Stalinist architecture
From Freepedia
Stalinist Architecture or Stalin's Empire style are the terms typically applied to the years between 1933 (the date of the final competition to design the Palace of the Soviets) and 1955 (when the Academy of Architecture was abolished). In the Soviet Union under Stalin, architecture represented a return to conservatism. Such an approach was not occurring solely under Stalin because, in Nazi Germany, under Hitler, Nazi architecture had taken a similar turn.
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The influence of Stalin on Soviet architecture
As a leader, Stalin created and sustained a system of repression. Every element of society was under control of the state. Architects (though not as dramatically as artists and writers) were subjected to such control. Stalin created an intense construction program. To implement his plans, Stalin used prisoners for labour. Because he had total control, many of Stalin's personal tastes became the law. This is evident in many surviving architectural plans.Stalin selected his architects - they were considered to be among the elite of society. They lived in lavishly furnished apartments, and built priceless personal libraries, all during a time of poverty and suffering throughout Russia. It was Stalin's goal to "wipe clean the slate of the past...and rebuild the world from top to bottom."
Architecture under Stalin reflected several different styles including Neo-Renaissance, classicism, and constructivism. Modernism had been swept away, much as it had been in Germany when Hitler ordered the Bauhaus to be closed in 1933. In keeping with his total control, and personal taste, Stalin formed a building committee comprised of many of his closest collaborators. As Stalin implemented collectivism, he realized it was necessary to build up the cities. In doing so, he desired to make cities made of "super buildings".
State control of architecture in the USSR
On April 23, 1932, the Communist Party Central Committee passed the resolution "On Structural Changes in the Literary and Artistic organizations". The resolution outlawed all independent organizations. The formerly independent organizations were forced to form unions where the party could decide what was "fruitful, creative and correct". It was a difficult time for architects because their guidelines were not as clear as those for writers and artists. By July of 1932, all independent organizations were abolished and replaced with the Union of Soviet Architects. On October 14, 1933, the Soviet Academy of Architecture was founded, but it was abolished in 1955 two years after Stalin's death, thus closing the period typically regarded as the time of "Stalinist Architecture".
“Stalin’s “Seven Sisters” in Moscow
Image:Kotelincheskaya Naberezhnaja Moscow.hires.jpgThere are seven tall buildings in Moscow which were built in the 1950s - the so-called "Stalin's Skyscrapers".
- Moscow State University
- Block of Flats on Kotelnecheskaya enbankment
- Block of Flats on Krasnaya Presnya
- Hotel "Leningradskaya"
- Hotel "Ukraina"
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Ministry of Transport
No. 1 Kudrinskaya Square was one of seven tiered, neoclassic towers that were built in the early 1950s. Modelled on a turn-of-the century Russian food shop in Moscow, they were resplendent with red and white inlaid marble, floor-to-ceiling windows, luminescent chandeliers and mighty central columns. The idea then was to create food "palaces" for the people. Just after the end of World War II, Soviet authorities decided to erect eight tall skyscrapers here in a design similar to that of the Palace of the Soviets. Only seven were constructed. According to the book "Architecture of the Stalin Era," by Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtaradze, the architects settled on a terrace-like or tiered construction, often referred to as a "wedding-cake style", to give each building a sense of "upward surge" toward a central tower. Image:Vdnkh.jpg
The spires on the buildings were made of metalized glass in order to reflect the sunlight. One political reason for adding the spires (which were not in the original architects’ plans) was to distinguish the towers from American skyscrapers of the 1930s. According to Tarkhanov and Kavtaradze, the design of the buildings and the external decoration recall the Kremlin towers and Muscovite baroque, and the ornate exteriors are drawn from Gothic cathedrals. German prisoners of war were largely responsible for the construction of the Moscow State University building on the Lenin Hills. For years, the university tower was the tallest building in Europe.
The other “sisters” include the Ukraine Hotel overlooking the White House of Russia; and the Foreign Ministry headquarters, near the Old Arbat, central Moscow's pedestrian street. Two of the buildings are hotels; two of them house government ministries; two are apartment houses; the seventh is Russia's most prestigious university. The towers owe their design to a monumental building that was never built, the Palace of Soviets. Starting in the early 1930s, planning competitions were held for the proposed 1,410-foot-high structure, which was intended to stand on the banks of the Moskva River where Stalin had ordered the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour to be destroyed in 1931. But despite 25 years of plans and revisions, the gigantic palace never materialized. The cathedral was rebuilt on the same site in the 1990s.
Stalinist architecture elsewhere
Stalinist architecture was for a time employed in the post-war Eastern Bloc, notably the Stalin Allee of East Berlin and the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw.
Neo-Stalinist architecture in post-USSR Russia
In today’s Russia, it seems that there is a revival of Stalinist architecture among the buildings being constructed nowadays, as a way of linking with the past. One building in Moscow is the Triumph-Palace, a massive tower rising just off Leningradskoye Shosse, marketed as the long-planned but never built eighth “Stalin’s Sister”. The building has modern Western-style luxuries, but its design is copied directly from the workshops of socialism. Triumph Palace is, at 264 meters in height, said to be now the tallest building in Europe.
External web link
This article is largely based on an article entitled “Stalinist architecture” on the New York City Architecture website, which includes a reproduced article by David Hoffman entitled “Stalin’s Seven Sisters”, originally published in The New York Times on July 29, 1997, and another entitled “Stalinist High Rises Now In Vogue” by Susan B. Glasser of “The Washington Post”. There are many photographs of Stalinist-era buildings, including those in former Soviet satellite states.
- “Stalinist architecture” http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SCC/SCC030a.htm
