Palace of the Soviets
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox building
The Palace of the Soviets (Template:Langx) 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 Template:Convert wide and Template:Convert tall grand hall seating over 20,000 people. If built, the Template:Convert 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.Template:Sfn
Boris Iofan's victory in a series of four architectural competitions held between 1931 and 1933 signaled a sharp turn in Soviet architecture, from radical modernism to the monumental historicism that would come to characterize 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 Template:Convert 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 into 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.
The beginning (1922–31)
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.Template:Sfn This, according to the official Soviet narrative, was the beginning of the story of the Palace of the Soviets.Template:Sfn Before the congress, in January–May 1919, Petrograd had held an architectural competition for the "Palace of Labor";Template:Sfn in October 1922 the Template:Ill launched a competition for a different "Palace of Labor", endorsed by the same Sergei Kirov.Template:Sfn Both projects were large enough to seat any conceivable convention,Template:Efn and none of them could materialize in a country devastated by wars and revolutions.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
In post-revolution Russian language the word palace (Template:Langx) denoted a multi-role public building that shared entertainment and administrative functions; as time went by, the administrative side predominated.Template:Sfn The word was never applied to residences of political leaders: their private affairs remained a closely guarded secret.Template:Sfn During the 1920s, modest "palaces of labor" or "palaces of culture" were actually built.Template:Sfn The coveted national palace had to be exceptionally large, impressive and technologically advanced to stand above the crowd.Template:Sfn The idea of placing a giant statue of Lenin on top of the national administrative center (originally, the Comintern building) goes back to a 1924 proposal by Viktor Balikhin, then a graduate student at Vkhutemas: "Arc lamps will flood the villages, towns, parks and squares, calling everyone to honor Lenin even at night ...".<ref>Russian: Extract from Balikhin's article, www.artchronica.ru, May 2002 Template:Webarchive</ref> The proposal was later popularized by Balikhin's rationalist movement, the ASNOVA, but gained little recognition.Template:Sfn
The decision to build the "House of Congresses" (Template:Langx)Template:Sfn was made at the end of 1930 or in early 1931, and announced in February 1931.Template:Sfn The influences behind the decision cannot be reliably ascertained. Template:Ill claims Stalin was the project's sole initiator;Template:Sfn Sergey Kuznetsov counters that the idea was pitched by Alexei Rykov.Template:Sfn The "House of Congresses" was, chronologically, the first of the three megaprojects launched in Moscow in 1931, months before the Moscow Canal and the Moscow Metro.Template:Sfn Its initial scope was modest; the architects and the politicians believed that building could be topped out in 1933.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn However, the unchecked ambitions of both groups soon caused a multifold increase in size, scope and cost.Template:Sfn In the summer of 1931, the already bloated project was renamed the "Palace of the Soviets".Template:Sfn
The architect
In February 1931, the government set up a three-tier project management structure. The Construction Council was a decorativeTemplate:Sfn political committee chaired by Kliment Voroshilov and later Vyacheslav Molotov;Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn it served as a proxy for announcing decisions made by Stalin and the Politburo.Template:Sfn The subordinate Construction Directorate (USDS) was the actual project management team of Template:Ill (chair), Boris Iofan (chief architect), Hermann Krasin,Template:Efn Template:Ill and Ivan Mashkov.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The USDS appointed and supervised the Technical Council, that included dozens of experienced architects, artists and engineers.Template:Sfn
Boris Iofan, the second in command in the USDS, immediately assumed the title and role of chief architect.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn A recent repatriant from Italy and a long-time student of Italian architect Armando Brasini, Iofan was a maverick within the Soviet architectural community and had no obligations to any group.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn He was also a trusted insider of the party elite, with particularly strong ties to Alexei Rykov and Avel Yenukidze.Template:Sfn His career with Soviet state clients began in 1922 in RomeTemplate:Efn and proceeded through the 1920s at an unprecedented and so far unexplained pace.Template:Sfn By 1931 he had a proven record of completing high-profile projects, including the enormousTemplate:Efn House on the Embankment with its Template:Ill—the largest modern auditorium in Moscow.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Efn Stalin certainly endorsed Iofan's appointment, probably on Yenukidze's recommendation.Template:Sfn
Iofan was difficult to work with soon forcing Kryukov to resign.Template:Sfn In the autumn of 1931 the chair of the USDS passed to party apparatchik Template:Ill, the architect's former superior at the House on the Embankment project.Template:Sfn Kryukov, Mikhailov, Rykov, Yenukidze and Iofan's colleagues at the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee would be killed in Stalin's purges, but the unsinkable architect would survive unharmed and retain his office, despite the incriminating connections.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn
Iofan prepared the terms of architectural competitions and controlled all the USDS's paperwork, giving him an advantage over any potential competitor.Template:Sfn This obvious conflict of interest provoked speculation that the competitions were rigged in Iofan's favor,Template:Sfn or that he was the chosen architect from the very start and the competitions were merely a ruse.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the 2010s archival research confirmed this hypothesis, which was afterwards supported by Iofan's biographers Maria Kostyuk, Dmitrij Chmelnizki and Sergey Kuznetsov. As early as 6 February 1931, Iofan devised a three-step, nine-month consultation schedule with a predetermined outcome.Template:Sfn The plan was soon implemented in a series of architectural competitions, where Iofan acted as primus inter pares (first among equals) in public and the éminence grise (powerful decision maker) behind the scenes.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to Kuznetsov, Iofan initiated and managed the competitions for his own benefit, to harvest free ideas from his unsuspecting colleagues.Template:Sfn He never agreed to be a temporary placeholder and did not intend to give up his lead to anyone.Template:Sfn
Choice of a site
In March 1931, the Construction Council chose a compact site in the former Okhotny Ryad Street market, just a few hundred meters (yards) north-west from the Kremlin and Red Square.Template:Sfn There were no large or otherwise valuable buildings to raze; demolition of existing low-rise buildings and the relocation of their inhabitants required little time or effort.Template:Sfn Left-wing architectural factions immediately disputed this economically sound choice. In April–May the Technical Council reviewed various alternatives and confirmed the selection of the Okhotny Ryad site.Template:Sfn
Molotov and Voroshilov thought differently.Template:Sfn On 25 May, the Politburo, advised by Molotov and Voroshilov, voted in favor of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour site.Template:Sfn Hannes Meyer and the ASNOVA supported this option. Iofan had secretly studied all the alternatives beforehand and was quite comfortable with the cathedral site.Template:Sfn It required extensive demolition and presented so far unknown technical challenges,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but it was the largest site and it formed a tight visual ensemble with Iofan's House on the Embankment.Template:Sfn Most of the Technical Council disagreed. On 30 May, they recommended the sites in Zaryadye or Bolotnaya Square as second-best alternatives; the cathedral site was ranked least acceptable.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Tired of insubordination, Voroshilov invited the stubborn professionals to a meeting with Stalin.Template:Sfn On 2 June 1931, Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Meyer and eight selected architects from the Technical Council convened in the Kremlin, where Stalin presented his arguments in favor of the cathedral site.Template:Sfn Kaganovich feared the destruction of an Orthodox shrine would spark an antisemitic backlash and suggested a site in Sparrow Hills, but Stalin's viewpoint prevailed.Template:Sfn
Historians disagree over the interpretation of this meeting. According to Kuznetsov, the decision had not yet been finalized, and the architects could still propose other sites.Template:Sfn According to Sona Hoisington, the decision was final, but its main objective was not the palace but the destruction of the cathedral,Template:Sfn with the project being a purely political statement, made without prior feasibility studies and completely disregarding the economics.Template:Sfn According to Chmelnizki, the decision was final; it was the first step in the development of Stalinist architecture.Template:Sfn On 5 June 1931, the outcome was sealed by the Politburo.Template:Sfn In December the stripped hulk of the cathedral was publicly blown up. The Okhotny Ryad site was also demolished for the construction of the Template:Ill (1932–1935) and Arkady Mordvinov's residential block on Tverskaya Street (1937–1939).Template:Sfn
The idea of destroying cultural heritage was not a novelty to the Soviet regime, as in the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Soviet Union fell from 29,584 to less than 500 (1.7%) as a result of demolitions or conversions into secular buildings.<ref>Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988)</ref>Template:Page needed
The four competitions (1931–1933)
Preliminary round (February–July 1931)
In April 1931, the chosen architects and architectural groups received terms of the first, preliminary competition. The brief, prepared by Iofan and signed by Kryukov, reiterated the monumentality and emphasizing the uniqueness of the future palace: it should be radically different from any existing public building.Template:Sfn It sent a clear message that the entries would be judged not by professionals but by politicians, who do not and would not align with any existing professional faction.Template:Sfn
By the end of June, the USDS had collected 15 entries representing all active movements, as well as Iofan and his brother Dmitry.Template:Sfn Most, including the Iofans, leaned toward modernist architecture.Template:Sfn Iofan had considered various alternatives, and ruled out compact centric floor plans in favor of a sprawling group of buildings aligned along the north–south axis of the cathedral site.Template:Sfn The two halls were placed at the ends of the axis, with spacious inner courtyards and a lean, tall tower in between.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The draft did not impress contemporary observers.Template:Sfn The USDS did not name a clear winner but cautiously praised an entry by Heinrich Ludwig,Template:Efn an enormous pentagonal enlargement of Lenin's Mausoleum devoid of any stylistic cues.Template:Sfn
International competition (July 1931 – February 1932)
On 18 July 1931, the USDS announced a public, open, international competition, with entries due by 20 October (later extended to 1 December 1931).Template:Sfn In September, the USDS amended the terms and explained the design of the palace would not be awarded to a single architect or a group or firm.Template:Sfn The USS claimed no single group could overcome the project's unprecedented challenges; it requires a joint effort of "all living creative forces of the Soviet society".Template:Sfn The message foreshadowed the imminent nationalization of the formerly independent professional community, but no one, even the party insiders like Iofan, Alabyan or Shchusev, could predict the outcome.Template:Sfn Another covert purpose of the competition—suppression of undesirable architecture in a manner similar to the "Degenerate art" campaign in Germany—would be revealed by Alexey Tolstoy (another party insider) later, just before the announcement of the winners.Template:Sfn Tolstoy clearly warned the architects that Gothic architecture, "American skyscraperism" and "corbusianism" had become distinctly unwanted.Template:Sfn
The expert jury chaired by Molotov received 112 brief proposals and 160 proper drafts, including 24Template:Efn by foreign architects.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Dignitaries like Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius or Erich Mendelsohn were preselected and invited by Iofan for a fixed fee.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Armando Brasini agreed to submit a proposal at no cost.Template:Sfn From a professional standpoint the best proposal came from Le Corbusier.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn The Soviet press praised his innovative, logical and convenient floor plan as late as 1940, but the jury felt the high-rise exoskeleton supporting the saddle roof was inappropriate for downtown Moscow.Template:Sfn
Most of the sixteen drafts selected by the jury were modernist in inspiration,Template:Sfn but the choice of the top three winners surprised and embarrassed everyone involved.Template:Sfn The Politburo made the decision secretly, and the Construction Council announced it publicly five days later on 28 February 1931.Template:Sfn The three prizes were awarded to Boris Iofan, Ivan Zholtovsky and the virtually unknown British-American autodidact Hector Hamilton.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Iofan presented a revised version of his earlier proposal, re-aligned along the Moskva River. The draft disposed with former Constructivist noveltyTemplate:Sfn The shape of the main hall changed from a parabolic dome to a stack of flat cylinders and, according to Katherine Zubovich, acquired "more italianate form".Template:Sfn Le Corbusier despised it as "childish megalomania".Template:Sfn Ivan Zholtovsky bizarrely combined Italian Renaissance with the Pharos lighthouse and the Colosseum.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Hamilton's Art Deco draft was uninspiring but the most cohesive of the three.Template:Sfn Hamilton, who had never been to Moscow, deliberately avoided any references to both modernist and historical styles.Template:Sfn The symmetrical array of staggered rectangular shapes and semicylinders, facing the river, was adorned only with uniform rows of white vertical pylons.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The "ribbed style" of Hamilton's drafts is strangely reminiscent of almost all Soviet public buildings of the Brezhnev era.Template:Sfn It was certainly not unique to Hamilton's entry: similar ribbed facades, a staple of American Art Deco, were also used by Alexey Dushkin, Iosif Langbard, Dmitry Chechulin and Iofan himself.Template:Sfn
European left-wing architects could not accept the fact and appealed directly to Stalin.Template:Sfn The leaders of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) realized very well that the competition was a matter of politics, rather than art, and that Stalin had the final say.Template:Sfn They were willing to cooperate with the dictator and felt betrayed when it turned out he had his own plans.Template:Sfn Their message amounted to an ultimatum, threatening to retract all support to the Soviet Union.Template:Sfn It is not known if Stalin ever read these letters, but the withdrawal of unwanted "allies" certainly suited him well.Template:Sfn
Third and fourth rounds (March 1932 – February 1933)
Template:External media The third, closed, competition among 12 invited teams of architects was held in March–July 1932.Template:Sfn In addition to the nine prize-winners of the open competition, at Mikhailov's request the USDS also invited notable constructivists and rationalists.Template:Sfn Two future co-authors of the palace, Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Helfreich were invited as a reward for their work on the Lenin Library.Template:Sfn The USDS required all architects to abandon a sprawling, squat design in favor of a single tall, compact, and monumental structure, avoiding any resemblance to church architecture.Template:Sfn The main hall, seating 15,000 people, had to face the Kremlin.Template:Sfn
The Ginzburg and Ladovsky teams remained true to modernist ideas.Template:Sfn Karo Alabyan and company produced an impressive and novel modernist design—"a ship of state" with three lean "funnels" flanking the river.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The other architects followed the instructions and presented compact, monumental but uninspiring proposals.Template:Sfn Iofan settled for a tall stack of four cylinders, wrapped in rows of white "ribbed style" pylons.Template:Sfn The jury declined to appoint a winner and announced yet another round of competition.Template:Sfn Stalin, on the contrary, privately notified Kaganovich, Molotov and VoroshilovTemplate:Efn that "Iofan's plan is unconditionally the best..." and compiled a list of necessary changes.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Stalin expressly ruled out the alternative designs by Zholtovsky ("...smacks of Noah's ark"), and particularly by Shchusev ("the same cathedral, but without a cross. Possibly, Shchusev hopes to add a cross at a later day").Template:Sfn
The fourth and final competition between five selected teams was held in August 1932 – February 1933.Template:Sfn This time, all proposals were very similar in composition, although still different stylistically.Template:Sfn On 10 May 1933 the Politburo announced the final decision in favor of Iofan.<ref name=10MAY/>Template:Sfn The winning design closely followed Iofan's earlier proposal — a compact, ziggurat-like stack of three cylinders perched on a massive stylobate and flanked with colonnades, ramps and grand staircases.Template:Sfn Total height of the core structure reached 220 meters (720'),Template:Sfn but there was no office tower and no statue of Lenin yet. The proposed statue of the "freed proletarian" was merely 18 meter (60') tall. Structural engineering issues had not been addressed at all.Template:Sfn The Politburo was not completely impressed with the result, and instructed Iofan to install a giant statue of Lenin, Template:Convert tall, on top of the palace.<ref name=10MAY>Template:Cite web</ref> The official narrative published in 1940 presented this proposal as Stalin's personal initiative.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Molotov hesitated, arguing that the face of Lenin would not be seen from the main plaza, but had to bow to Stalin and Voroshilov.Template:Sfn
According to Andrey Barkhin, the true purpose of the fourth stage was to narrow down stylistic choice to one of two alternatives: either following an existing, historical model, or creating something completely new.Template:Sfn Iofan managed to suit both sides: although his proposal looked novel, it was in fact a blend of various identifiable prototypes.Template:Sfn Iofan himself said the two main inspirations behind his design were the Pergamon Altar and the Victor Emmanuel II Monument which was, in turn, inspired by the Pergamon Altar.Template:Sfn The choice was natural for Iofan, because he had often seen the Vittoriano while living in Rome, and because he studied under one of its creators, Manfredo Manfredi.Template:Sfn The other identifiable and undisputed design cue is the Art Deco "ribbed style" of exterior walls, which had already been used by other Soviet architects.Template:Sfn The dome of the grand hall was inspired by the Centennial Hall in Breslau.Template:Sfn Less obvious, speculative sources range from Fritz Lang's MetropolisTemplate:Sfn to Athanasius Kircher's Turris Babel.Template:Sfn
Influences and interpretations
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During the competition period, the state dissolved formerly independent architectural movements and de facto nationalized all architects under the umbrella of state-owned design companies and the Template:Ill. By the end of 1932, modernist architecture in general, and its constructivist, Template:Ill and formalist movements in particular, came to a halt, giving way to the emerging Stalinist architecture. Modernist projects laid down earlier were gradually completed and often "improved" to suit the new policy. Architects kept on producing and publishing modernist drafts until at least 1935,Template:Sfn but such proposals had no chance to be built.Template:Sfn Rudolf Wolters, who came to Novosibirsk in the summer of 1932, reported that by the time of his arrival the provincial party executives had already received orders from Moscow to build "in classical style" only.Template:Sfn On the national level, no such orders were formally published; the change appeared to be a natural development within the professional community.Template:Sfn
The overwhelming majority of Soviet, Russian and foreign authors, with the notable exception of Antonia Cunliffe, agree the competitions represented a deliberate rejection of modernism in favor of monumental historicism.Template:Sfn The connection has always been public but subject to different interpretations. Soviet authors of the 1930s usually appealed to the "improved welfare of the masses".Template:Sfn Constructivism was presented as a temporary, low-cost ersatz architecture.Template:Sfn Once the nation had overcome the bitter poverty of the 1920s, "the people" (i.e. the communist state) disposed with stopgap solutions and rightfully embraced "quality" architecture.Template:Sfn After World War II the "welfare of the masses" fell to an all-time low and Soviet critics adjusted accordingly.Template:Sfn They painted modernism as a hostile, subversive influence of the capitalist West that was promptly revealed and suppressed by the party.Template:Sfn The reform was effected through the party decrees of the 1930s, starting with the USDS review of the international competition.Template:Sfn
In the late 1950s and 1960s modernism became the official style of the Soviet state, and recent history was rewritten again to exonerate the party.Template:Sfn Soviet theorists argued that the architects of the 1930s abandoned constructivism voluntarily and then forged the new monumental style on their own.Template:Sfn The "excesses" of Stalinist architecture were the architects' fault only.Template:Sfn The party, which carefully advised the professionals, bears no responsibility for what was actually built.Template:Sfn A toned-down version of the same narrative persisted until the 2000s, notably in the works of Template:Ill.Template:Sfn Western authors, likewise, did not produce a plausible explanation until the 2000s publications by Template:Ill and Christiane Post.Template:Sfn
In the late 1990s Dmitry Chmelnizki advanced a different explanation. The competitions were set up by Stalin personally as a complex political provocation.Template:Sfn In the opening, self-educational phase, Stalin familiarized himself with all active architectural schools and selected the general direction that would soon become the official style.Template:Sfn Then, he artfully degraded the social status and self-esteem of the architectural profession—which was a prerequisite to nationalization.Template:Sfn Finally, he destroyed the ties that united the architects into firms, groups and movements. In the end, the former diverse and independent professional community was reduced to a homogenous mass of obedient individuals.Template:Sfn Anna Selivanova later published a similar theory.Template:Sfn
Opponents like Sergey Kuznetsov argue the existing evidence of Stalin's personal involvement is too scarce to make far-reaching conclusions.Template:Sfn There are very few transcripts and quotations reproduced in the Soviet media. The protocols of the Politburo and the journals of Stalin's office in the Kremlin contain very few records related to the palace.Template:Sfn Chmelnizki, on the contrary, rates the same Politburo evidence as substantial.Template:Sfn Kuznetsov says mundane issues like deliveries of firewood mattered more than architectural follies.Template:Sfn Apart from a few publicized meetings, there is no evidence that Stalin ever invited architects to the Kremlin.Template:Sfn The only architect who had spoken to Stalin regularly was his personal contractor Miron Merzhanov, who remained modernist throughout the 1930s.Template:Sfn
Yet another hypothesis suggested by Sona Hoisington in 2003 views the stylistic change as a direct and unintended consequence of the destruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.Template:Sfn Demolition of the largest building in Moscow left a void in the city fabric that required, at the very least, an equally monumental replacement.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The modernist drafts received in 1931 could not make up for the loss. They lacked "a center of gravity, a sense of hierarchy", and any connection to the existing city; there was nothing distinctly "Soviet", either.Template:Sfn The state demanded "supermonumentality", and found it in Iofan's Art Deco proposal, which was then replicated in lesser projects across the country.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The definitive design (1934–1939)
Forced collaboration
The decree of 10 May 1933 expressly warned Iofan that the politicians felt free to "help" him by attaching other architects to the design process.<ref name=10MAY/> The threat materialized on 4 June, when the Politburo co-opted Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Helfreich.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Iofan remained the chief architect, but he now had to deal with two experienced and influential co-authors.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn The theatrical, dramatic visionary architecture that emerged from this collaboration was approved and publicized to great pomp in February 1934 despite a complete lack of technical and economic estimates.Template:Sfn
The official narrative presented the outcome as a joint effort of the three peers, but the reality was more complicated.Template:Sfn In the second half of 1933, Iofan's team in Moscow and the Shchuko-Helfreich team in Leningrad operated separately.Template:Sfn Iofan did not want to alter his 1933 design radically or to increase its already substantial height.Template:Sfn Contrary to the instructions received in May, he preferred placing the statue of Lenin on a standalone pedestal or tower, to maintain the balance between the statue and the building.Template:Sfn Shchuko and Helfreich thought otherwise, and did not hesitate to perch the giant statue on top of the building, extending its height by Template:Convert.Template:Sfn Initially, their base structure was a slab-sided rectangular block rather than Iofan's stack of cylinders.Template:Sfn Iofan objected, but Shchuko appealed directly to the Construction Council.Template:Sfn The politicians summoned Iofan and forced him to accept the Shchuko-Helfreich proposal or be removed from the project.Template:Sfn He complied, and the design evolved along the middle road between the two extremes.Template:Sfn
Placement of a giant statue on top of an already enormous structure caused a disproportional, nonlinear increase in building height. To make the statue visible from the ground, architects had to mount it on a tall but narrow, tapering pedestal—a "skyscraper" standing on the top of the grand hall. The increased height of the pedestal made the statue appear smaller, and the cycle repeated itself. According to the official narrative, experiments with scale models led to the conclusion that the appropriate height of the statue is exactly Template:Convert.Template:Sfn Lenin's head alone had to be almost as large as the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions.Template:Sfn The location of the statue and the design by Sergey Merkurov remained controversial throughout the 1930s and were harshly criticized in public by Boris Korolyov, Nikolai Tomsky, Martiros Saryan and other involved artists.Template:Sfn
American experience
A salient function of the palace project was the transfer of modern technology to the backward Soviet industry.Template:Sfn At the end of 1934, Iofan, Shchuko, Helfreikh and their associates departed on a lengthy tour of European and American cities.Template:Sfn Their main objectives were the reevaluation of the 1934 design against best American practices, and the research and purchase of modern construction technologies.Template:Sfn Moran & Proctor, a leading foundation engineering firm, became the first American company to be hired for the project and would assist the USDS throughout the 1930s.Template:Sfn More visits and more contracts, facilitated through the Amtorg network, would follow in subsequent years.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn From a purely architectural perspective, the most important experience was gained at the site of the partially completed Rockefeller Center. Iofan used the stepped-slab motive of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in later projects, and directly inspired careful realignment of the palace's staggered layers.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn These and other subtle exterior changes proceeded throughout the rest of the decade, along with the subsidiary interior design and urban planning tasks, and the creation of factories and workshops.
The definitive exterior design took its final shape by 1937.Template:Sfn The number of stacked cylinders was reduced from five to four with progressively decreasing, rather than uniform, spacings between the pylons.Template:Sfn The stainless steel moldings attached to the pylons widened progressively with height for a smooth transition from the granite-clad tower to the all-metal statue.Template:Sfn The pose and the proportions of the statue also changed.Template:Sfn This revised design was presented and discussed at a conference of the Union of Soviet architects in July 1939. A book by Template:Ill describing the design and the construction process in plain language was published one year later.Template:Sfn
Size
The total height of the palace, including the statue, was set at Template:Convert, taller than the recently completed Empire State Building.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Efn Being a much wider structure, the palace was estimated to weigh over 1.5 million tons,Template:Sfn and have a gross volume of over 7.5 million cubic meters (9.8 million cu. yd.).Template:Sfn Its net internal volume would have surpassed the combined volume of six largest American skyscrapers of the period.Template:Sfn The palace would require 350.000 tons of structural steel, six times more than the Empire State Building and almost twice as much as the San Francisco–Oakland Bay BridgeTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn).
The grand hall seating 21 thousand people had to have an inner diameter of Template:Convert, an outer diameter of Template:Convert, a height of Template:Convert meters and internal volume of 970,000 cubic meters (1.3 million cu. yd.).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The "small" hall had 5,000 seats and a height of Template:Convert.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn The "even smaller" Constitution Hall and Reception Hall in the stylobate measured Template:Convert and Template:Convert.Template:Sfn Floors in the office tower were planned to have a usable height of Template:Convert, for even more session halls of various government branches.Template:Sfn The exact number of floors was not disclosed.
Enormous as it was, the palace's grand hall was much smaller than Albert Speer's Volkshalle, designed to hold 180 thousand people,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> but the Russian palace surpassed the Volkshalle in total height.Template:Sfn
Structure
The completed palace would have consisted of two parts resting on two independent foundations: the circular core with the grand hall, the office tower and the statue of Lenin; and a rectangular stylobate adjacent to the core.Template:Sfn The core's concrete foundations rested on limestone bedrock Template:Convert below the level of the Moskva River.Template:Sfn The much lighter, Template:Convert tall stylobate could safely rest on the uppermost limestone sill, Template:Convert below the ground.Template:Sfn
The stylobate design used a traditional steel frame; on the contrary, the frame of the core was radically unconventional.Template:Sfn Instead of running the whole vertical height of the building, the palace's load-bearing columns had to wrap around the grand hall.Template:Sfn Thus, the frame was split into three distinct segments.Template:Sfn The lower segment, Template:Convert tall, comprised 32 pairs of vertical columns placed around the grand hall and connected to the foundation slab via massive riveted "shoes".Template:Sfn These "shoes" rested on massive steel plates implanted into the concrete slab.Template:Sfn Columns of the second segment were placed at a 22° angle, forming a tent over the grand hall up to the Template:Convert mark.Template:Sfn Above it, a traditional vertical frame would be used.Template:Sfn Two massive steel rings, similar to the hoops that hold the staves of a barrel together would hold the tent.Template:Sfn These rings, weighing an estimated 28 thousand tons, were the largest, the heaviest and the most expensive elements of the frame.Template:Sfn The statue of Lenin, weighing around 6,000 tons, was to be built around its own steel frame, and clad in monel sheeting with an estimated lifetime of two thousand years.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn
External walls followed the American pattern of hollow-body brick infill and granite exterior cladding.Template:Sfn According to the official narrative, Stalin instructed the designers to avoid unnecessary visual clutter and use a simple two-tone color scheme.Template:Sfn The designers selected greyish blue Ukrainian labradorite for the basement and pale grey granite from the Template:Ill valley for the rest of the structure.Template:Sfn
Engineering systems
The palace's internal transport infrastructure was designed assuming 50,000 visitors daily.Template:Sfn The routes to the grand hall and to the office tower were physically separated; the former relied primarily on stairs and escalators, the latter on elevators.Template:Sfn There were to be 130 passenger elevators carrying 25 people each, 27 service elevators and 20 elevators with firefighting equipment.Template:Sfn Since no elevator could travel the whole height of the building, visitors to the top floors had to make two or three transfers, sometimes via escalators or stairs.Template:Sfn
Electrical consumption of the palace was specified at 90 MW peak, and 90 million kWh per annum.Template:Sfn Fault-tolerant, redundant electricity supply required the construction of three new thermal power stations.Template:Sfn
Internal cleaning and waste disposal systems contained twelve central vacuum cleaning stations of 750 kW each, and thirty industrial garbage disposal units with a combined capacity of seven tons/day.Template:Sfn Heavy air conditioning equipment would have been located below ground level,Template:Sfn the conditioned air would be delivered to each seat in the grand hall via a network of ducts running under each row of seats.Template:Sfn The placement of air intakes required further research on the distribution of pollutants in the air; the designers knew that the intakes should have been raised to at least Template:Convert, but the exact height was not yet known.Template:Sfn Apparently dust prevention and cleaning the dust were paramount concerns. The designers even provided for vibrating brushes, installed in the floors of the lobbies, for cleaning the soles of the visitors' shoes.Template:Sfn
Urban redevelopment
Template:Convert. Legend: A: Palace of the Soviets (foundation of the core and the northern wing of the stylobate), B: Pushkin Museum (to be relocated), C: House on the Embankment, D: Aviators' Memorial, E: Reflective pool. Note the absence of Lenin's Mausoleum on the plan.
Moscow's planners viewed the palace as the hub of the Ilyich Alley, a new southwest-to-northeast axis aligned along present-day Komsomolsky Prospect, Volkhonka Street, Manezhnaya Square and Sakharov Prospect. The concept developed by the Vesnin brothers and Ivan Leonidov in the 1920s was incorporated in the Template:Ill in its basic form,Template:Sfn and was subsequently reexamined in numerous drafts and proposals.Template:Sfn Real construction practice often contradicted the plans: new buildings erected in the center of Moscow often blocked or narrowed the planned avenue.Template:Sfn
In 1940, the city approved a revised plan. All buildings between the palace and the Kremlin, including the Moscow Manege, had to be demolished.Template:Sfn The Alexander Garden would be leveled into a flat and straight boulevard. The Pushkin Museum building, which partly obstructed the course of the Alley, would be moved north to Gogolevsky Boulevard.Template:Sfn Most of it would be absorbed into the palace plaza.Template:Sfn The plaza would extend far south-west along the axis of the Alley, and north-west into present-day Arbat District. The Zamoskvorechye island west of the House on the Embankment would disappear, making way for a wide reflective pool.Template:Sfn The tip of the island would become a base to the memorial of the Chelyuskin and the projected Pantheon of the Aviators.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn
After World War II, the Ivan Zholtovsky workshop proposed an even larger, and certainly unreal, redevelopment plan for the central squares.Template:Sfn Nothing ever came from these fantasies except for the construction of the New Arbat Avenue in the 1960s.Template:SfnTemplate:Clear left
Construction and demolition (1933–1942)
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A geological survey of the site began in 1933Template:Sfn and continued into 1934.Template:Sfn Drilling to depths of Template:Convert confirmed the feasibility of construction.Template:Sfn The uppermost limestone sill was too thin to carry the main building's weight,Template:Sfn but the second one, Template:Convert below the water level, was sufficiently solid.Template:Sfn Groundwater in the area contained very little sulfates and chlorides, and was almost always still, thus concrete degradation was not a significant concern.Template:Sfn
In the second half of 1934, the builders drilled hundreds of boreholes around the perimeter of the site and pumped hot bitumen into the ground.Template:Sfn This formed a watertight vertical curtain extending from the surface to the load-bearing sill, which allowed safe excavation below the river level.Template:Sfn Blasting and excavation commenced in January 1935, and continued for more than three years.Template:Sfn To clear the pit down to the bedrock, the workers removed Template:Convert of rock and Template:Convert of soft soil.Template:Sfn The core's concrete foundations, consisting of two concentric rings with an external diameter of Template:Convert, were completed in January 1938.Template:Sfn In a related but independent development, the nearby Dvorets Sovetov ("Palace of the Soviets") metro station, placed just outside the watertight perimeter, was built in less than a year in 1934–1935.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Two types of structural corrosion-resistant alloy steel were developed specifically for the palace: the high-strength DS (ДС) containing copper and chromium, and the regular-strength 3M.Template:Sfn The steel beams were rolled, cut and milled at the Verkhnyaya Salda plant, and transported by rail on custom-made flatcars to a transshipment yard in Luzhniki.Template:Sfn After inspection and assembly, land tractors and barges hauled the steel to the construction site.Template:Sfn
In 1939, when the palace's frame rose above ground level, the propaganda campaign around it reached its peak.Template:Sfn The outline of the palace was so omnipresent in Soviet media that, according to Sheila Fitzpatrick, it became more familiar to the average citizen than any existing building.Template:Sfn The palace appeared on postcards, stationery and candy wrappers.Template:Sfn Filmmakers routinely used special effects to blend the model of the palace into live-action street scenes, as if the structure actually existed.Template:Sfn
In the summer of 1940, when the lower load-bearing columns were partially installed, the time to complete the whole frame was estimated at 30 months.Template:Sfn A newspaper photograph dated 26 June 1941 attests that by then the frame of the northern wing was largely complete. According to Iofan's biographer Maria Kostyuk, the palace would have certainly been built had it not been for the German invasion.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Immediately after the outbreak of the war, construction was suspended indefinitely;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn many of its 3,600 construction workers were pressed into military service.Template:Sfn The USDS factories and workshops were mobilized for the war effort;Template:Sfn the stock of structural steel was used for Moscow's anti-tank defenses. Iofan's closest students volunteered for the army and perished in battles.Template:Sfn In August–September 1941 project manager Template:Ill and his engineering staff, along with 560 railcars of the USDS equipment, were evacuated to build the Template:Ill.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Efn Iofan and Merkurov left Moscow in October under direct orders from Molotov.Template:Sfn
At the end of 1941, the remaining workers duly fireproofed and camouflaged the steel frame, and left Moscow for the Urals.Template:Sfn In 1942, the frame was disassembled to salvage steel for building railway bridges.Template:Sfn With no workers left to maintain the watertight curtain, river water seeped through and eventually flooded the foundations.Template:Sfn In 1958–1960 the site was drained and converted into an open-air swimming pool.Template:Sfn
After the demolition (1941–1956)
Iofan and the remnants of his team spent most of the war in Sverdlovsk working on defense projects.Template:Sfn He would later recall that in December 1941, at the peak of the Battle of Moscow, unnamed authorities instructed him to resume work on the palace.Template:Sfn However, there is plenty of evidence that he did not have resources to do it.Template:Sfn Work on the palace proceeded slowly in Iofan's free time. The next iteration of the design, the so-called Sverdlovsk variant, emerged only at the end of 1943.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn It was superficially similar to the 1937 design, but looked flatter, heavier and lacked the dynamics of the original.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Iofan removed the ribbed pylons from the upper layers and added many oversized, opulent sculptures.Template:Sfn The Sverdlovsk Variant was presented at the Kremlin in 1944 and in 1945, and became the new canon replacing the pre-war designs in mass media.<ref name=KRU>Template:Cite book</ref>
However, by this time, Stalin had lost interest in the palace.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Instead, in January 1947, the state concentrated resources on eight lesser skyscrapers in Moscow.Template:Sfn Early official announcements presented the new project as a constellation of towers centered around the dominant Palace of the Soviets.Template:Sfn Very soon the new towers were given priority over any pre-war plans, and effectively replaced the Palace as the new propaganda icons.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Efn Unfinished projects launched before the war were quietly scrapped or repurposed to the needs of new tenants.Template:Sfn By 1953, seven of eight planned towers were actually built, while the palace became a phantom, a fruitless exercise in "paper architecture".Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Of the three titular architects of the palace, Vladimir Shchuko died in 1939, and Vladimir Helfreich moved on to other projects, which included one of the "sisters". Boris Iofan tried to secure the contract for the main building of Moscow State University, but fell out of favor.Template:Sfn The university contract, along with all preliminary work by Iofan's team, was awarded to Lev Rudnev.Template:Sfn Iofan remained in charge of the unbuilt palace and was instructed to decrease the size and cost.Template:Sfn From 1947 to 1956, he presented six new proposals.Template:Sfn The 1947–1948 variant decreased to Template:Convert in height and 5.3 million cubic meters (7 million cu. yd.) in volume.Template:Sfn The 1949 variant retained same height, with a further decrease in volume.Template:Sfn In 1952–1953, the completion of the "seven sisters" freed up resources and the palace expanded to Template:Convert; in 1953 it decreased again to Template:Convert.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn
On 30 November 1954, Nikita Khrushchev launched a public campaign for the mass construction of affordable housing, and against the "excesses" of Stalinist architecture.Template:Sfn Khruschev had no preference for a particular style, but his speechwriters and consultants carefully guided him towards modernist views.Template:Sfn The former elders of Stalinist architecture did not dare to object and accepted the new reality. One year later, the "excesses" were condemned in a joint decree of the party and the Soviets,Template:Sfn and in 1956 the government dissolved the last refuge of Stalinist art—the Academy of Architecture.Template:Efn The almost forgotten Palace of the Soviets was not mentioned in any of the debates and decrees.Template:Sfn Iofan did not want to give up yet. Aided by Helfreich and his new partner Template:Ill, he scaled down the design again to Template:Convert in 1954 and to Template:Convert in 1956.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The other Palace of the Soviets (1956–1962)
In the autumn of 1956, Iofan's work finally stopped after the announcement of a new competition for a new Palace of the Soviets.Template:Sfn The volume of the new structure was capped at 500,000 cubic meters (700,000 cu. yd.), 15 times less than Iofan's design. The main hall had to seat 4,600 people (five times less), with two lesser halls seating 1,500 people each.Template:Sfn
The initial proposal mandated construction on the old site (of the demolished cathedral) which by 1956 was flooded and needed extensive salvage work.Template:Sfn In December 1956, the government proposed two alternative locations for the palace, both near Rudnev's University building.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Proximity to the university tower precluded any high-rise designs; the new palace had to be a sprawling, horizontal, flat structure.Template:Sfn However, same proximity suggested that the complete break with Stalinist art had not yet been sealed.Template:Sfn The most important government building in Moscow had to be unique; it could not be built cheaply, and it could tolerate at least some "excesses".Template:Sfn The neoclassicists believed they were given a chance to redeem Stalinist art in the eyes of Khrushchev.Template:Sfn The rising modernists felt Khrushchev's tacit support and saw a chance to impose their own view on the whole Soviet industry.Template:Sfn
The first round of the competition was split into two concurrent leagues: the open competition, with 115 entries representing both Stalinists and modernists, and a privately contracted competition with 21 entries.Template:Sfn The winning, and probably the most artistically valuable proposal, by Template:Ill, was an outright modernist glass box—a huge winter garden with three oval halls floating in a sea of greenery.Template:Sfn Contrary to expectations, Vlasov did not receive a formal prize immediately, but was rewarded later on.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A similar but less radical design by Template:Ill disposed of the winter garden and added rows of narrow white pylons.Template:Sfn The second round of the competition was held in 1959,Template:Sfn and attended by Khrushchev himself.Template:Sfn This time, all the entries followed the template established by Vlasov and Pavlov, with superficial differences.Template:Sfn The new canon of Soviet state architecture, which first took tangible shape in the Soviet pavilion at the Expo 58, was now complete.Template:Sfn Vlasov became the head of the new Palace of Soviets construction agency.Template:Sfn Very little is known about its work, which ceased after Vlasov's death in 1962.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfn The idea behind the Palace of the Soviets was laid to rest.Template:Sfn Its intended role was taken over by the Palace of Congresses in the Moscow Kremlin, completed in 1961. The building replaced several heritage buildings, including the old neo-classical building of the State Armoury, and some of the back corpuses of the Great Kremlin Palace. This, and that the architecture of the projected building contrasted with the historic milieu resulted in quite an uproar, particularly after other historic buildings of the Kremlin, such as the Chudov and Ascension cloisters, had already been demolished during the Stalin era, and laws that were introduced by the mid-1950s prohibited the demolition of historic structures, making the construction in some ways illegal.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
See also
- Federal Military Memorial Cemetery
- Narkomtiazhprom architectural contest (1934)
- All-Russia Exhibition Centre (1936–1939, 1951–1954)
- Seven Sisters (Moscow) (1947–1954) and the Eighth Sister
- Latvian Academy of Sciences
- Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science
- House of the Free Press in Bucharest
- Symbolism of domes
Notes
Citations
References
Historical sources
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book (2013 reprint)
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book The definitive official description of the final configuration being built in 1940 and the planned mechanical systems.
Modern research
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite book Note: The 2007 hardcopy Russian edition cites an invalid Template:Text. Here, the valid code is referenced to the 2013 reprint
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite book
External links
Template:Le Corbusier Template:Supertall proposed skyscrapers Template:Authority control