[This book] should be valued for establishing new directions in late Soviet visual and material culture studies-and hopefully foreshadow[s] the dramatic increase of both scholarly and general interest in the achievements and limitations of socialist design.

H-Net Reviews

For many years, it seemed as if there were only two kinds of Soviet design: visionary Constructivism or Stalinist kitsch. Cubbin's vividly written and deeply researched study offers an entirely new picture. Illuminating the long history of modernism in the USSR, he examines how critical designers sought to create utopia on a human scale.

David Crowley, Head of the School of Visual Culture at NCAD, Ireland

What happens when principles of Russian avant-garde of the 1920s are retooled for the needs of Soviet science and technology? In his book, Cubbin traces the emergence and demise of “technical aesthetics” created by Soviet artists-engineers in the 1960s-1980s as a communist alternative to capitalist design. Highly informative and richly documented, this book reconstructs fascinating yet barely known moments in the history of material culture and aesthetic theory of the twentieth century.

Serguei A. Oushakine, Director of the Russian and Eurasian Studies Program at Princeton University, USA

The book provides insight to the activities of Senezh studio, an important part of the USSR Union of Artists. It also explores the phenomenon of 'paper design', a particular kind of project work, characteristic of the Soviet cultural milieu. Senezh studio operated for more than twenty years, although only a fraction of its projects were ever realized. Despite this, the studio's design practices were of remarkable national importance.

Alexandra Sankova, Director of the Moscow Design Museum, Russia