Brodsky & Utkin Princeton Architectural Press

A couple of years ago I took some time out to visit the Tate Modern on the South Bank and while rooming around I came across the work of Brodsky & Utkin, I Instantly became a fan and truth be told I sneaked a couple of pictures of their artwork with my phone to reflect on latter.

I recently came across this amazing book on their work by Princeton Architectural Press which contains full page plates of their art with the back story and meaning.

I'd like to take a moment to plagiarise a sample from the opening preface.

Villa Nautilus
Brodsky & Utkin

*"What do you do as an architect living in a country that sets limits on and penalties for architectural design? along with your friends - artists whose works were shown in Moscow park and consequently bulldozed by the government - you find new ways to keep innovative architecture alive. During the Cold War, the brave and inventive architects of the Soviet Union did not cease to advance their cause. They continued to explore their ideas in several ways, including one very simple but dangerous method: they drew what they couldn't build., and thus invented paper architecture. The medium was easy to share and talk about, if one could get ink and paper - a struggle unto itself, particularly when toilet paper was in short supply."

If you take time to search on the net for Brodsky & Utkin you'll find their fascinating work widely available, but in order to get the best of it you truly have to see it on paper. Only then does the work convey the right feeling and scope that the artists were trying to achieve. The plates in this book are stunning and draw you in to the dark but creative world these architects lived in and its not hard to imagine them cramped over a drawing board taking the time to let their ideas flow and take life on paper.

If you appreciate art and the abstract you'll love this book, even if you just take time to look at these fascinating works online you'll be amazed and enthralled like I was that afternoon in the Tate Modern where they hang with a room to themselves.

* Ronald Fieldman representative of Brodsky & Utkin New York