style and a client whocommissioned grandiose projects. His proposals were the proposals of aninfluential private individual, open to discussion. (The same was true ofpainting. Hitler appointed Hans Posse curator of the gallery to which hedonated his own art collection. However, Speer recalls that Posse, an artscholar, rejected most of these canvases: ‘Hitler praised his favouritepaintings in commonplace formulas; however, Posse did not yield either toHitler’s position or to his disarming graciousness. He was professional andsteadfast in rejecting many of these very expensive acquisitions as“unsuitable” or “not up to the level of the gallery as I envision it”. Asusual, when Hitler was dealing with a specialist, he accepted criticismwithout protest. Posse rejected most of the artists of Hitler’s belovedMunich school.’8 Speer cites many other such instances.)

Stalin, by contrast, had no taste for architecture whatsoever but as theleader he was considered the highest authority in every sphere. When, ata meeting of the Commission on the construction of the Palace of Soviets,he proposed making the palace a pedestal for a statue of Lenin, therecould be no objection from the architects Boris Iofan, Vladimir Shchuko,and Vladimir Gelfreikh. Even the authority of Kaganovich was absolute,let alone the authority of Stalin. What is more, Stalin personallyinspected the model of the Lenin sculpture designed by Merkurov. Itdepicted Lenin with his arm raised high. Stalin ‘corrected’ the model bybringing the leader’s arm down. As a result, the gesture became morerecognisable but this changed the proportions of the building, andarchitects later spent years racking their brains trying to fix thesituation.9 In fact, it is far from certain that after the leader’s proposal itwas even possible to build the world’s tallest building; and, since tellingStalin about it meant questioning his absolute authority, which no onewould dare, the only option was to pretend that the project was underway and keep moving back the date of its completion. Such a strategy, atthe very least, guaranteed the physical survival of those working on theproject. After the war, Iofan, who was considered Stalin’s ‘courtarchitect’, received a note from an anonymous ‘well-wisher’ stronglyadvising him to make Stalin rather than Lenin the ‘crowning completion’of the Palace of Soviets. Yet, since the idea of making the Palace of Sovietsthe pedestal for a Lenin monument came from Stalin himself, thearchitect had no choice but to install the figures of both leaders on theroof of the building.10

8. Ibid, pp 256–7. Here isanother example thatclearly illustrates thequalitative difference inthe hierarchicalrelationships within theupper echelons of the twodictatorships: ‘Once, lateat night, Hitler told hisaide, “I wish to speak tothe Minister of ForeignAffairs.” The answer,given by telephone, was,“Herr Reichminister hasalready gone to bed.”“Since I wish to speak tohim, let them wake himup.” After a secondtelephone call, the aidereported uncomfortably,“Herr Reichminister askedto say that he will be atyour disposal earlytomorrow morning, butright now he is very tiredand wants to sleep.” ’Such a reply to Stalinwould have been not onlyimpossible butunthinkable (regardless ofthe consequences thatwould have befallen theoffender).

9. Tyrannei des Schoennen.Architektur der Stalin-Zeit, Prestel, Munich/NewYork, 1994, p 194.

10. Ibid, p 194.

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All these details must be taken into consideration when examining theconcept of ‘totalitarianism’. Rather than being imposed on theseparticulars from above, this concept must grow out of them, accumulat-ing not only similarities but distinctions in the process of analysis. TheDome Palace was never built because it would have been too expensive;the culture had still retained, even in weakened form, some notion ofexcessive spending and unaffordable luxury. The Palace of Soviets inMoscow would have been built at any cost; the symbolic expectationsinvested in that building – expectations that exceeded the possibilities ofarchitectural realisation and turned out to be realisable only in discourse– simply turned out to be too high. The dream building remained adream, but nearly all Stalin-era architecture grew out of that dream.

Hegel admits that works of symbolic architecture retain their abilityto amaze, even after a very long time. Since their meaning is self-contained, they seem to be trying to ‘say’ something, and the appearanceof their subordination to a verbal order is retained. However, archi-tecture, even when it is covered with writing and surrounded bysculptures and gardens, ‘speaks’ through its structure and its construc-tion. Its surroundings retain an architectonic function. For Hegel, ‘thepeople’ is a natural element, and the collective subject whose actions haveyet to be ennobled by understanding can be considered a subject only byanalogy – by way of likening the natural to the spiritual, which is alwaysindividualised. The naturalness of symbolic architecture intersects withthe naturalness of the symbiosis of the people and the leader (a false,inauthentic personification).

Particularly barren is the regression to this stage of nationstraditionally considered civilised; such a regression does not pave the wayfor anything and does not represent the archaic stage of spiritualdevelopment that has yet to reach full bloom.

I hope that the examples of VDNKh and the other Soviet-era projectswill clearly demonstrate that Hegel’s profound intuitive insights needsubstantial expansion and rethinking. If a metaphysic does not allow foranything that exists outside its realm, many of its rules becomeunthinkable without corresponding exceptions that acquire the status ofnew rules as they accumulate. Only they take a very long time toaccumulate.

Translated by Cathy Young