Constructivism

Russian avant-garde movement pioneered in c.1914 by the artist Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953) and current until c.1921.

Following the examples of collage in cubism and futurism, Tatlin proposed a ‘culture of materials’ in which illusionism and simulated effects in art were eschewed in favor of an art based on the construction of real materials.

After 1917, artistic links with industry were emphasized together with the development of a non-objective ‘production art’ for the improvement of society.

Outside the USSR, the Russian brothers Naum Gabo (1890-1977) and ANTOINE PEVSNER (1886-1962) pursued a less austere interpretation of the movement, as set out in their Realistic Manifesto (1920).

Art and architecture

• Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
• Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s

Education

• Constructivism (philosophy of education), a theory about the nature of learning that focuses on how humans make meaning from their experiences
• Constructivism in science education
• Constructivist teaching methods, based on constructivist learning theory

Mathematics

• Constructivism (mathematics), a logic for founding mathematics that accepts only objects that can be effectively constructed
• Constructivist type theory

Philosophy

• Constructivism (philosophy of mathematics), a philosophical view that asserts the necessity of constructing a mathematical object to prove that it exists
• Constructivism (philosophy of science), a philosophical view maintaining that science consists of mental constructs created as the result of measuring the natural world
• Moral constructivism or ethical constructivism, the view that moral facts are constructed rather than discovered

Political and social sciences

• Constructivism (international relations), a theory that stresses the socially constructed character of international relations
• Constructivism (ethnic politics), a theory that ethnic identities are not unchanging entities and that political developments can shape which identities get activated
• Constructivist institutionalism
• Social constructivism, the view that human development is socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others

Psychology

• Constructivism (psychological school), a psychological approach that assumes that human knowledge is active and constructive