This project extends Richard Pare's work on the architecture of the Russian avant-garde between the years 1922 and 1932. The Lost Vanguard expands the work already completed to include the industrial cities that were purposely built during these years and the years immediately after the rejection of the modernist movement by the central government after 1932. These cities provided new manufacturing capabilities after the years of war and revolution. The main cities of focus are Kislovodsk and Magnitogorsk. Kislovodsk is the site of a sanatorium by Moisei Ginsburg. It is still operational and little altered, and also notable for the approach designed by Ivan Leonidov, his only built project. Magnitogorsk is one of the most important industrial new cities, the works led initially led by Ernst May, Mart Stam, and Johan Niegeman. Most of the early structures remain standing in varying degrees of preservation and decay.

Richard Pare is presently working independently. He continues to work on projects related to the history of photography and to bring his own work forward. The Russian avant-garde project has been the major part of his activity for a considerable length of time and has now reached a point where it is an unequaled record of the work of these vital years of modernist thought in architecture throughout the old Soviet Union. The years of neglect which these major figures in the modernist experiment in Russia were forced to accept by an unsympathetic regime is now being remedied by the activities of many organizations and individuals, and Pare's work has been a catalyst for much of this activity. He continues to endeavor to bring the work to a wider audience through a succession of international exhibitions.