Andrey Platonov (1899–1951)

Andrei Platonov was born in Yanskaya, Sloboda, Russia. An engineer and land-reclamation specialist, Platonov was also a writer. He His first poems were published in the 1920s. Stories and folk tales followed. He became a member of the Pereval group of the 1920s and early 1930s. This group of writers was influenced by the humanistic, cultivated ideas of the critic Voronsky. After World War II, the more extreme proletarian writers and critics of the time vehemently attacked Platonov for what was considered his ideological mistakes. Platonov was forced to stop publishing. Russians knew only a portion of his real output until the 1960s when he became popular again. During the 1970s, publication of Platonov's writings in the West revealed him to be an important figure in modern Russian prose. His key novels, The Fountain Pit (1975), and Chevengur (1978), explored the bitter ironies of a land of triumphant socialism-a new Utopia-which systematically deforms language. Profoundly pessimistic, the novels reveal a man deeply skeptical of attempts to remold human nature and highly sensitive to the dark underside of Stalin's grandiose economic projects. (Bowker Author Biography) Andrei Platonov was born in Yanskaya, Sloboda, Russia. An engineer and land-reclamation specialist, Platonov was also a writer. He His first poems were published in the 1920s. Stories and folk tales followed. He became a member of the Pereval group of the 1920s and early 1930s. This group of writers was influenced by the humanistic, cultivated ideas of the critic Voronsky. After World War II, the more extreme proletarian writers and critics of the time vehemently attacked Platonov for what was considered his ideological mistakes. Platonov was forced to stop publishing. Russians knew only a portion of his real output until the 1960s when he became popular again. During the 1970s, publication of Platonov's writings in the West revealed him to be an important figure in modern Russian prose. His key novels, The Fountain Pit (1975), and Chevengur (1978), explored the bitter ironies of a land of triumphant socialism-a new Utopia-which systematically deforms language. Profoundly pessimistic, the novels reveal a man deeply skeptical of attempts to remold human nature and highly sensitive to the dark underside of Stalin's grandiose economic projects. (Bowker Author Biography) Alvar Aalto is considered the father of modernism in Scandinavia. He was born in Kuortane, Finland. His reputation as an architect has spread far beyond the bounds of his native country, where he built the major part of his work. He is perhaps Finland's greatest architect and certainly one of the major figures of twentieth-century architecture. As early as 1923, Aalto built in a typical Scandinavian style, relying heavily on native materials-timber in Finland's case-and produced such masterworks as the Library at Viipuri (1927-35), the Paimio Sanitarium, and the Villa Mairea. In 1932 he invented the process for making bent wood furniture. After World War II, his work began to be noticed internationally as he developed his own singular style, and he built some of his finest works-the Finlandia Concert Hall, in Helsinki, and the Baker Dorms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his only building in the United States, (1947-49). His style is based on irregular and asymmetric forms with many curved walls and single-pitched roofs and with a highly imaginative use of natural materials. Aalto is also known for the design of several classic styles of chairs, tables, and glassware. (Bowker Author Biography)

— biography from The Foundation Pit

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