The 1922 "Symphony of Sirens" in Baku, Azerbaijan

• Autores: Delia Duong Ba Wendel
• Localización: Journal of urban design, ISSN 1357-4809, ISSN-e 1469-9664, Nº. 17, 4, 2012 (Ejemplar dedicado a: People in the Design of Urban Places), págs. 549-572
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In 1922, a Symphony of Sirens was performed by the sounds and movements of human crowds, machine guns, cannons, factory sirens, airplanes, hydroplanes, trains, battleships and a steam-whistle machine across the spaces of Baku, Azerbaijan. Conceived well beyond the conventions of revolutionary festivals, the Symphony manifested 1920s avant-garde aspirations for a radical unity of the arts, technology and urban space. Furthermore, the location of the Symphony was notable: Baku was a city on the edge of the former Russian empire, and Azerbaijan had only two years prior been incorporated as a Soviet Socialist Republic. Connecting with several core tenets of the Soviet socialist and avant-garde movements, the 1922 Symphony of Sirens can be interpreted as an avantgarde expansion of Soviet internationalism. The ways in which the Azerbaijani metropolis activated this bricolage of art, space and politics is significant, not least because the spectacle condensed a wide range of practices and ideas from Taylorism, proletarian politics, the artistic avant-garde and Azerbaijani culture. The spectacle's composition and location also had an outward impact, manifesting a geographical imagination that shaped the region's cultural and political identity and extended the possibilities of design practice.