Palace of the Soviets

The Palace of the Soviets (Дворец Советов, Dvorets Sovetov) was a project to construct a political convention center in Moscow on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The main function of the palace was to house sessions of the Supreme Soviet in its wide and tall grand hall seating over 20,000 people. If built, the tall palace would have become the world's tallest structure, with an internal volume surpassing the combined volumes of the six tallest American skyscrapers. This was especially important to the Soviet state for propaganda purposes. Boris Iofan won a series of four architectural competitions held in 1931–1933 marking the beginning of a sharp turn of Soviet architecture from 1920s modernism to the monumental historicism of Stalinist architecture. The definitive design by Iofan, Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Helfreich was conceived in 1933–1934 and took its final shape in 1937. The staggered stack of ribbed cylinders crowned with a statue of Vladimir Lenin blended Art Deco and neoclassical influences with contemporary American skyscraper technology. Work on the site commenced in 1933; the foundation was completed in January 1939. The German invasion in June 1941 ended the project. Engineers and workers were diverted to defense projects or pressed in the army; the installed structural steel was disassembled in 1942 for fortifications and bridges. After World War II, Joseph Stalin lost interest in the palace. Iofan produced several revised, scaled-down designs but failed to reanimate the project. The alternative Palace of the Soviets in Sparrow Hills, which was proposed after Stalin's death, did not proceed beyond the architectural competition stage. On 30 December 1922 the First All-Union Congress of Soviets announced the creation of the Soviet Union. On the same day Sergei Kirov proposed construction of a new national convention center, which was duly approved by the congress. This, according to the official Soviet narrative, was the beginning of the story of the Palace of the Soviets.