Arkady Shaikhet was among the generation of photographers who were central to defining the new approach and look of photojournalism in the years following the Russian Revolution. While his work frequently depicts the modernization of architecture and industry, it was rooted in the human aspects of the rapidly changing nation. Shaikhet’s worm’s-eye view of a light well in the new Usachevka housing complex in Moscow creates a strikingly modernist image, but the presence of two figures emphasizes not just the architecture’s form but its function within the new society.