Palace of Soviets
The Palace of the Soviets (in Russian, Дворец советов, Dvoréts Sovétov) was an architectural project proposed by the government of the Union of Republics Soviet Socialists (USSR) in the 1930s for the city of Moscow, but it never came to fruition. It was a colossal administrative building that would represent the supreme monument of the socialist state and would also be destined to host congresses, celebrations, etc.
After the call for the architecture competition (1931-1933), several proposals of different styles were put forward, especially constructivists, although in the final phase of the competition the style known as "gran style" (Большой стиль). The final project chosen by Borís Iofán, with neoclassical accents, was later reworked by Vladimir Schukó, Vladimir Helfreich and himself, transforming it into a gigantic skyscraper. Had it been built, it would have become the tallest structure ever built at the time, at 415 meters tall: a 100 meter statue of Lenin would stand at its crowning point. The works began in 1937 and were interrupted by the German invasion of 1941. Between 1941 and 1942, its steel structure was dismantled and used for fortifications and bridges. Work never resumed and in 1958, the palace's foundations were turned into an open-air swimming pool called the Moskva Pool, which would become the largest in the world. Finally, this in turn will give way to the cathedral, rebuilt in its initial location between 1995 and 2000.
A nearby metro station, opened in 1935 as the Palace of Soviets, was renamed Kropotkinskaya in 1957.
History
Demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow
The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was open to worship until, after the Bolshevik revolution, the government of the Soviet Union chose the site to lift the supreme monument of the socialist state, the Palace of the Soviets. The destruction of the temple on December 5, 1931, by order of Iosif Stalin, was one of the many acts of the new Soviet State, aimed at eradicating the cultural heritage of the imperial past. Immediately after the ruins were removed, preparations began to erect the building, in particular a pit for the foundations.
From 1939 to 1941, the foundations of the main part of the Palace of Soviets were installed. However, the palace project never materialized due to economic problems, the floods caused by the Moscova River and the outbreak of the war against Nazi Germany.
After the war, the construction of the Soviets Palace was virtually paralyzed. It was the time when the “Stalin Skyscrapers” were erected, which borrowed some ideas from the Soviets Palace project.
The Government of the Soviet Union did not formally renounce the Soviets Palace project until 1961. The moat of the foundations served for the construction of the Moskvá pool outdoors, while the Dvoréts Sovétov metro station (Palacio de los Sóviets), opened in 1935, became Kropótkinskaya.
In addition to the temple, 2200 architectural monuments were destroyed in the Moscow area.Complementary work
The palace's foundations had been excavated by the end of 1938 and steelwork began. Clearing the entire site would have involved removing the Pushkin Museum, mounting it on rollers, and physically moving it off the construction site.
Features
The Palace of Soviets would be the largest building in the world. According to the initial project, the height would be 415m, the width 250mand the length of more than 500 m. The apotheosis of this skyscraper would be to have a statue of Lenin of 100 m high and weighing 6000 tons. The statue's index finger would be 6m long and the shoulders would be 32m. To supply the enormous amount of materials and components required for a construction on this scale, several factories were set up in Russia.
Controversy
European architecture critics reacted furiously to this decision. Le Corbusier and Sigfried Giedion, who dominated CIAM, protested to Stalin, using communist rhetoric, that the "soviet's decision is an insult to the spirit of the Revolution and the five-year plan...it is a tragic betrayal".
Legacy
Portions of the palace's steel framework were reused for fortifications and bridges, and the foundations were turned into the Moskva Swimming Pool, the world's largest outdoor swimming pool, in 1958.
Numerous models and other original records have been preserved, in addition to many others that have been executed by different architects and model makers, the most outstanding of which is the one made at the end of the 1990s by the Japanese architect Takehiko Nagakura through virtual animation of this project.
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