The Palace of Soviets is an unfinished project from the times of the USSR. Palace of the Soviets: why they could not build this grandiose structure

We will make a small excursion around the Palace of Soviets in Moscow. The grandiose and majestic building was never destined to come true. On the Internet, there are illustrations from the sketch and design documentation of the Palace of Soviets and the set of these illustrations is limited. The idea arose to restore one of the variants of this building in 3d, describe the history of the Palace of Soviets and take a walk around the territory of the virtual building. At the end of the post, the evolution of the winning design of the Palace of Soviets by Boris Iofan, starting from 1933, is given. 1934 variant implemented in 3d

As a tour guide, I would like to ask the visitors of the virtual exhibition a few questions:

1. Would you like the project of the Palace of Soviets to be implemented?

2. How would this building be operated in modern conditions if it were implemented?

3. In the USSR, the Palace of Soviets was given the place of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior. What place, in your opinion, would be the most reasonable to allocate for the construction of the Palace of Soviets? Where would it fit best?

4. Did you like / dislike the tour? Feel free to criticize.

The idea of building the Palace of Soviets will turn 90 next year. In 1931, an open competition was announced for the design of the building. According to the plan, the Palace of Soviets was supposed to personify the greatness, power and success of the young Soviet state, to become a visible embodiment of the idea of the victory of communism, prepared for a bright future for everyone. About 160 projects were submitted to the competition, both from foreign architects and, for the most part, from Soviet ones. By that time, the dominant link in architecture was constructivism. Constructivism is based on strict, concise forms, and the space of the building should be as functional as possible. Not a small part of the projects for the construction of the Palace of Soviets was designed in a constructivist spirit. But for a symbolic building, the laconic and rational form did not fit well with the changing "proletarian aesthetics". At least that's what Joseph Stalin thought. The simplicity and ascetic design of the structures were to be replaced by pompous, richly decorated facades. Architects based on the development of classical forms increasingly made themselves known. Boris Iofan kept apart from other architects. A student of the Italian architect Armando Brasini won the competition for the design of the Palace of the Soviets. By the way, Brasini also took part in the competition. The influence of the teacher was great, one might even say that Italian blood was supposed to flow in the upcoming Palace. Following the Italian Kremlin, which became the sacred center of Russia, the significant influence of Italians in Orthodox church buildings came the time for architectural influence on the country of the Soviets.

In 1933, architects V. Schuko and V. Gelfreich were involved in the work of B. Iofan. According to the revised project being prepared, the height of the Palace was to be 420 meters, the building was to be crowned with a 100-meter monument to V.I. Lenin - the work of the sculptor S. Merkurov. The cubic capacity of the building would be 7,500,000 cubic meters. The Great Hall of the Palace was designed for 21000 people, had a height of 100 m, the small hall was designed for 6000 people. The high-rise part of the Palace was supposed to house the Presidium, the chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and some other halls.

The construction of such a building would require the reconstruction of Volkhonka and other adjacent buildings. In other words, all historical buildings, mansions would be demolished. Huge areas around were supposed to be asphalted and equipped with parking lots for 5,000 cars. The building of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin should have been moved 100 meters.

The construction of the Palace began in the late 30s on the site of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior. But the truly ambitious plan of the Bolsheviks was never to be realized. The war has taken its toll. Construction was stopped at the stage of laying the foundation. Interestingly, during and after the war, the project of the Palace of Soviets underwent changes, the hope for the implementation of the project did not leave Stalin for a long time. The post-war devastation, the death of the leader, the exposure of the cult of Stalin, the adoption of the directive on the "condemnation of embellishment and architectural excesses" finally buried the idea and project of further construction. Then there were many other programs and projects, attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, to oppose the USSR and the socialist camp to the world of capital and a market economy. But such beautiful project architecture was no more.

The project of the Palace of the Council by Boris Iofan played a big role in the formation and further development and flourishing of Soviet architecture of the 30s - 50s, called the "Stalin Empire". Formed at the intersection of different cultures and styles, from classicism to post-constructivism, a talented synthesis of architectures, eclecticism of the Soviet imperial style is a significant milestone in the architecture of the world.

In 1931, work began on the creation of a master plan for the reconstruction of Moscow.

It was assumed that it would be based on the principle of preserving the historical appearance of the city. At the same time, the new plan contained ideas about the expansion of Moscow streets and the construction of new architectural objects. Its final version appeared in 1935 and covered many issues: the construction of the subway and the improvement land transport, gardening and watering of Moscow, and most importantly - the construction of the Palace of Soviets in the capital.

Palace on the site of the temple

For the first time, the construction of the Palace of Soviets was discussed back in 1922, during his lifetime. However, due to the need to rebuild the country afterward, no resources were found for this large-scale project. The idea came back again in the 1930s. The Palace of Soviets was to become the first Soviet skyscraper and a symbol of the prosperity of the socialist state.

Project Le Corbusier. Source: corbusier.totalarch.com

All organizational issues related to the Palace of Soviets were assigned to the Provisional Technical Council for Construction Management, which included not only architects, but also many prominent cultural figures - writers (), artists (I. E. Grabar), theater directors (K. S. Stanislavsky). The question of the construction site remained open. They offered Okhotny Ryad, Bolotnaya Square, Varvarka and, finally, Volkhonka. The latter option turned out to be the most preferable in the end, but for its implementation it was necessary to demolish the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was done on December 5, 1931.

Volkhonka was not chosen by chance. The fact is that the Palace of Soviets, as the most high building Moscow was to become the architectural dominant of the city, in other words, its center. They were going to build a wide avenue and radiating highways to the Palace. The place where it was located looked ideal for these purposes.

Project selection

The competition for the design of the Palace of Soviets is considered the largest in the history of the architecture of the Soviet Union. Architects from all over the world and even people who, by the nature of their activities, are far from art and urban planning, were invited to take part. The Palace of Soviets was intended to become people's building Accordingly, anyone could contribute to its creation.

"This building should be the emblem of the coming power,
the triumph of communism not only in our country, but also in the West” S.M. Kirov.
Source: Atarov N. Palace of Soviets. M., 1940.

The management outlined a fundamental point - the building must be high-rise. However, no specific technical task was given to the participants of the competition, so they could completely invent the look of the Palace themselves, based only on their own imagination. Despite the fact that the projects were sometimes strikingly different from each other, the height, as expected, won over the squat.

It was necessary not only to fit the monumental building into the environment, but to force it to dominate it. From the outside, the Palace of Soviets was seen as a huge skyscraper with an open area surrounding it for demonstrations and walks, and inside it was supposed to be a series of halls and halls for meetings of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, as well as mass events.

Among the foreigners who presented their projects of the Palace of Soviets, the American architect Hector Hamilton distinguished himself. He won the second prize at the All-Union stage of the competition. In 1932, Time magazine emphasized that the Hamilton Prize was an important proof of the openness of the competition. The architect, not very well known at that time in the professional community, received the award due to his talents, and not a big name. Alas, the project, which bore the working title "Simplicity", was ruined by its simplicity. Hamilton, for example, overlooked such a detail as the square near the Palace of Soviets (it was not in the plan). But where, then, to hold demonstrations?

The scheme of the frame of the statue of Lenin.
Source: Atarov N. Palace of Soviets. M., 1940

The project of the eminent French architect Le Corbusier (later known as one of the founders of the brutalist architectural style) also did not fully meet the task. The building designed by Le Corbusier was called either a hangar, or a stadium, or a huge factory building - anything but a palace.

In February 1932, a decree was issued in which architects were again urged not to be afraid of heights. Finally, in May 1933, the Construction Council approved the project of the Soviet architect B. M. Iofan. The final plan, in the development of which, in addition to Iofan, V. A. Shchuko and V. G. Gelfreikh took part, was as follows: the building of the Palace of Soviets is the tallest in the world, higher eiffel tower Or the Empire State Building. Its height is 415 meters.

B. M. Iofan, L. V. Rudnev (later the architect of the main building of Moscow State University) and D. N. Chechulin (architect of the house on Kotelnicheskaya embankment) proposed the construction of several high-rise buildings to smooth out the scale of the Palace of Soviets. A. V. Shchusev concretized the idea: the architect spoke in favor of building eight new skyscrapers and called for them to be located in places whose names contain the epithet “red” - the vicinity of Red Square, Red Gate, Krasnaya Presnya.

Communism symbol

Initially, in Iofan's project, an 18-meter sculpture of a worker with a torch in his hand called "The Liberated Proletarian" towered over the building. But, according to , the Palace of Soviets was supposed to become a monument to Lenin and his achievements. Thus, a new task was identified: to crown the Palace with a 100-meter sculpture of Ilyich. In clear weather, it could theoretically be seen at a distance of seventy kilometers from Moscow. The statue of Lenin was supposed to be three times taller and twice as heavy as New York's Statue of Liberty. One of its heads was only slightly inferior in volume to the columned hall of the House of the Unions on Bolshaya Dmitrovka.

Great Hall of the Palace of Soviets. Source: techne.com

What does the Palace of Soviets look like "on paper"? Its main entrance, near which there are monuments to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, faces the Kremlin. Inside the building - the interaction of all kinds of art. Frescoes, for example, were supposed to occupy about 20 thousand square meters of walls (when compared, it turns out that these are six Red Squares). In addition to them - sculptures, busts, bas-reliefs and canvases in the style of socialist realism.

Of greatest interest is the Great Hall, located in the center of the Palace. It would be possible to place in it the bell tower of Ivan the Great, or any building with a height of 25 floors. The parterre of the large hall could be transformed into a stage, a water pool and even an ice arena. Such transformations had to take place within a few minutes using an electric lift. The round shape of the Great Hall made it difficult to hold screenings, and the creators of the project found an original solution to the problem. It was necessary to install four screens at once, the side faces of which would fold into the shape of a cube. Three of them face different sides of the amphitheater, one - to the presidium sector.

Hall of Heroics of the Civil War.

There were many unrealized architectural plans in Moscow. This is what the most spectacular of them could look like. The dimensions of the building are the total height of 416.5 meters, the volume is 7,500,000 cubic meters (like the 3 pyramids of Cheops).

STATUE: The Palace of the Soviets is one of the most famous architectural projects in history. The tallest building in the world was to become a symbol of socialism, the new country and Moscow. This building was built in order to accept the last republic into the Soviet Union after the victory of the World Revolution within its walls. And then the whole world will be one Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The 300-meter multi-tiered tower serves as a pedestal for the 100-meter statue of Lenin. In her head is placed the meeting room in which that solemn ceremony will take place. At the same time, Ilyich did not freeze motionless. His hand always points to the Sun, for this the statue is rotated by electric motors. The statue of Lenin should become the largest statue in the world. Electric motors in the project found a place in the hold Great Hall and with their help, the venues in the hall for 22,000 people would change.

IDEA: The idea of building the Palace was expressed on December 30, 1922 at the First Congress of Soviets by Sergei Mironovich Kirov (it was at this congress that the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was announced). The idea could not but find wide support among the delegates - a new symbol of a new country!

THE BEGINNING: But it was only on June 18, 1931 that the Izvestia newspaper announced an open competition for best project Palace. In the same year, on December 5, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a symbol of old Russia, was blown up, the place of which was to be taken by the symbol of the USSR. The temple was visible from anywhere in Moscow in the early thirties, the new symbol should be visible from anywhere in the renewed Moscow of the future. In 1931, a government body was created - the Council for the Construction of the Palace of Soviets (in order not to repeat the word twice in the title, it was called the Council for Construction). This Council had an architectural and technical committee, which included prominent cultural figures - Gorky, Meyerhold, Lunacharsky. Stalin took part in the activities of the Soviet.

COMPETITION: There are 270 participants in the competition - from ordinary citizens (100 sketch projects) to architectural bureaus. There are 24 foreigners among the professionals, including Le Carbusier. Most of the projects did not meet the requirements or did not withstand any criticism. 5 groups of architects made it to the finals, including the group of Boris Mikhailovich Iofan. On May 10, 1933, the Council determined the winner. On this day, the Council issued a resolution:

1. Accept the project comrade. Iofana B. M. as the basis for the project of the Palace of Soviets. 2. To complete the upper part of the Palace of Soviets with a powerful sculpture of Lenin, 50-75 meters in size, so that the Palace of Soviets represents a kind of pedestal for the figure of Lenin. 3. Instruct comrade. IOFANU will continue to develop the project of the Palace of the Soviets on the basis of this decision so that the best parts of the projects and other architects are used. 4. Consider it possible to involve other architects in further work on the project.

Architects V. Gelfreikh and V. Shchuko were involved in the project. Iofan's project did not immediately take on the form that is familiar to everyone. The first sketch in 1931 looked like this:

Instead of one tower with Lenin, a complex of buildings. There is also a tower, but it is not Lenin who crowns it, but a liberated proletarian with a torch. And this is no longer a sketch, but a detailed version of Iofan 1931.

In 1932, the Palace of Soviets from Iofan becomes a little more like the final project:

Already almost the final version, dated 1933, but still without Ilyich, with a freed proletarian on the roof:

The project takes on an increasingly familiar look:

And finally, the final version, approved in 1939:

The idea to use the building as a giant pedestal for a giant statue of Lenin belongs to the Italian architect A. Brasini, one of the participants in the competition. Boris Iofan did not like the idea that his creation would be just a pedestal, he insisted that the statue should not be placed on top of the building, but in front of it. But, you can't argue with the authorities. Work on a giant statue 100 meters high and weighing six thousand tons was entrusted to S. Merkurov, who decorated the Moscow Canal with figures of Lenin and Stalin. In the future, we will tell you about what the Palace of Soviets could have been like and what we managed to build. In the meantime, we bring to your attention a gallery of projects of the Palace that did not pass the competition: Armando Brasini

I bring to your attention the projects that I managed to find on the net, as well as in the book by D. Khmelnitsky "Stalin's Architecture: Psychology and Style"

2. Armando Brasini. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

3. Armando Brasini. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

4.G.Krasin, A.Kutsaev. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

5. Boris Iofan. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

6. Boris Iofan. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

7. Heinrich Ludwig. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

8. Alexey Shchusev. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

9. Hector O. Hamilton. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

10. Ivan Zholtovsky. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

11. Karo Alabyan, Vladimir Simbirtsev. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

12.Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1931

13.Moses Ginzburg. Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

14. Nikolai Ladovsky. Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

15.Leonid, Victor and Alexander Vesnin. Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

17. Ivan Zholtovsky, Georgy Golts. Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

18. Karo Alabyan, Georgy Kochar, Anatoly Mordvinov. Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

19. VASI team (headed by Alexander Vlasov). Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

20. Vladimir Schuko, Vladimir Gelfreikh. Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

21. Anatoly Zhukov, Dmitry Chechulin. Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

22. Boris Iofan. Competitive project of the Palace of Soviets in 1932

23. Boris Iofan. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1933

24. Boris Iofan. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1933

25. Karo Alabyan, Anatoly Mordvinov, Vladimir Simbirtsev, Yakov Doditsa, Alexey Dushkin. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1933

26. Ivan Zholtovsky, Alexey Shchusev. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1933

27. Vladimir Schuko, Vladimir Gelfreikh. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1933

28. Leonid, Victor and Alexander Vesnin. Competitive design of the Palace of Soviets in 1933

PLACE: During the invasion of Napoleon, Emperor Alexander I vows to erect a temple in Moscow in the name of Christ the Savior. The decree was signed in December 1812 in Vilna, when parts of the Napoleonic army were expelled from Russia.

CURSE: In 1837, for the construction of the temple, the female Alekseevsky monastery of the 14th century was blown up, the abbess of which cursed this place, prophetically declaring that nothing good would stand on it.

THE FATE OF THE 1 TEMPLE: It takes 40 years to build the first temple. In 1846, the dome was erected, and three years later, the lining was completed. In 1860 the scaffolding was removed. But another twenty years are spent on painting and decoration.

After the completion of the work, the temple existed for 50 years. On December 5, 1931, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was blown up.

The museum was allowed to take out fragments of the temple, several giant high reliefs were dismantled and transported to the Donskoy Monastery.

PALACE FOUNDATION:

Consider the foundation on which a palace 300 meters high should stand, with a 100-meter statue of Lenin. The total area of the building is 11 hectares, and the weight is 1,500,000 tons. This weight was not distributed evenly over this entire area. The most "weighty" was the central high-rise part - the tower, which housed the Great Hall for 22 thousand people. The round-shaped hall is in the center of the stage, above which the audience seats rose like an amphitheatre. Vestibules, foyers and small rooms compared to the Hall adjoined this hall. All rooms as a whole were called "stylobate" (in ancient Greek architecture, this was the name of the upper part of the basement of the temple, on which the colonnade was installed). This tower must weigh 650,000 tons (one-fifth of the weight of the entire building). The frame columns of the New York skyscraper Empire State Building (383 meters, the tallest building in the world at that time) pressed on the ground with a force of 4700 tons, and the columns of the tower of the Palace of the Soviets had to carry a load of 8 to 14 tons each. Builders have never encountered such loads on the ground. The requirements for the soil and foundation were special. For the first time in the Soviet Union, large-core drilling was used to study the soil - the soil was raised in the form of cylinders 1 meter long and 10-12 centimeters in diameter. More than a hundred wells were drilled with a depth of 50-60 meters. In the very center of the future construction site was a rocky area - a kind of peninsula, protruding into the soft ground. At a depth of 14 meters, strong rocks began - first a ten-meter layer of limestone, then a six-meter clay-marl layer followed, then another layer of limestone began, but denser than the first. Then again clay and again limestone. Kind of a sandwich. These rocks were formed millions of years ago during the Carboniferous period, and then they withstood the weight of glaciers, incomparably heavier than the cyclopean building of the Palace. So, the underground rocky peninsula was ideal for construction - it was here that the tallest tower in the world was supposed to rise.

The foundation of the tower consisted of two concentric concrete rings with a diameter of 140 and 160 meters. They were located on the second limestone layer at a depth of 30 meters. But before pouring concrete, the builders dug a huge pit. In order to prevent the walls of the pit from collapsing under the influence of underground waters, the so-called “bitumization” of the soil was first used in the USSR - 1800 wells were drilled around the pit. A pipe with small holes in the walls was inserted into each well. Bitumen heated to a temperature of 200 degrees was pumped into these pipes under high pressure. Through the holes in the pipes, bitumen seeped into the ground, filled all the cracks and cavities and solidified. A waterproof curtain was formed around the pit. Or rather, almost waterproof. But the pumps successfully coped with the water that still seeped into the pit. In order to solve the problem with groundwater once and for all, a kind of “bowl” was built under the future foundation from four layers of asbestos cardboard impregnated with bitumen. Now it was possible to start laying the cyclopean foundation. Especially for this purpose, a concrete plant was built near the construction site, equipped with the latest technology of the late thirties. The last word in technology at that time were huge automatic concrete mixers. To the construction site, concrete was delivered to the pit in metal "buckets". 4 tons of concrete were placed in each such tub. With the help of a crane, the tubs were lowered into the pit, the worker knocked out the latch holding the bottom.

The spilled concrete was tamped down with the so-called vibrators - metal maces vibrating under the influence of eccentrics rotating inside. Hardening ("grasping", in construction slang), concrete decreases in volume (the so-called "shrinkage"). Given the huge size of the foundation, shrinkage could lead to cracking. But the builders easily solved this problem too - the foundation rings were not made solid, they consisted of concrete blocks with gaps between them. Once the blocks had hardened, the gaps were filled with fresh concrete. It turned out a monolithic concrete ring. Both rings are interconnected by 16 radial walls. And on top of the foundation rings, two more reinforced concrete rings were installed. These rings are also interconnected by 32 reinforced concrete beams.

The foundations of the rest, not so massive, parts of the building were simply concrete pillars with a diameter of 60 meters. Since the load on them was not so huge, these concrete pillars were installed on the top layer of limestone. In total, the construction of the foundations of the Palace required 550 thousand cubic meters of concrete. Above the foundation of the tower, basement floors were to be located, which would house technical services - heating, lighting, plumbing, sewerage, etc. To lay countless pipes and wires in the concrete walls of the basement, it was necessary to lay special channels so large that people could walk in them without bending over. most deep point the basement was to become the hold of the Great Hall - 10 meters below the groundwater level. The floor of the hold, according to the project, was to be a concrete slab 8 meters thick, one square meter of such a floor would weigh 18.4 tons.

Before the war, they managed to build the foundation of the high-rise part of the Palace and began to mount the steel frame of the building. Alas, after June 22, 1941, concrete, granite, steel, reinforcement were required for completely different purposes. After the war, other skyscrapers, more modest in size, rose over Moscow. The foundation of the Palace was used in the construction of the world's largest swimming pool. And in the nineties, on the same foundation, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, demolished in December 1931, was restored.

FRAME: For the construction of the frame, a special high-strength steel grade was developed - DS. The frame was to be mounted on two ring concrete foundations. The diameter of the inner ring was 140 meters, the outer - 160. Each of the rings had 34 steel columns, each of which had to withstand a load of 12 thousand tons - this is the weight of a freight train made up of six hundred wagons.

The cross-sectional area of each column is 6 square meters, this area will fit a car. The columns rested on a riveted steel shoe, under which, 4-5 cast steel plates are laid directly in the ring foundation. All 64 columns are connected horizontally with I-beams every 6-10 meters. The same beams connect every two columns located at the same radius. Up to a height of 60 meters, the columns went vertically upwards, then for 80 meters they went at a slight angle. And from a height of 140 meters, the columns again went vertically. At a height of 200 meters, the columns of the outer end broke off, and only the columns of the outer row stretched upward. In those places where the columns were supposed to move from a vertical position to an inclined position, spacer rings were to be placed. The surface of the ring formed a whole avenue 15 meters wide.

In addition to the main frame, the Palace was supposed to have an auxiliary one. The huge columns of the main frame were at a considerable distance from each other, their strength would not be enough to withstand the weight of the walls and floors of the building. The purpose of the secondary frame is to "collect" the loads and transfer them to the powerful main frame. The secondary frame also consisted of beams and columns, but all its elements were made of steel less durable than the DS. This steel differed from ordinary construction steel by the addition of copper. Such an additive does not add strength, but increases rust resistance. The auxiliary framing beams would be positioned where they are needed, complementing the main framing.

Over the beams of the secondary frame, floors should be installed - reinforced concrete slabs 10 centimeters thick. Floors are laid on these ceilings. The thickness of the floors also had to be large - after all, pipes and electrical wiring should lie in the floors. The total weight of the steel frame of the Palace of the Soviets was to be 350,000 tons. A number of factories worked on the manufacture of the steel structure. They made the so-called "mounting elements" - segments of columns, beams and rings. The length of each such element should not exceed 15 meters. Otherwise, it would be impossible to transport them across railway and lift with cranes. In Moscow, a special plant was built near the Lenin Hills, where all these elements were prepared for installation - holes were drilled for rivets, the ends of the columns were turned on special machines. After processing, the frame parts were sent to the construction site. For installation, 12 cranes were used, with a lifting capacity of 40 tons each. After the frame reaches a height beyond which the cranes cannot reach, 10 cranes must be mounted on the beams of the outer ring of the main frame. The remaining 2 cranes must transfer loads from the ground to them. In the future, it was planned to reduce the number of overhead cranes - only 1 crane was supposed to be involved in the installation of the statue. Frame assembly began in 1940. By the beginning of the war, he reached a height of 7 floors. During the war, DS steel was used to make anti-tank hedgehogs, and when the stocks ran out, the already built part of the frame was also dismantled.

POOL: After the war, Stalin decides to build small skyscrapers, planning, probably, to build the main palace after them. But Stalin died in 1953. Apparently for this reason, the construction of the Palace was not continued. On this site, Khrushchev is building the Moskva outdoor swimming pool, which has stood for about 30 years.

TEMPLE 2: Now on this place is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

The Soviet Union is building a cyclopean building in the center of Moscow at a colossal pace - the Palace of Soviets. The total height of the structure will have to be 415 meters (excluding the huge figure of Lenin on top).

It is taller than the Empire State Building, the tallest structure of the time. The 100-meter figure of Lenin, according to the original idea, was supposed to point to the sun, while constantly moving, but later this idea was abandoned. The monument was supposed to become the number 1 skyscraper both in Moscow and in the world - the main giant of the USSR.

In the head of the giant figure of Lenin, it was supposed to make a meeting room. Here, in a solemn atmosphere, new republics and states will be accepted into the ranks of the USSR. The start of the colossal construction was laid at the first Congress of Soviets (at the same time the creation of the Soviet Union was announced) in 1922. The building was to become a symbol of the Great Country. Therefore, the old symbol, tsarist Russia, was destroyed with a huge amount of explosives.

In total, almost 300 projects applied for the best building in the competition. Initially, instead of one huge tower with Lenin on top, several buildings were supposed to be part of one large complex. Such an ambitious and grandiose building was designed by the best architects of the Union for 8 years.

The total weight of the building would be 1.5 million tons, but this enormous weight is distributed unevenly over the area of the building. Not a single type of steel was suitable for the construction of such a powerful structure, therefore, a new steel grade called DS was specially developed for it.

Geodetic studies have shown that the place for construction was chosen well - the foundation will be based on a thick layer of limestone. The base of the tower is two concrete rings, each with a diameter of 140 and 160 meters. Groundwater stopped asbestos shields impregnated with bitumen. It was planned to place technical and utility services in the basement floors.

Already built 7 floors of this gigantic and ambitious project. The Land of the Soviets proved that even such crazy projects are up to it.

The Palace of Soviets in Moscow began to be built in accordance with the typical tradition of those times, with the establishment of the Construction Department of the Palace of Soviets. The management used the design of the Palace of Soviets in Moscow, developed by Boris Iofan.

Fierce disputes were waged around the choice of a place to build the building - scientists and architects made proposals to build the Palace in the area of Kitay-Gorod, Okhotny Ryad, on the Lenin Hills (Sparrows) and on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It is noteworthy that this building could be located on the territory now occupied by Lomonosov Moscow State University.

It so happened that Comrade Stalin, it seems, is forcing the members of the commission to choose exactly the territory under the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It is surprising how quickly the shrine was blown up: less than 6 months have passed since the decision was made. The leader's ill-wishers did everything possible to make it look as if Stalin single-handedly decided to demolish the cathedral, but this is not so.

At one time, the future leader of the Bolsheviks planned to become a priest and studied at a theological seminary. From the declassified documents it follows that Stalin was not an opponent of the church. The decision to demolish it was made without much thought and, most likely, it was made by political opponents of the Father of Nations, such as N. Bukharin, known for his anti-religious antics, or the same “clown” Khrushchev.

He was the “chief executioner of the USSR”: he destroyed dozens of churches, repressed clergy, prepared execution and repressive applications, in which there were tens of thousands of names, and Stalin, in turn, rejected some applications, reduced others.

Building project requirements

The all-Union competition announced in 1931 for the development of drawings was most likely a cover for the decision already taken by the leader in favor of the Iofan Palace of Soviets. His drawings met all the requirements: the building in Moscow must be placed in a large open space, fencing with colonnades or other structures is not allowed, the height of the council building must be many times greater than the city landscape, avoid temple motifs, display all the monumentality and integrity of the new building.

Having chosen the project of Boris as the winner, the Father of Nations made a number of remarks, one of which was to complete the Palace in Moscow with the top in the form of a high column. And the column must be crowned with a sickle and a hammer, illuminated from the inside with the help of electricity. Considering the skyscraper as a monument to Lenin, the architects decided to complete the Moscow Palace of Soviets with a monumental sculpture of the Bolshevik leader.

The monument to Ilyich was planned as a Soviet version of the Colossus of Rhodes. The final version of the construction was approved in February 1943. On it, the building of the Soviets looks like the largest building on earth. The height of the building was 415 m, the height of the Lenin monument was 100 m, and the volume was 7,500 thousand m3, as a result, it was the tallest building in the world at that time.

It is hard to imagine, but the monument to Lenin could be seen from a distance of 70 km. The architects faced a difficult task: to express in Colossus the idea of a new state that guaranteed prosperity and well-being, and, above all, the building of socialism.

Construction race between Moscow and Berlin

Simultaneously with the implementation of the idea of the Palace of Soviets in Moscow, a no less monumental building was erected in Berlin - the Domed Palace (House of Assembly). Adolf Hitler, as well as Joseph Stalin, was engaged in the reconstruction of the capital. Monumental buildings were to appear in the plans: the Reich Chancellery, the Wehrmacht High Command, the Party Chancellery, the palace of Hitler himself and the Assembly House.

Unlike the Bolsheviks, the Fuhrer refused to demolish buildings with historical significance - the old Reichstag, here they offered to start a large-scale construction. He suggested that the old building be used as a library. The new parliament building was supposed to accommodate a much larger number of deputies.

The dimensions of the Domed Palace were colossal - 21 million m 2. Hitler was indescribably delighted with the idea of erecting a monument of this magnitude. It should be noted that the German dictator was very upset when he found out the height of the Palace of Soviets, since the House of Assembly was significantly inferior in this indicator. At that moment, a kind of competition began between the leaders: who could build the future symbol of the country's prosperity higher and more expensive.

The Fuhrer, trying to come to terms with the idea that the Domed Palace could not surpass the Stalin skyscraper, decided for himself that his palace would be a unique creation of the architects of the thousand-year-old Reich. During the war years, Hitler temporarily abandoned the implementation of his architectural ideas, but never forgot about the competition with the Palace of Soviets of the USSR. The plans of the German dictator included the destruction of the skyscraper after the capture of Moscow.

Soviet building in Moscow. Shot from the movie “Spy”

The construction of the Palace of Soviets in Moscow has become an independent branch of science. Within the framework of the project, specialized research was carried out, experimental laboratories were functioning, entire factories were created for the production of building materials. By the beginning of 1940, an incredible pit was dug, and special steel reinforcement was installed in the ground.

In the USSR, they did not save money on the construction of their main symbol. It was even surprising that the construction began without any financial and technical calculations. The interior decoration of the interior was measured only by a quantitative indicator, without conversion into rubles. For example, paintings alone were supposed to be 18 thousand m 2.

The war disrupted all the plans of architects and artists. In 1941, the construction of the Palace was stopped and never resumed, despite all Khrushchev's "attempts". The ancestor of the ugly 5-storey buildings for demolition held a deliberately losing competition for the placement of the Stalin Palace of Soviets on the site now occupied by Moscow State University on Sparrow Hills. The task of the competition was to harmoniously fit a monumental building 415 meters high into the face of the city. Naturally, this was impossible to do, as a result of which the idea of \u200b\u200bbuilding a giant was “hacked to death”.

View from the monument to Lenin. Shot from the movie “Spy”

Construction after the Great Victory

On paper, the work did not stop even during the Great Patriotic War. Iofan, while in evacuation, continued to hone the Palace of Soviets on paper, and also put forward proposals to use a separate element of the building for the construction of a skyscraper in Sverdlovsk.

During the war, all the construction capacities of the Office of the Palace of Soviets were transferred to the second, most important for Stalin, project - Moscow Metro. The metro was built at an accelerated pace and the next station was introduced exactly on time.

After the end of the war, the leader caught fire with a new idea - the construction of skyscrapers, the appearance of which was borrowed from the drawings of the Palace of Soviets by Boris Iofan. Stalin's plan main city countries were planned to be filled with skyscrapers in order to amaze foreigners with their grandeur and confirm the status of a superpower.

On the left is the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry designed by Melnikov. In the center is the building of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Engineering designed by Chichulin.

The architectural concept of the Soviet building in Moscow was to be supported Stalin skyscrapers. They echoed with him, now moving away, now bringing closer the architectural perspective of the center of the capital.

The proportions and silhouette of the buildings had to be original and their architectural and artistic composition should be in harmony with the historical buildings and the silhouette of the future Palace of the Soviets. In fairness, it must be said that it was extremely problematic to do this, because the Moscow Kremlin against the background of such a monolith would have looked at least strange.

The construction of the Palace of Soviets in Moscow was pushed back with each new party congress. For some reason, Joseph Stalin constantly delayed the construction of the giant, while there were no obvious reasons for this. But here's the amazing thing - the leader is forcing the construction of skyscrapers in every possible way.

Despite the fact that the Palace of Soviets in Moscow was never erected, the work on its construction gave very positive results in the future. The Construction Department of the Palace of Soviets gained vast experience throughout the design of the building and later became a kind of elite construction unit. This department was entrusted with the construction of a strategically important object - the Ostankino tower.

"Clownery" Khrushchev

“Strength always attracts people with low morals, brilliant dictators are invariably replaced by scoundrels. This has its own pattern” - A. Einstein.

After the death of the leader of the peoples, in some random way the country was headed by the “chief executioner of the USSR” N. S. Khrushchev. In vain attempts to get rid of the Stalinist past and somehow look like a less miserable leader against his background, he prepared a report “On the cult of personality and its consequences”, in which he accused Joseph Stalin of disrespect for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin because, as the Palace of Soviets in Moscow, planned 30 years ago, was never built and this must be corrected. In his worthlessness and meanness, Khrushchev can only yield to Gorbachev. If the first destroyed the country out of stupidity, then the second did it purposefully, for money.

Naturally, Khrushchev did not intend to erect a monumental structure. The appearance of the giant would mean the victory of the Stalin era and would be the culmination of all its architectural transformations. Khrushchev, on the other hand, condemned Stalin and therefore could not allow this to happen. He found the solution to this issue, as befits such a person, extremely cynical. A competition was announced for the design of the new Palace of Soviets, but with very interesting criteria.

It suffices to quote a brief excerpt from the description of the competition: “free from formalist, restoration, eclectic tendencies and imitation of modern capitalist architecture.” Everything is vague and abstract. Of course, thanks to such formulations, one can say to any project: “You are not suitable for us!”.

Despite this, many famous architects took part in the competition: B. Iofan, D. Chechulin, I. Zholtovsky and others. Now, all their drawings and works did not pass the "competitive" selection. Not surprisingly, no projects were selected that could meet such criteria.

Khrushchev's "clownery" ended with a planned farce, and the media were already struggling with their own - Soviet architecture. As a result, the Palace of Soviets in Moscow remained the main giant of the USSR, but only on paper.

You have probably heard a lot about unrealized pre-war architectural plans in Moscow. But let's say if there were no war, we would now see a lot of this on the streets of Moscow. Let's see how it could look like the most spectacular of them.

The Moscow Palace of Soviets is one of the most famous unrealized architectural projects in history. A huge (the largest and tallest in the world) building, which was supposed to become a symbol of victorious socialism, a symbol of a new country and a new Moscow. This project is amazing even today. This building, sung in many creative works, was built in order to accept the last republic into the Soviet Union after the victory of the World Revolution within its walls. And then the whole world will be one Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

From the pages of books we see a cyclopean infernal building - a three-hundred-meter multi-tiered tower, which serves as a pedestal for a giant hundred-meter statue of Lenin. The statue is so huge that a meeting room (the hall in which the same solemn ceremony will take place) is placed in its head. At the same time, the giant Ilyich did not freeze motionless - his giant hand always points to the Sun, for this the largest statue in the world is rotated by huge electric motors ...

Being of sound mind and sober memory, none of the Soviet architects planned to place a meeting room in Lenin's head and make the statue rotate around its axis following the sun. But the statue of Lenin was really supposed to be the largest statue in the world. Yes, and there was also a place for huge electric motors in the project - they were to be installed in the hold of the Great Hall and with their help in this hall for 22 thousand people the sites would change. The dimensions of the building are also striking - the total height is 416.5 meters, the volume is seven and a half million cubic meters (three pyramids of Cheops!). The idea of building the Palace was expressed on December 30, 1922 at the First Congress of Soviets by Sergei Mironovich Kirov (this congress is famous not only for this, it also announced the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). Of course, such an idea could not fail to find the widest support among the congress delegates - still, a new symbol of a new country!

But the implementation of this idea was only possible to start almost ten years later - on June 18, 1931, an open competition for the best project of the Palace was announced in the Izvestia newspaper. In the same year, on December 5, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a symbol of old Russia, was blown up, the place of which was to be taken by the symbol of the Land of the Soviets. The temple was visible from almost anywhere in Moscow in the early thirties, a new architectural symbol should have been visible from anywhere in the renewed Moscow of the near future. In 1931, a special government body, the Council for the Construction of the Palace of Soviets, was also created (in order not to repeat the same word twice in the same name, it was often called simply the Construction Council). This Council had a permanent architectural and technical committee, which included prominent cultural figures of those years - Gorky, Meyerhold, Lunacharsky. In addition, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, I. V. Stalin, took an active part in the activities of the Council.

Clickable 1800 px

The competition attracted 270 participants - from ordinary citizens with vague ideas about architecture to professional architectural bureaus. By the way, 100 preliminary designs fell to the share of ordinary citizens. And among the professionals, 24 were foreigners, among whom was the famous Le Carbusier. Most of the submitted projects either did not meet the requirements presented or simply did not stand up to criticism. As a result, five groups of architects reached the final of the competition, among which was the group of Boris Mikhailovich Iofan. On May 10, 1933, the Council finally decided on the winner. On that day, the Council issued the following resolution:

1. Accept the project comrade. Iofana B. M. as the basis for the project of the Palace of Soviets. 2. To complete the upper part of the Palace of Soviets with a powerful sculpture of Lenin, 50-75 meters in size, so that the Palace of Soviets represents a kind of pedestal for the figure of Lenin. 3. Instruct comrade. IOFANU will continue to develop the project of the Palace of the Soviets on the basis of this decision so that the best parts of the projects and other architects are used. 4. Consider it possible to involve other architects in further work on the project.

Clause 4 was adopted immediately - the architects V. Gelfreikh and V. Shchuko were involved in the project. Iofan's project did not immediately take on the form that is familiar to all lovers of the architecture of the Stalin era. The very first sketch in 1931 looked like this:

As you can see, instead of one huge tower with Lenin on top, there is a whole complex of buildings. The tower, however, already exists. But it is not Ilyich who crowns it, but a liberated proletarian with a torch.

And this is no longer a sketch, but a more detailed version of Iofan's project, dated all the same 1931: