James Graham

Climates of Constructivism: Environment and Territory in Soviet Architecture, 1926–1939

My project explores the vital though largely unacknowledged role of climatic thought within Soviet architecture, as nationality, environment, territory, and politics came together in defining an architecture that would serve "one-sixth of the world" (if not a potentially socialist planet, in its most utopian incarnations) and its attendant environmental variability. "Climates of Constructivism" will be a work of historical scholarship—grounded in the close reading of a series of proposed and built projects— that places architecture in dialogue with political philosophy, science fiction, anthropology, and agricultural research.

James Graham is an adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, where he is also the director of the Columbia Books on Architecture and the City imprint. His edited volumes include Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary (2016), and he is the founding editor of the Avery Review, a digital journal of critical essays on architecture. His own writing explores intersections of architecture, applied science, environment, and politics.