Mosca 1962

In the summer of 1962, while still a university student of architecture, Andrea Branzi went to visit his brother Piergiorgio in Moscow, where he was working as a Rai correspondent. This was the world of the Cold War, but the ‘thaw’ heralded by Nikita Khrushchev had somewhat loosened the grip of the Soviet regime. The young Branzi took the chance to wander around the city, exploring it from top to bottom. With a curiosity for everything, he was struck by the immense size of the capital, by its new neighbourhoods, by the signs of communism and its history, by the omnipresence of the military, but also by the relaxed outlook of the youth, the department stores, the Russians’ carefree relationship with nature, the innocence of the children and the widespread love of chess. What emerges is the portrait of a population markedly different from our own, yet one with which a shared future might be imagined. In the images from this youthful journey, we may perhaps glimpse a number of elements that would later emerge of Branzi the ‘utopian’ designer and thinker. Andrea Branzi’s photographic reportage is accompanied by texts by Gian Piero Piretto and Angela Rui.