Reply

Extract

It is a professionally valuable experience to debate with such eminent critics. Although the focus here will be on our disagreements (because of space limitations some criticisms must go unanswered), I regard as chiefly significant our agreement that Soviet design is important, and has attracted too little attention.

David Granick’s essay, complementary to mine and unlike the others from a strictly economic standpoint, calls for little rejoinder. I would merely add that if (as I concur) much Soviet design has been “surprisingly” good, this may be partly attributable to a certain autonomy of indigenous design principles, which leads back to one theme of my work.