El Lissitsky - Design Quotes

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In 1928 I designed a photo-montage frieze of 24 by 3.5 m for our 'Pressa' pavilion. It became the example par excellence for all larger-than-life montages, which were a permanent feature of the exhibitions from then on. During Majakovskij's stay in Berlin in 1923 I was commissioned to design his book 'For the Voice'. The book was recognized as the starting-point of a new typography, and the Gutenberg Society in Mainz made me a member. Another field of my work is the artistic and poly-graphic design of albums and periodicals.

El Lissitsky
The second conception of the world via the medium of matter required both a visual and a tactile perception of things. In this case the whole design process tends to emanate from the specific characteristics of the respective medium used. The leader of this movement (Tatlin) assumed.... that the intuitive and artistic mastery of materials would lead to inventions on the basis of which objects could be constructed. He believed he could prove this theory with his design for the 'Monument to the Third International' (1920), [never built]. He accomplished this task without having any special technical knowledge of construction.

El Lissitsky
Back in Moscow in 1925 - teacher at 'Vchutemas' of interior design and furniture at the faculty of wood and metalwork. In 1926 my most important artistic work began: designing exhibitions. In that year I was invited by the committee of the International Exhibition of Art in Dresden to design the space for contemporary art. Was sent abroad for by 'VOKS'. [In] 1927 Exhibition of Typography in Moscow.

El Lissitsky
In 1935 I was appointed leading artist of the All-Soviet Agricultural Exhibition. I opposed the errors of the first leader, and resigned. Afterwards, while I was still in the sanatorium, I took over the design of the main building. The design of the main hall has been done according to my idea until now. From 1931 on, I was leading artist-architect of the 'Permanent Building Exhibition'. But as the years went by, my health deteriorating, I had less and less energy left for this type of commission, such as the realization of large-scale exhibitions. I still succeeded in designing the project for the museum-exhibition of the Ministry of 'Social Security'.

El Lissitsky
One of our [his] utopian ideas is the desire to overcome the limitations of the substructure, of the earthbound. We have developed this idea in a series of proposals (sky-hooks, [like Lissitzky's paper-architecture design 'Wolkenbügel' (1924)] stadium grandstands, Paris garage]... It is the task of technology to make sure that all these elementary volumes that produce new relationships and tensions in space will be structurally safe... The idea of the conquest of the substructure, the earthbound, can be extended even further and calls for the conquest of gravity as such. It demands floating structures, a physical-dynamic architecture.

El Lissitsky
Painting.... turned to the design of purely abstract volumetric forms... Since the leading exponent of the color theory was a painter (Malevich), he failed to recognize the objective reality of the world [in architecture!]. Because he always looked at it only through his own eyes, he remained trapped in a world devoid of real objects. The broader implications of this had to be developed by us, the architects.

El Lissitsky