Palace of the Soviets
The Palace of the Soviets ( Russian Dworjez Sowjetow [ dvʌˈrʲets sʌˈvʲetəf ]) was an unrealized building project by the Soviet government in the Soviet capital Moscow in the 1930s . After its completion, the palace would have become the tallest building in the world with a total height of 415 meters.
The tender for the design for the palace was won by the Soviet architect Boris Iofan (1891–1976). In the course of the history of the palace there have been repeated changes to the building concept, which affected both the interior and exterior architecture and the location of the palace in Moscow.
History of the Palace of the Soviets
prehistory
After the fall of the Tsar in the February Revolution of 1917 and the October Revolution that followed in the same year , in which the Bolsheviks seized power, all artistic associations from the time of the Tsarist Empire were dissolved and converted into so-called Free State Art Workshops . In Moscow in 1920, during the Russian civil war , many new artistic associations emerged, which set themselves apart from the “old” architecture of the tsarist empire. At that time, due to the ongoing civil war, new buildings were out of the question, but the artistic associations kept holding extensive architecture competitions . The architect Alexei Shtusev was finally commissioned by the Soviet government to renovate Moscow, which had been badly affected by the civil war. This order was called New Moscow (Новая Москва).
When the Soviet Union presented itself at the Exposition Internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels moderns in Paris in 1925 in a "bold" and "monumental" pavilion built according to Konstantin Melnikov's plans, this was interpreted abroad and by foreign architects as let this architecture be representative of the new state. However, this architectural direction did not spread until 1925. The short period of time in Soviet architecture, when this architectural style determined the building industry in the country, was initially shaped by numerous associations working against one another.
One of these associations was the OSA (German: Association of Modern Architects), in which, among others, Alexander Wesnin and Moisei Ginsburg , who are also known as constructivists, took part. The aim of the association was to look for the highest possible functionality in the building industry.
The ASNOWA (German: Association of New Architects), in which János Mácza and Nikolai Ladowski participated, among others , researched the effect of architectural forms on the human psyche.
In the MAO (German Moscow Architecture Society), in which Leonid Wesnin and Alexei Shtusev participated, among others , both modern and academic architecture was advocated.
(1929 WOPRA was Всесоюзное объединение пролетарских архитекторов Wsessojusnoje objedinenije proletarskich architektorow dt .: Allunionsvereinigung Proletarian Architects) under János Mácza and Karo Alabjan founded. This association spoke out against all other associations and also polemicized against them and ultimately contributed to the dissolution of all the various associations in 1932.
The phase of the first five-year plan in the years 1928 to 1932 is considered to be the main period of these many different architectural styles which were used throughout the Soviet Union at that time and were dominated by the conservatives. At this time, the urban planning concepts for redesigning all cities into settlement units of 50,000 inhabitants each and the concepts for de-urbanization, which intended to dissolve existing cities and transform them into settlement lines of any size, collided. The urbanists were represented by LM Sabsowitsch and the Wesnin brothers, the desurbanists by M. Ochowitsch, Moissei Ginzburg and Iwan Leonidow .
In the center of modern architecture, which was located in Moscow, as early as 1928, in the competition to build the Lenin Library , the Leningrad academics Vladimir Hel Reich and Vladimir Shchuko prevailed against the Wesnin brothers. Both designs were of little use in the stormy phase of industrialization in the Soviet Union with a rapid need for new industrial areas. That is why the Soviet government called the pragmatist Ernst May and his group from Frankfurt am Main to Moscow in 1930 so that he could present a design for the building of the Lenin Library.
planning
The plans for the construction of a palace of the Soviets , as it was said in a meeting, which was to be built in the style of socialist classicism , began as early as 1922, the year the Soviet Union was founded, after plans by Josef Stalin at the 1st party congress of the CPSU in 1922 potential rival in the power struggle for Soviet (council) rule, Sergei Kirov , became known about such a construction project. Kirov not only wanted to have a palace built, he also spoke out in favor of a complete redesign of Moscow. The tsarist building fabric should be torn down and no longer be visible after completion of the “major renovation”.
The Palace of the Soviets was to become the focal point of the "New Moscow", as the project to renovate Moscow was called. It was a project to convert the historical Moscow urban planning culture, which largely originated from the tsarist period, into the style of socialist realism or socialist classicism preferred by the communist leadership . Moscow was to be "rebuilt" after it was declared the capital of the Russian SFSR on March 12, 1918 , and the new communist government of Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg ), the seat of the Tsarist government, moved to Moscow in the Kremlin on Red Square moved. The new, communist capital of the Soviet Union should no longer be shaped by the tsarist , but by the new socialist architectural style. Small streets should be widened to achieve a monumental effect. After completion of this urban development project, Moscow should become an ideal typical socialist city.
Further plans for the “new Moscow” were documented in the film Moscow from 1939, which shows the urban planning vision for this ideal city under socialism in the Soviet Union.
Location of the palace
Originally, a plot of land in the center of Moscow on Tverskaya Street was chosen as the location for the palace , which was renamed " Gorky Street" during the Soviet era . However, this proposal would have required a number of major structural efforts. In order to create the necessary space for the palace, a number of rows of houses in downtown Moscow would have had to be torn down. Later, after protests against tearing down the rows of houses, the ASNOWA group's proposal was chosen. This planned to build the Palace of the Soviets on the square of the Church of the Savior , located directly on the bank of the Moskva, west of the Kremlin . The square was laid out at the end of the 19th century to commemorate the victory of the Russian army over Napoléon Bonaparte . Finally, on December 5, 1931, the church building on the square was blown up on the orders of party leader Lasar Kaganowitsch with the consent of Stalin, in order to have the Palace of the Soviets built on the property. The choice of this location can also be interpreted as part of a concept of eliminating competing ruling architecture - during the period of "combative atheism " of the 1930s, many dominant churches and monasteries were demolished to make way for large Soviet buildings (cf., for example, St. Michael in Kiev ).
First competition
- Open competition, December 1931
- Tighter competition, first stage, March – July 1932
- Tighter competition, second stage, 1932–33
The competitions for the planning of the palace, both for the interior and for the exterior architecture, were held from 1931. According to the competition rules of the time, the palace was to be designed as a monolithic complex and a bold high-rise composition with an arbitrary finish. Working drafts were also submitted to the competition for the Palace of the Soviets, which had nothing to do with constructivist architecture and which, with their symbolism and monumentality, were to have a significant impact on the architecture of the Soviet Union in the following years. From 1930 onwards there was an increasingly heated argument among architects about what the “correct” architecture should look like under socialism.
At that time, the competition jury was unable to make a choice between the 160 projects presented and the 112 project drafts that were sent in, as they either did not correspond to the ideas of the jury or simply did not meet the competition rules and requirements. This was also due to the fact that the jury's ideas were constantly changing. The jury finally agreed that a superficial construction method that was only concerned with functionality was not sufficient, but that the pathos and emotionality in the construction method should be taken into account as well as the functionality, which was not excluded from the construction method. The first competition plans were first presented to the jury in 1931, which included Stalin himself.
The competition was staged as the culmination of the five-year plan drawn up by the Soviet government. In addition to the Soviet architects, such as Boris Iofan , some well-known architects from the West were invited to this competition .
The competition was won in February 1932 by the architect Boris Iofan, who was less well known in western countries and whose design was confirmed in 1934. He was able to prevail in the tender against the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier and the two German architects Walter Gropius and Erich Mendelsohn . The decision of the commission to accept Boris Iofan's design can of course also be traced back to the fact that Boris Iofan was preferred to non-Soviet architects in the tender because of his Soviet citizenship, but this could never be fully clarified.
Construction concept
The Palace of the Soviets was to be part of a comprehensive structural restructuring of Moscow, but the historic ring and radial structures were to be retained. Additional splendid buildings such as the Lomonossow University on the Lenin Mountains (today: Sparrow Hills ), the pantheon "Eternal Glory for the Great People of the Soviet Country" (not realized) or the Lenin Stadium (today: Luzhniki Stadium of the traditional Spartak Moscow Association ) the bend of the Moscow River were planned during this period. In addition, parts of a green belt should penetrate into the city center.
Iofan's building concept envisaged a high-rise in the Romanesque style , which consists of six cylindrical bodies standing on top of one another , which, decreasing their radius towards the top, rest on a two-tier stylobate . In total, the building, begun in 1937, should have a height of 415 meters. The building concept also envisaged crowning the roof with a statue of a worker; However, this design was changed from 1933, so that a 57 to 75 meter high statue of Lenin should now crown the roof. It should be oriented so that its face was facing Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square. For the main hall, which should be located at the foot of the building, two different sized halls were planned. A capacity of 20,000 seats was provided for the large hall and a capacity of 6,000 seats for the smaller hall. A library with a stock of 500,000 books was planned for the upper floors of the palace. Furthermore, there should be both cafes and restaurants in the building. In addition to the two main halls, four additional conference rooms have been planned. The Lenin statue should be made of aluminum or chrome steel ; the final decision about how high the statue should be or what material should be used for the statue was never finally made.
Initially, Stalin was content with a statue of a worker crowning the roof; later even plans were drawn up which provided for Stalin and Lenin to be erected together as a statue on the roof. Since Boris Iofan was unable to create two statues on the roof, Stalin ordered that only one figure of himself should form the end of the building. Stalin wanted to show himself as a symbol for the new ideal images of world-ruling Soviet workers. In reality, however, the plan to build the Palace of the Soviets with the statue of Stalin only reflects the hierarchical pyramid of Stalinism , at the top of which was the undisputed leader Josef Stalin. Stalin's decision to change the construction plans so that he is placed as the sole statue at the end of the palace, retrospectively confirms the statements made by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 about the personality cult proclaimed by Joseph Stalin himself .
At the All Union Congress of Soviet Architects, in connection with the construction of the palace, the Soviet architects were asked to take into account the “locally determined building projects” in their planning. At this congress, arguments were again made for the necessity of constructivist architecture, but the growth of eclecticism in the Soviet Union was also criticized. An attempt was made to achieve a synthesis of the entire Soviet arts by letting architects, painters and sculptors work together on any project. At the same time, a new, efficient construction method was developed. This construction method coincided with both the "large panel structures" and the " prefabrication ". In 1933 the Moscow Academy of Architecture was established , within which a separate department for monumental painting was developed in 1935.
The first general development plan ( New Moscow ) of 1935, which was approved by the Soviet government, provided for the retention of the already existing ring-shaped structure of the city. This plan largely takes up details from the reconstruction plan from the early 1920s. The most extensive construction projects were the Moscow Metro and the Moscow-Volga Canal . The foundation of the Palace of the Soviets, designed by the later famous civil engineer Nikolai Nikitin , was completed in 1939. In 1941 construction was stopped due to the war .
Occurring problems
During the construction of the Palace of the Soviets, initially when excavating for the construction of a foundation, water problems arose again and again, such as flooding through the nearby Moskva River. The swampy Moscow soil also proved to be problematic , as it would have required a foundation with pile foundations to give the palace sufficient stability , and not just a simple slab foundation , as the plans for the palace had intended.
Furthermore, there was always a lack of money for building materials or for paying the workers. During the disputes over money there were repeated short strikes , but these did not seriously affect the further construction.
History of the palace during the war and after the war
prehistory
After the war began in 1941, all construction projects in the war-endangered areas, with the exception of the Moscow Metro, were shut down. One of the reasons for this is that the necessary building materials were needed for the war. The Moscow studios were closed and the architects evacuated to safe areas of the Soviet Union, mostly to the Asian parts.
From 1943, plans were drawn up in the Moscow city government to rebuild the city, which had been damaged by air raids . In doing so, care was taken to restore the original city silhouette and to adapt the size and facade design of new buildings, especially in the old Russian towns. In the big cities, such as in Kiev or Kaliningrad , monumental streets were laid out after the war and destroyed historic buildings were torn down. In Moscow, after the war, construction was not continued on the Palace of the Soviets, but instead eight high-rise buildings were designed in 1947 to mark the 800th anniversary of the founding of the city, seven of which were realized in the following years (see Seven Sisters ). Such tower accents were then to be found in most cities of the Soviet Union after the war, except in Leningrad (today's Saint Petersburg), since the historic rows of buildings were not to be impaired by high-rise buildings there.
The new First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU , Nikita Khrushchev , criticized the relatively high construction costs of the palace and the addiction to decorations in Moscow at the end of 1954. Furthermore, the architecture practiced in the pre-war period was branded as a distortion of cultural heritage. The extensive industrialization and mechanization of all construction work was also prescribed. The plans for a further construction of the Palace of the Soviets were set for 1956 due to the consequences of the Second World War and other internal political problems. At the end of 1955, the date was set for mid-1956, when the competitions for the further construction of the palace were to be held. At that time the palace consisted of the foundation and some concrete supports.
The plans for a further construction of the palace were made by the XX. The party congress of the CPSU , which took place in Moscow from February 14 to 26, 1956, was overshadowed. At this party congress, Nikita Khrushchev disclosed Stalin's crimes for the first time, which initiated the so-called thaw period or de-Stalinization .
Second competition
The second competition for the redesign of the palace that was under way, between 1957 and 1959, clearly reflected the renewed departure from academic architecture and the move towards modern architecture . Nevertheless, as in the first competition, the project did not come to fruition. One reason for this was the high costs that could no longer be covered due to the ongoing reconstruction of urban structures in the Soviet Union at the time. The Soviet Union presented itself at the World Exhibition ( Expo 58 ) in Brussels in 1958 with a pavilion made of glass and steel, which thus also distinguished itself from the academic architecture that was still used at the Paris World Exhibition in 1937. The construction of standardized residential buildings in cost- and space-saving construction (so-called " Khrushchevkas ") throughout the country had priority in the following decades. In the 1970s, however, visual artists again increasingly worked together with architects; This collaboration, as it already happened in the 1930s, also allowed architectural details from the 1930s to reappear.
This marked the end of the planning for the Palace of the Soviets that had begun in the 1930s, as well as that of the associated major reconstruction of the capital into a city of the Soviets with representative buildings in the style of socialist classicism. In addition, the new call for tenders for the construction of the palace in 1957 no longer provided for a final statue.
History of the building site after 1958
After the final stop of construction of the palace in 1958, the Moscow city government discussed the further use of the square of the Church of the Savior, on which the foundations from 1939 still existed. Several suggestions came up. Some wanted to leave the foundation standing and, if necessary, build something new there, others wanted to tear down the foundation and rebuild the cathedral. But when, after a structural inspection of the foundation, it turned out that it was no longer stable, a heated bathing establishment ( Moskva Swimming Pool ) was built on the site .
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was decided to rebuild the cathedral . The now ailing swimming pool was torn down and the foundation stone was laid in 1992 . The church reopened on August 19, 2000. The reconstruction was one of the major construction projects of Moscow's Lord Mayor Yuri Luschkow and was the trigger for the reconstruction of hundreds of churches, monasteries and mosques in the area of the former Soviet Union, often referred to as "rebirth" .
Film documentaries
In 1939 the Soviet director Viktor Morgenstern shot the documentary " Москва " ( Moscow in German) at the Zentrnautschfilm studio , commissioned by the Soviet government . This film shows the future urban planning vision of a socialist ideal city embodied by Moscow. It is the subject of Janina Urussowa's monograph The New Moscow. The City of Soviets in the film 1917-1941 (2004). The "old Moscow" - streets with historical buildings - is contrasted with the "new Moscow" in the socialist-classicist architectural style. The backdrops were set up in the format “one to one”. For various reasons (lack of financial resources, World War II, ideological turnaround after Stalin's death in 1953), the plans were never fully implemented in this form.
The Palace of the Soviets and other planned renovations were also the subject of the 1938 film by Alexander Medvedkin made " Новая Москва " (Novaya Moscow; 'The New Moscow') . One of the film heroes, a young engineer, has created a “living model” of the planned city, which he presents in the course of the film with great success. However, this film was not shown in cinemas when it was made. However, it was retained and was only broadcast on Russian television in the 1990s.
literature
- Adolf Max Vogt : Russian and French Revolutionary Architecture 1917/1789 . Cologne 1974
- Naum Gabo and the competition for the Palace of Soviets Moscow 1931–1933 : An exhibition organized by the Berlin galleries, the Museum of Modern Art, for Modern Photography and for Modern Architecture. ISBN 3-927873-23-3 (English)
- Janina Urussowa: The new Moscow. The city of the Soviets in the film 1917–1941 . Böhlau, 2002, ISBN 3-412-16601-4
- Selim Chan-Magomedov: pioneers of Soviet architecture . Dresden 1983
- Peter Noever: Tyranny of the Beautiful: Architecture of the Stalin Era . Prestel-Verlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-7913-1340-1
See also
Web links
- A church for socialism . someday
- Website about the tender for the building of the palace (Russian, English)
- Stalinist Skyscrapers (English)
- Soviet Palace Internet presence of TIME about the Palace of the Soviets (English)
- Plans over the Palace of the Soviets (English)
- utopia.ru - Several construction concepts from vers. Architects.
- youtube film Soviet propaganda film on the planned architecture in Moscow (1938, 5 min, Russian), with the model of the Palace of the Soviets
- Overview of the planning history on modernREGIONAL
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Naum Gabo and the competition for the Palace of Soviets Moscow 1931–1933: An exhibition organized by the Berlin galleries, the Museum of Modern Art, for Modern Photography and for Modern Architecture . ISBN 3-927873-23-3 (English)
- ↑ a b c Selim Chan-Magomedow: Pioneers of Soviet architecture . Dresden 1983.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Lexicon of 20th Century Architecture . Hatje, Stuttgart 1983.
- ↑ a b c d Avantgarde II 1924–37. Soviet architecture . Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7757-0425-6 , p. 113 ff., 214 ff .
- ↑ Excerpts from The New Moscow