Narkomtiazhprom
Encyclopedia
1934 in architecture
The year 1934 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* Penguin Pool, London Zoo designed by Berthold Lubetkin and Ove Arup.* Isokon building, Hampstead, London, designed by Wells Coates, is completed....
architectural contest for the People's Commissariat of Construction of Heavy Industry, to be constructed in Red Square
Red Square
Red Square is a city square in Moscow, Russia. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod...
, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. Notable entrants included Ivan Leonidov
Ivan Leonidov
Ivan Ilich Léonidov was a Russian constructivist architect, urban planner, painter and teacher.-Early life:...
, Konstantin Melnikov
Konstantin Melnikov
Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov was a Russian architect and painter. His architectural work, compressed into a single decade , placed Melnikov on the front end of 1920s avant-garde architecture...
, Vesnin brothers
Vesnin brothers
The Vesnin brothers: Leonid Vesnin , Victor Vesnin and Alexander Vesnin were the leaders of Constructivist architecture, the dominant architectural school of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s...
and Ivan Fomin
Ivan Fomin
Ivan Aleksandrovich Fomin was a Russian architect and educator. He began his career in 1899 in Moscow, working in the Art Nouveau style. After relocating to Saint Petersburg in 1905, he became an established master of the Neoclassical Revival movement...
.
The site
NKTP was supposed to take up the site of historical Kitai-gorodKitai-gorod
Kitay-gorod , earlier also known as Great Posad , is a business district within Moscow, Russia, encircled by mostly-reconstructed medieval walls. It is separated from the Moscow Kremlin by Red Square. It does not constitute a district , as there are no resident voters, thus, municipal elections...
, the territory directly north and east from Red Square
Red Square
Red Square is a city square in Moscow, Russia. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod...
. The Square was to be widened (into the site of State Universal Store
State Universal Store
GUM is the name of the main department store in many cities of the former Soviet Union, known as State Department Store during the Soviet times. Similar-named stores were in some Soviet republics and post-Soviet states. The most famous GUM is a large store in the Kitai-gorod part of Moscow,...
) and part of Zaryadye
Zaryadye
Zaryadye is a historical district in Moscow established in 12-13th centuries within Kitai-gorod, between Varvarka Street and Moskva River. The name means "the place behind the rows", i.e., behind the market rows adjacent to the Red Square.-History:...
. State Historical Museum
State Historical Museum
The State Historical Museum of Russia is a museum of Russian history wedged between Red Square and Manege Square in Moscow. Its exhibitions range from relics of the prehistoric tribes inhabiting present-day Russia, through priceless artworks acquired by members of the Romanov dynasty...
, Kazan Cathedral
Kazan Cathedral, Moscow
Kazan Cathedral , also known as the "Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan", is a Russian Orthodox church located on the northeast corner of Red Square in Moscow, Russia...
, and Lenin Museum (Moscow City Hall
Moscow City Hall
The former Moscow City Hall is an ornate red-brick edifice situated immediately to the east of the State Historical Museum and notable in the history of architecture as a unique hybrid of the Russian Revival and Neo-Renaissance styles. During Soviet times it served as the V. I...
) were to be demolished. The building, spanning over 400 meters along the square, would have had its northern facade on Teatralnaya Square (then Sverdlov
Yakov Sverdlov
Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov ; known under pseudonyms "Andrei", "Mikhalych", "Max", "Smirnov", "Permyakov" — 16 March 1919) was a Bolshevik party leader and an official of the Russian Soviet Republic.-Early life:...
Square), southern façade on Moscow River, across Balchug
Balchug
Balchug , also known as Bolotny Ostrov , is an island in the very centre of Moscow, Russia, squeezed between the Moskva River and its old river-bed which was turned into the Vodootvodny Canal in 1786...
Street.
Building size was set at 40,000 square meters built-out area, 110,000 square meters usable floor area (comparison figures for contemporary Empire State Building
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
: 8,100 and 200,000 square meters, respectively).
The entries
Contest entries clearly differentiated into classicalNeoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
(including postconstructivist
Postconstructivism
Postconstructivism was a transitional architectural style that existed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, typical of early Stalinist architecture before World War II. The term postconstructivism was coined by Selim Khan-Magomedov, a historian of architecture, to describe the product of avant-garde...
), and avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
. A total of 120 entries were collected. Some were worthless, some were made just to fill the list. Most curious of this sort, by F. Karyakin (Red Square façade, plan), settled for no less than six half-scale replicas of Boris Iofan
Boris Iofan
Boris Mihailovich Iofan was a Russian Soviet architect, known for his Stalinist architecture buildings like 1931 House on Embankment and the 1931-1933 winning draft of the Palace of Soviets.- Background :...
's Palace of Soviets
Palace of Soviets
The Palace of the Soviets was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour...
tower. Serious concepts were produced by old Revival school architects and their young followers (class of 1929):
Ivan Fomin
Ivan Fomin
Ivan Aleksandrovich Fomin was a Russian architect and educator. He began his career in 1899 in Moscow, working in the Art Nouveau style. After relocating to Saint Petersburg in 1905, he became an established master of the Neoclassical Revival movement...
limited building height to 12 story (24 story for two towers facing Lenin's Mausoleum
Lenin's Mausoleum
Lenin's Mausoleum also known as Lenin's Tomb, situated in Red Square in the center of Moscow, is the mausoleum that serves as the current resting place of Vladimir Lenin. His embalmed body has been on public display there since shortly after his death in 1924...
) to fit into existing technology limits. Ivan Leonidov
Ivan Leonidov
Ivan Ilich Léonidov was a Russian constructivist architect, urban planner, painter and teacher.-Early life:...
's concept, consisting of three lean skyscrapers, probably the most advanced, was far beyond these limits. Constructivist
Constructivist architecture
Constructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. It combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly Communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced...
elders Alexander Vesnin
Alexander Vesnin
Alexander Aleksandrovic Vesnin , together with his brothers Leonid Aleksandrovic Vesnin and Viktor Aleksandrovic Vesnin he was a leading light of Constructivist architecture...
and Victor Vesnin
Viktor Aleksandrovic Vesnin
Viktor Aleksandrovich Vesnin , was a Russian Soviet architect. His early works follow the canon of Neoclassicist Revival; in 1920's, he and his brothers Leonid and Alexander emerged as leaders of Constructivist architecture, the Vesnin brothers...
produced various concepts:
Note that in 1934 Victor Vesnin became the Chief Architect of Narkomtiazhprom (Ministry of Heavy Industry); Alexander Vesnin and Moisei Ginzburg
Moisei Ginzburg
Moisei Yakovlevich Ginzburg was a Soviet constructivist architect, best known for his 1929 Narkomfin Building in Moscow.-Education:Ginzburg was born in Minsk in a Jewish real estate developer's family. He graduated from Milano Academy and Riga polytechnic institute . During Russian Civil War he...
also worked with this institution throughout 1930s.
Reality or Folly
Whether the State (or Stalin personally) really intended to build this project is not clear. By 1934, feasibility studies for the Palace of SovietsPalace of Soviets
The Palace of the Soviets was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour...
identified the missing technologies that would take years to develop; skyscraper construction in 1934 was out of the question. The cost to relocate numerous government offices from Kitai-gorod would have been enormous, too. Modern theorists speculate that
- the contest was just another attempt to formulate the vector of Stalinist architecture
- or that it was a plot to separate the loyal, neoclassical architects from the stubborn avant-garde followers, and demote the latter.
1935 Master plan of Moscow (Генплан 1935) changed the concept, effectively voiding all contest entries. The square was to be widened, as set in 1934 contest terms, but the Narkomtiazprom site was reduced to Zaryadye only (1/3 of original area). Construction in Zaryadye commenced in 1947 (see Moscow Skyscrapers
Seven Sisters (Moscow)
The "Seven Sisters" is the English name given to a group of Moscow skyscrapers designed in the Stalinist style. Muscovites call them Vysotki or Stalinskie Vysotki , " high-rises"...
), and was cancelled again in early 1950s. The site stood vacant for a decade. Rossiya Hotel
Rossiya Hotel
The Rossiya Hotel was a large hotel built in Moscow from 1964 until 1967 at the order of the Soviet government. Construction used the existing foundations of a cancelled skyscraper project, the Zaryadye Administrative Building, which would have been the eighth of what is now referred to as the...
was completed in 1967, and demolished in 2006-2007.
See also
- Pantheon, MoscowPantheon, MoscowThe Pantheon , officially also called the Monument to the Eternal Glory of the Great People of the Soviet Land , was a project to construct a monumental memorial tomb in Moscow, Soviet Union...
- Constructivist architectureConstructivist architectureConstructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. It combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly Communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced...
- PostconstructivismPostconstructivismPostconstructivism was a transitional architectural style that existed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, typical of early Stalinist architecture before World War II. The term postconstructivism was coined by Selim Khan-Magomedov, a historian of architecture, to describe the product of avant-garde...
- Stalinist ArchitectureStalinist architectureStalinist architecture , also referred to as Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of the Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khrushchev condemned "excesses" of the past...