The Palace of the Soviets () was a project to construct a political convention center in Moscow on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The main function of the palace was to house sessions of the Supreme Soviet in its wide and tall grand hall seating over 20,000 people. If built, the tall palace would have become the world's tallest structure, with an internal volume surpassing the combined volumes of the six tallest American skyscrapers. This was especially important to the Soviet state for propaganda purposes.
Boris Iofan's victory in a series of four architectural competitions held between 1931 and 1933 signaled a sharp turn in Soviet architecture, from radical modernism to the monumental historicism that would come to characterize Stalinist architecture. The definitive design by Iofan, Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Helfreich was conceived in 1933–1934 and took its final shape in 1937. The staggered stack of ribbed cylinders crowned with a statue of Vladimir Lenin blended Art Deco and Neoclassical influences with contemporary American skyscraper technology.
Work on the site commenced in 1933; the foundation was completed in January 1939. The German invasion in June 1941 ended the project. Engineers and workers were diverted to defense projects or pressed into the army; the installed structural steel was disassembled in 1942 for fortifications and bridges. After World War II, Joseph Stalin lost interest in the palace. Iofan produced several revised, scaled-down designs but failed to reanimate the project. The alternative Palace of the Soviets in Sparrow Hills, which was proposed after Stalin's death, did not proceed beyond the architectural competition stage.
The beginning (1922–31)
On 30 December 1922 the First All-Union Congress of Soviets announced the creation of the Soviet Union. On the same day Sergei Kirov proposed construction of a new national convention center, which was duly approved by the congress. This, according to the official Soviet narrative, was the beginning of the story of the Palace of the Soviets. Before the congress, in January–May 1919, Petrograd had held an architectural competition for the "Palace of Labor"; in October 1922 the launched a competition for a different "Palace of Labor", endorsed by the same Sergei Kirov. Both projects were large enough to seat any conceivable convention, and none of them could materialize in a country devastated by wars and revolutions.
In post-revolution Russian language the word palace () denoted a multi-role public building that shared entertainment and administrative functions; as time went by, the administrative side predominated. The word was never applied to residences of political leaders: their private affairs remained a closely guarded secret. During the 1920s, modest "palaces of labor" or "palaces of culture" were actually built. The coveted national palace had to be exceptionally large, impressive and technologically advanced to stand above the crowd. The idea of placing a giant statue of Lenin on top of the national administrative center (originally, the Comintern building) goes back to a 1924 proposal by Viktor Balikhin, then a graduate student at Vkhutemas: "Arc lamps will flood the villages, towns, parks and squares, calling everyone to honor Lenin even at night ...".Russian: Extract from Balikhin's article, www.artchronica.ru, May 2002 The proposal was later popularized by Balikhin's rationalist movement, the ASNOVA, but gained little recognition.
The decision to build the "House of Congresses" () was made at the end of 1930 or in early 1931, and announced in February 1931. The influences behind the decision cannot be reliably ascertained. claims Stalin was the project's sole initiator; Sergey Kuznetsov counters that the idea was pitched by Alexei Rykov. The "House of Congresses" was, chronologically, the first of the three megaprojects launched in Moscow in 1931, months before the Moscow Canal and the Moscow Metro. Its initial scope was modest; the architects and the politicians believed that building could be topped out in 1933. However, the unchecked ambitions of both groups soon caused a multifold increase in size, scope and cost. In the summer of 1931, the already bloated project was renamed the "Palace of the Soviets".
The architect
In February 1931, the government set up a three-tier project management structure. The Construction Council was a decorative political committee chaired by Kliment Voroshilov and later Vyacheslav Molotov; it served as a proxy for announcing decisions made by Stalin and the Politburo. The subordinate Construction Directorate (USDS) was the actual project management team of (chair), Boris Iofan (chief architect), Hermann Krasin, and Ivan Mashkov. The USDS appointed and supervised the Technical Council, that included dozens of experienced architects, artists and engineers.
Boris Iofan, the second in command in the USDS, immediately assumed the title and role of chief architect. A recent repatriant from Italy and a long-time student of Italian architect Armando Brasini, Iofan was a maverick within the Soviet architectural community and had no obligations to any group. He was also a trusted insider of the party elite, with particularly strong ties to Alexei Rykov and Avel Yenukidze. His career with Soviet state clients began in 1922 in Rome and proceeded through the 1920s at an unprecedented and so far unexplained pace. By 1931 he had a proven record of completing high-profile projects, including the enormous House on the Embankment with its —the largest modern auditorium in Moscow. Stalin certainly endorsed Iofan's appointment, probably on Yenukidze's recommendation.
Iofan was difficult to work with soon forcing Kryukov to resign. In the autumn of 1931 the chair of the USDS passed to party apparatchik , the architect's former superior at the House on the Embankment project. Kryukov, Mikhailov, Rykov, Yenukidze and Iofan's colleagues at the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee would be killed in Stalin's purges, but the unsinkable architect would survive unharmed and retain his office, despite the incriminating connections.
Iofan prepared the terms of architectural competitions and controlled all the USDS's paperwork, giving him an advantage over any potential competitor. This obvious conflict of interest provoked speculation that the competitions were rigged in Iofan's favor, or that he was the chosen architect from the very start and the competitions were merely a ruse. In the 2010s archival research confirmed this hypothesis, which was afterwards supported by Iofan's biographers Maria Kostyuk, Dmitrij Chmelnizki and Sergey Kuznetsov. As early as 6 February 1931, Iofan devised a three-step, nine-month consultation schedule with a predetermined outcome. The plan was soon implemented in a series of architectural competitions, where Iofan acted as primus inter pares (first among equals) in public and the éminence grise (powerful decision maker) behind the scenes. According to Kuznetsov, Iofan initiated and managed the competitions for his own benefit, to harvest free ideas from his unsuspecting colleagues. He never agreed to be a temporary placeholder and did not intend to give up his lead to anyone.
Choice of a site
In March 1931, the Construction Council chose a compact site in the former Okhotny Ryad Street market, just a few hundred meters (yards) north-west from the Kremlin and Red Square. There were no large or otherwise valuable buildings to raze; demolition of existing low-rise buildings and the relocation of their inhabitants required little time or effort. Left-wing architectural factions immediately disputed this economically sound choice. In April–May the Technical Council reviewed various alternatives and confirmed the selection of the Okhotny Ryad site.
Molotov and Voroshilov thought differently. On 25 May, the Politburo, advised by Molotov and Voroshilov, voted in favor of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour site. Hannes Meyer and the ASNOVA supported this option. Iofan had secretly studied all the alternatives beforehand and was quite comfortable with the cathedral site. It required extensive demolition and presented so far unknown technical challenges, but it was the largest site and it formed a tight visual ensemble with Iofan's House on the Embankment. Most of the Technical Council disagreed. On 30 May, they recommended the sites in Zaryadye or Bolotnaya Square as second-best alternatives; the cathedral site was ranked least acceptable. Tired of insubordination, Voroshilov invited the stubborn professionals to a meeting with Stalin. On 2 June 1931, Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Meyer and eight selected architects from the Technical Council convened in the Kremlin, where Stalin presented his arguments in favor of the cathedral site. Kaganovich feared the destruction of an Orthodox shrine would spark an antisemitic backlash and suggested a site in Sparrow Hills, but Stalin's viewpoint prevailed.
Historians disagree over the interpretation of this meeting. According to Kuznetsov, the decision had not yet been finalized, and the architects could still propose other sites. According to Sona Hoisington, the decision was final, but its main objective was not the palace but the destruction of the cathedral, with the project being a purely political statement, made without prior feasibility studies and completely disregarding the economics. According to Chmelnizki, the decision was final; it was the first step in the development of Stalinist architecture. On 5 June 1931, the outcome was sealed by the Politburo. In December the stripped hulk of the cathedral was publicly blown up. The Okhotny Ryad site was also demolished for the construction of the (1932–1935) and Arkady Mordvinov's residential block on Tverskaya Street (1937–1939).
The idea of destroying cultural heritage was not a novelty to the Soviet regime, as in the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Soviet Union fell from 29,584 to less than 500 (1.7%) as a result of demolitions or conversions into secular buildings.Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988)
The four competitions (1931–1933) Preliminary round (February–July 1931) In April 1931, the chosen architects and architectural groups received terms of the first, preliminary competition. The brief, prepared by Iofan and signed by Kryukov, reiterated the monumentality and emphasizing the uniqueness of the future palace: it should be radically different from any existing public building. It sent a clear message that the entries would be judged not by professionals but by politicians, who do not and would not align with any existing professional faction.
By the end of June, the USDS had collected 15 entries representing all active movements, as well as Iofan and his brother Dmitry. Most, including the Iofans, leaned toward modernist architecture. Iofan had considered various alternatives, and ruled out compact centric floor plans in favor of a sprawling group of buildings aligned along the north–south axis of the cathedral site. The two halls were placed at the ends of the axis, with spacious inner courtyards and a lean, tall tower in between. The draft did not impress contemporary observers. The USDS did not name a clear winner but cautiously praised an entry by Heinrich Ludwig, an enormous pentagonal enlargement of Lenin's Mausoleum devoid of any stylistic cues.
International competition (July 1931 – February 1932)