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.

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Palace of the Soviets

Stalinist architecture

Stalinist architecture, mostly known in the former Eastern Bloc as Stalinist style (Сталинский стиль) or Socialist Classicism, is the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, between 1933 (when Boris Iofan's draft for the Palace of the Soviets was officially approved) and 1955 (when Nikita Khrushchev condemned "excesses" of the past decades and disbanded the Soviet Academy of Architecture). Stalinist architecture is associated with the Socialist realism school of art and architecture.

Constructivist architecture

Constructivist architecture was a constructivist style of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. Abstract and austere, the movement aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space, while rejecting decorative stylization in favor of the industrial assemblage of materials. Designs combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced many pioneering projects and finished buildings, before falling out of favour around 1932.

Untitled AR-516: The adventures of rationalism

Avant-garde vs. Planning AR-500: Reading Manfredo Tafuri

Explores the contrast between avant-garde architecture and urban planning in the Soviet Union, focusing on Manfredo Tafuri and Pier Vittorio Aureli's works.