The winner of an international competition for designing the giant building was a team of Soviet architects led by Boris Iofan, the author of the famous House on the Embankment (an apartment block not far from the Kremlin where senior government and party figures lived). Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was not a fan of it. This architectural utopia of the Soviet authorities became one of the most outstanding examples of engineering and architectural thought. If the structure had been built it would have been the world’s tallest at the time after Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh revised Iofan’s original design into a tall skyscraper. Thus, the Stalinist Empire style with its monumentality and huge budgets forever became a thing of the past. After Stalin's death, the idea of building the palace was resurrected only once: in 1956-1958, a new competition for the best architectural project was held. The work lasted eight years and after the outbreak of World War II, was suspended altogether. In the original version, the building was to be crowned with a statue “The Free Proletarian”, an 18 meter/60ft-tall figure of a worker with a torch in his hand. © 2020 Architectuul | About | Terms | Privacy | Future Architecture Platform Member, "The ultimate aim of all creative activity is building.". As was often the case at the time, Stalin personally intervened in the design work, pointing out that the palace should become a monument to Lenin and his teaching - and the statue of the proletarian was replaced by an almost 100 meter statue of Lenin. From it, an Avenue of the Palace of the Soviets was to be laid all the way to Lubyanka Square, with roads radiating from it to link different parts of the city to the center. The Palace was designed during several decades, no building was built anyway, but the history of competitive proposals, their presentations and discussions had a decisive impact on formation and development of the entire Soviet architecture. The project was never realised but the winning neoclassical design was by Boris Iofan. The Palace of the Soviets (Russian: Дворец Советов, Dvorets Sovetov) was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (present-day Russian Federation) near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
Architecturally, this monumental structure, generously decorated with bas-reliefs depicting Soviet symbols, was meant to mark a transition from the avant-garde to the Stalinist Empire style. The main entrance, facing the Kremlin, was to be decorated with statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In 1958 the remaining foundations were converted into an open-air swimming pool, later between 1995-2000 the Cathedral was reconstructed. In Iofan's design, the Palace of the Soviets was to become the tallest building in the world at the time (its total height was to be 495 meters/1625 feet!) The architectural contest for the Palace of the Soviets (1931–1933) was won by Boris Iofan's neoclassical concept, subsequently revised by Iofan, Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh into a skyscraper. Albeit, only on paper. The all-season open-air swimming pool outlived the Soviet regime: it was closed only in 1994 to make space for the restored Cathedral of Christ the Savior. 5 scary Soviet urban legends about all things foreign, Foreign leaders and celebrities on top of Lenin’s Mausoleum (PHOTOS). These grandiose plans were cut short by World War II. The competition for a building of the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow was a key event in the domestic culture history. To the end of his days, the architect regretted that the main project of his life was never realized.
If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material. Apart from its symbolic meaning, the Palace of the Soviets had another, no less important value: it was supposed to become an architectural manifesto of the Soviet regime, which by the early 1930s had already turned away from the ideas of constructivism in search of a new big style. on the site of Christ the Savior Cathedral. However, these plans were soon abandoned as the country was entering a period in its history known as the Thaw and was on the verge of another urban planning revolution.