Palace of the Soviets
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Palace of the Soviets (Template:Lang-ru, 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 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.Template:Sfn
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 individuals behind these events and their motives remain a matter of conjecture and debate. Recent research supports the hypothesis that Iofan had been the chosen architect from the very start and manipulated the competitions to his own benefit.
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 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.
The beginning (1922–31)
On 20 December 1922 the First All-Union Congress of Soviets announced the creation of the Soviet Union.Template:Sfn 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 Soviet language the word palace (Template:Lang-ru) 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, the meaning of the word devalued as smaller, 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...".
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
