Red Banner Textile Factory Power Station
Erich Mendelsohn · Saint Petersburg, Russia · 1928
Erich Mendelsohn’s power station for the Red Banner Textile Factory is one of the rare built works in Russia by a major Western European modernist. Its dynamic brick-and-concrete massing, projecting volumes and industrial windows translate Mendelsohn’s expressionist language into factory infrastructure. The power station was the first phase of a larger complex that was subsequently expanded by Soviet architects after disputes over the design. Built from 1926 to 1928, the surviving power station is an important cross-border episode in the history of the Russian avant-garde and European interwar modernism.