Palace of the Soviets: why they couldn't build this grandiose building . Why was the Palace of Soviets never built? Unbuilt buildings of the USSR

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Blogger Maxim Mirovich writes:

I have long wanted to write a post about the Palace of Soviets - an unrealized utopian project of a colossal administrative building that was supposed to be built in Moscow and was supposed to symbolize the victory of socialism in a single state. According to the plan of Soviet architects, the Palace of Soviets was supposed to be the tallest building in the world at that time - taller than skyscrapers in New York.

For the construction of the Palace of Soviets, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was destroyed - the Bolsheviks blew it up in 1931, and in 1932 they began preparatory work for the construction of the Palace of Soviets. The foundation of the colossus was completed by 1939, but due to the outbreak of World War II, the project was completely frozen.

To start, a little history. The idea of building a colossal palace arose as early as 1922 - it was voiced by Sergei Kirov at the First All-Union Congress of Soviets - it seemed to him that "the sounds of the international no longer fit in old buildings and in place of the palaces of bankers, landlords and tsars, a new palace of working peasants should be erected."

The fact that it would not be a “palace of peasants” at all, but a palace for meetings of the Soviet nomenklatura, to which peasants would not be allowed even a cannon shot, was modestly silent in a fiery speech. But Kirov did not hide the expansionist plans of the Bolsheviks regarding Western countries - "the majestic building will become an emblem of the coming power, the triumph of communism, not only here, but also there, in the West!"

These are the articles published in the Soviet press of those years. For comparison, it was drawn how exactly the Palace of the Soviets will become higher than the famous skyscrapers, the pyramids of Egypt and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

A competition was held to select the final project, the requirements for the building of the palace were as follows - inside there should be two halls, Large and Small, each of the halls should accommodate several thousand people. Among the competitive works, the project of Dmitry Iofan (as "restoration-eclectic") and the project of German Krasin ("the upper part resembles a church dome") were rejected. In total, about 160 projects were considered - they were considered in two stages, and as a result, the work of Boris Iofan won.

According to the plan of the designers, the Palace of Soviets was to become the tallest building in the world, the top of the building was to be crowned with a giant 100-meter statue of Lenin - thus, the Palace of Soviets itself was both a building and something like a colossal pedestal for a monument. The mass of a full-size statue of Lenin was supposed to be 6,000 tons, and the length of his index finger would be 4 meters.

By the way, for the construction of the Palace itself, it was also planned to completely rebuild the center of Moscow, destroying the old quarters - something similar was later done by conductor Ceausescu in Bucharest. Between Red Square and Sverdlov Square (now Teatralnaya) it was planned to lay a wide highway. The authors of the project noted that "the idea invested in the architectural design of the squares of the Palace of Soviets is the idea of open, widely inviting squares, personifying socialist democracy." I don't know what is so "democratic" in open areas - most likely, it would turn out to be gigantic, not corresponding to the scale of a person and overwhelming areas in which a person feels like an insect.

This is how the Palace should look like in modern Moscow, if it were built.

Little information has been preserved about the interiors of the planned palace - it is only known that they were to be finished with polished granite and decorated with sculptures. Seats for spectators in the Great Hall were planned to be covered with leather, the height of the Great Hall was to be 100 meters with a diameter of 140 meters. The Small Hall was supposed to be 32 meters high, and the foyer of the Palace was to be called the "Hall of the Stalinist Constitution."

Estimated view of the interior of the Great Hall:

Foyer, Hall of the Stalinist Constitution:

In 1939, they finished building the foundation - it took so long to build because the proposed palace was supposed to have a gigantic weight - about 1.5 million tons. The head of the construction of the Palace, Vasily Mikhailov, was repressed and shot by the end of the construction of the foundation. Reality knocked on the doors of Soviet projectors with the outbreak of World War II - anti-tank hedgehogs for the defense of Moscow had to be made from metal blanks for the foundation, and the rest of the metal was used to build bridges on the railway.

In the post-war years, the USSR did not leave the idea of finishing the Palace of Soviets - however, the project was significantly compressed and seriously blown away - the height of the building should have been no longer 415, but 270 meters, the area of \u200b\u200bthe internal halls and their decor were significantly cut down. In 1947, the famous “Stalinist skyscrapers” began to be built in Moscow, and the Palace of Soviets was completely forgotten.

In my opinion, the Palace of Soviets was originally a utopian project, which shows what happens when the authorities are in complete control of the country's finances - instead of such a giant expensive structure, it was possible to completely modernize the infrastructure of several Soviet cities.

What do you think about this?

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 of the Great Hall and with their help in the hall for 22 thousand people the sites 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 implementation of this idea began, when an open competition for the best design 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 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 installed 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. 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 compacted with 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 - 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. The deepest point of the basement was to be 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, a passenger car will fit on such an area. 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 by rail and lift them 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.

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, glorified 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 force the statue to 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: