You've probably heard a lot about the 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 the most spectacular of them might look like.

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 still amazing 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 that very solemn ceremony will take place) is located in its head. At the same time, the giant Ilyich did not stand still - his giant hand always points to the Sun, for this the world's largest statue 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 really should have become the world's largest statue. 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 be changed. 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 \u200b\u200bbuilding 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 broadest support among the delegates to the Congress - still, a new symbol of the new country!

But it was possible to start implementing this idea only almost ten years later - on June 18, 1931, 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 was blown up - a symbol of old Russia, which was to be replaced by the symbol of the Land of the Soviets. The temple was visible from almost anywhere in Moscow in the early thirties; the new architectural symbol was to be visible from anywhere in the renovated Moscow of the near future. In 1931, a special government body, the Council for the Construction of the Palace of Soviets, was created (so as not to repeat the same word twice in one name, it was often referred to simply as the Council of Construction). Under this Council, there was 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, IV Stalin, took an active part in the activities of the Council.

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There were 270 participants in the competition - from ordinary citizens with a vague idea of \u200b\u200barchitecture to professional architectural firms. By the way, the share of ordinary citizens accounted for 100 draft designs. 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 this day, the following resolution of the Council was issued:

1. Accept the draft comrade Iofana BM in the basis of 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 the form of a pedestal for the figure of Lenin. 3. Instruct Comrade IOFANU will continue to develop the project of the Palace of the Soviets based on 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.

Point 4 was adopted immediately - architects V. Gelfreich 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 Stalin era architecture. 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, is already there. But she is not crowned by Ilyich, but by 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:

In 1932, the Palace of the 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. Brazini, one of the participants in the competition. Boris Iofan did not at all like the idea that his creation would be just a pedestal, he insisted that the statue be installed not on the top of the building, but in front of it. But, you can't argue with the authorities. The work on the 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 the gallery of the Palace projects that did not pass the competition: Armando Brazini

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. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

3 Armando Brasini Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

4.G. Krasin, A. Kutsaev. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

5. Boris Iofan. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

6. Boris Iofan. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

7.Henrich Ludwig. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

8. Alexey Shchusev. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

9.Hector O. Hamilton. Competition project for the Palace of Soviets 1931

10.Ivan Zholtovsky. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

11.Karo Halabyan, Vladimir Simbirtsev. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

12.Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1931

13. Moses Ginsburg. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1932

14.Nikolay Ladovsky. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1932

15. Leonidas, Victor and Alexander Vesnins. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1932

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

18.Karo Halabyan, Georgy Kochar, Anatoly Mordvinov. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1932

19.VASI brigade (leader Alexander Vlasov). Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1932

20 Vladimir Shchuko, Vladimir Gelfreich. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1932

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

22 Boris Iofan. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1932

23 Boris Iofan. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1933

24 Boris Iofan. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1933

25. Karo Halabyan, Anatoly Mordvinov, Vladimir Simbirtsev, Yakov Doditsa, Alexey Dushkin. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1933

26. Ivan Zholtovsky, Alexey Shchusev. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1933

27. Vladimir Shchuko, Vladimir Gelfreich. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1933

28. Leonidas, Victor and Alexander Vesnins. Competition project of the Palace of Soviets 1933

And what happened on the site of the future Palace? During Napoleon's invasion of Russia, Emperor Alexander I vows to erect a temple in Moscow in the name of Christ the Savior. The construction decree was signed in December 1812 in Vilna, when the last units of the defeated Napoleonic army were expelled from Russia.

1903 year. In 1837, for the construction of the temple, the ancient Alekseevsky monastery was blown up, the abbess of which cursed this place, prophetically declaring that nothing good would stand on it.

The first temple has been under construction for almost 40 years. In 1846, the vault of the main dome was erected, three years later, the facing work was completed. In 1860, the scaffolding was finally removed, and the temple appeared before the eyes of Muscovites, but twenty years after that it was spent on painting and decoration. Despite all the efforts, the people consider the Cathedral of Christ the Savior to be a spiritual place, an example of church bad taste.

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

Museum workers were allowed to take out the fragments of the temple, thanks to which several giant high reliefs were dismantled and transported to the Donskoy Monastery.

Let's continue about the project of the Palace.

Let's start with the main thing - from the foundation on which the palace of 300 meters in height, crowned with a 100-meter statue of Lenin, should have stood. The total area of \u200b\u200bthe building was supposed to be 11 hectares, and the weight was one and a half million tons. But this enormous weight was not evenly distributed over this entire area. The most "weighty" was supposed to be the central high-rise part - the tower, which housed the Great Hall for 22 thousand people. The hall had a round shape - in the center there was a stage platform, above which the audience seats rose like an amphitheater. This huge hall was adjoined by lobbies, foyers and other small (in comparison with the Hall) premises. All these premises as a whole received the name "stylobate" (in ancient Greek architecture this was the name of the upper part of the socle of the temple, on which the colonnade was installed). This giant tower was supposed to occupy an area of \u200b\u200bone hectare and weigh 650 thousand tons (one-fifth of the weight of the entire building). The columns of the frame 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 4,700 tons, and the columns of the Palace of the Soviets tower had to carry a load of 8 to 14 tons each.

Builders have never encountered such loads on the ground. So, the requirements for the ground and the foundation on which the building will rise - a symbol of a new era, special ones were presented. For the study of the soil, for the first time in the Soviet Union, the so-called large-column drilling was used - the soil rose in the form of cylinders 1 meter long and 10-12 centimeters in diameter. More than one 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 jutting into soft ground. At a depth of 14 meters, hard 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. A kind of sandwich. These rocks were formed millions of years ago in 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.

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The foundation of the tower consisted of two concentric concrete rings 140 and 160 meters in diameter. They were located on the second limestone layer at a depth of 30 meters. But before pouring concrete, the builders dug a huge foundation pit. In order to prevent the pit walls from collapsing under the influence of subsoil 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 cracks and cavities, and solidified. A waterproof curtain was formed around the pit. Or rather, almost waterproof. But with the water that nevertheless seeped into the pit, the pumps were successfully coping. To solve the problem with groundwater once and for all, a kind of "bowl" of four layers of asbestos board impregnated with bitumen was built under the future foundation. Now it was possible to start laying the Cyclopean foundation. For this purpose, a concrete plant was built near the construction site, equipped with the latest technology from the late thirties. The last word of the technician at that time was huge automatic concrete mixers. Concrete was delivered to the construction site in metal "buckets" in the pit. Each bucket held 4 tons of concrete. With the help of a crane, the "buckets" were lowered into the pit, the worker knocked out the latch holding the bottom.

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The spilled concrete was tamped with so-called vibrators - metal clubs vibrating under the influence of eccentrics rotating inside. By hardening ("grasping", to use construction slang), the concrete decreases in volume (the so-called "shrinkage"). Given the enormous dimensions 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 were solidified, the gaps were filled with fresh concrete. It turned out to be a monolithic concrete ring. Both rings are connected by 16 radial walls. And on top of the foundation rings, two more rings of reinforced concrete 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 just concrete pillars with a diameter of 60 meters. Since the load on them was not so huge, these concrete pillars were installed on the upper layer of limestone. In total, 550 thousand cubic meters of concrete were required to build the foundations of the Palace. Above the foundation of the tower, basement floors were to be located, which would house technical services - heating, lighting, plumbing, sewerage, etc. walk in them without bending over. The deepest point of the basement was supposed to be the hold of the Great Hall - 10 meters below the water table. The floor of the hold, according to the project, was supposed 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, ascended over Moscow. The foundations of the Palace were 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 was restored, demolished in December 1931.

Frame

Now let's talk about the steel frame, the basis of the 300-meter Palace, topped with the 100-meter statue of Lenin. For the construction of this frame, a special high-strength steel grade was developed - DS.

The frame was to be mounted on two circular concrete foundations. The diameter of the inner ring was 140 meters, the outer one - 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 cars. The cross-sectional area of \u200b\u200beach column is 6 square meters, on such an area a passenger car will fit. The columns rested on a riveted steel shoe, under which 4-5 cast steel plates are laid right in the ring foundation.

All 64 columns are connected horizontally with I-beams every 6-10 meters. The same beams also connect every two columns located on the same radius.

Up to a height of 60 meters, the columns went vertically up, 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 one, so-called spacer rings were to be placed. The surface of such a ring formed a whole avenue 15 meters wide.

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

Over the beams of the secondary frame, floors were to be installed - reinforced concrete slabs with a thickness of 10 centimeters. The floors are laid on these floors. 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 supposed to be 350 thousand tons. A number of factories in Moscow and abroad worked on the manufacture of cyclopean steel structures. They were used to make the so-called "assembly elements" - sections 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 by cranes.

In Moscow, not far from the Lenin Hills, a special plant was built, where all these elements were prepared for installation - holes were drilled for rivets, the ends of the columns were turned on special machines. After such processing, the frame parts were sent to the construction site. For installation, 12 cranes were used, each with a lifting capacity of 40 tons. After the frame reached a height that the cranes could not reach, 10 cranes had to be mounted on the beams of the outer ring of the main frame. The remaining two cranes were supposed to transfer cargo from the ground. In the future, it was planned to reduce the number of cranes on the "Verkhotura", and only one crane was to be engaged in the installation of the statue.

The installation of the frame began in 1940. By the beginning of the war, it reached a height of 7 floors. During the war, DS steel was used to make anti-tank hedgehogs, and when the stocks came to an end, the already built part of the frame was dismantled. The apotheosis did not work, and then, having cleared the site of construction junk, an outdoor swimming pool "Moscow" was built on this site, in which Muscovites have been swimming serenely in winter and summer for about 30 years.

Well, what do you all know at this place now ...

In 1931, work began on creating 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 for 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 of ground transport, greening 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 they started talking about the construction of the Palace of Soviets back in 1922, during his lifetime. However, due to the need to rebuild the country, resources were not found for this large-scale project. They returned to the idea in the 1930s. The Palace of Soviets was to become the first Soviet skyscraper and a symbol of the prosperity of the socialist state.

Le Corbusier's project. Source: corbusier.totalarch.com

All organizational issues related to the Palace of Soviets were entrusted to the Temporary Technical Council for Construction Management, which included not only architects, but also many outstanding 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 tallest building in Moscow, was supposed to become the architectural dominant of the city, in other words, its center. They were going to build a wide avenue and highways diverging towards the Palace. The place where it was located looked ideal for these purposes.

Project selection

The competition for the project 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 are far from art and urban planning were invited to take part. The Palace of the Soviets was intended to become a people's building, therefore, 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 ”. Kirov.
Source: N. Atarov Palace of the Soviets. M., 1940.

The management has identified a fundamental point - the building must be high-rise. Nevertheless, the participants of the competition were not given any specific technical task, 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.

The monumental building was necessary not only to fit into the environment, but to make it dominate in 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 for holding mass events.

Among the foreigners who presented their projects for 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 important proof of the openness of the competition. The architect, who was not very famous at that time in the professional community, received the award for his talents, and not for his big name. Alas, the project, which bore the working title "Simplicity", was ruined by simplicity. Hamilton, for example, overlooked such a detail as the square near the Palace of the Soviets (it was not in the plan). But where, then, should the demonstrations be held?

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

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

In February 1932, a decree was issued, in which architects were again strongly recommended 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. Gelfreich took part, was as follows: the building of the Palace of Soviets is the tallest in the world, higher than the 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 (the architect of the house on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment) proposed to build several high-rise buildings to smooth the scale of the Palace of Soviets. A. Shchusev made the idea more concrete: the architect spoke in favor of the construction of eight new high-rises and called for them to be located in places whose names contain the epithet "red" - the outskirts of Red Square, Krasnye Vorota, 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 words, the Palace of Soviets was supposed to become a monument to Lenin and his achievements. So 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 the New York Statue of Liberty. One of her heads was only slightly inferior in volume to the Column Hall of the House of 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 the monuments to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are erected, faces the Kremlin. Inside the building - the interaction of all types of art. The 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). Apart from them, there are 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 could have placed a choice of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, or any building 25 stories high. 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 film screenings, and the creators of the project found an original solution to the problem. Four screens should have been installed at once, the side edges of which would fold into a cube shape. Three of them are facing different sides of the amphitheater, one is facing the presidium sector.

Hall of Heroics of the Civil War.

The Palace of Labor and the Bolshoi Cinema - these names cannot be found on the map of the modern capital, they have been preserved only in the archives. Let's try to imagine what our city would look like if all plans were destined to come true.

Moscow is a city that has been actively built and rebuilt throughout its history. Each era has brought something new to the image of the capital, sometimes trying to completely change its architectural concept. This is especially true of the Soviet period, when styles such as the famous Stalinist Empire style and constructivism appeared.

Architectural projects of that time boggle the imagination. Some of them were brought to life, but many remained in the archives. However, only on paper can one see some drawings of the pre-revolutionary period. Let's try to imagine how our city would look if all plans were destined to come true.

Pre-revolutionary subway

The first proposals for creating a metro in Moscow appeared back in 1875. Then the idea arose to lay a line from the Kursk railway station through Lubyanskaya and Pushkinskaya squares to Maryina Roshcha. In 1902 A.I. Antonovich, N.I. Golinevich and N.P. Dmitriev drew up a revised project, which included the construction of the Circle Line passing along the Kamer-Kollezhsky Val, as well as the Central Station in the Alexandrovsky Garden and four radial lines. Half of these pre-revolutionary branches were planned to be built on overpasses, and half in tunnels. According to the project, the ring road was supposed to run along overpasses and earth embankments.

Cathedral of Christ the Savior on Sparrow Hills

This temple was going to be erected in honor of the victory of Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812. The architect Alexander Vitberg proposed to build it between the Smolensk and Kaluga roads, on the Sparrow Hills, which Alexander I poetically called "the crown of Moscow." Here are several reasons that gave weight to the proposal: this is the emperor's desire to build a church outside the city, since in Moscow "there is not enough space required for an elegant building"; these are links to the out-of-town St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome; this is also a good geographical location - after all, the Maiden Field spread at the foot of the Vorobyovy Hills would allow you to see the temple from afar. And the last argument: Vorobyovy Gory are located between the paths of the enemy who entered Moscow along the Smolensk road and retreated along the Kaluga road.

The temple was to become the tallest in the world: the height of its ground part was to be 170 meters (for comparison: the height of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is 141.5 meters). In 1823, the preparation of stone began and work to connect the upper reaches of the Volga and the Moskva River to deliver the stone to the temple. The first experiment turned out to be successful, but it was not possible to take out large parties, because the water in the Moscow River could not be raised to the required level.

The construction of the temple did not continue. Numerous springs on the slope of the mountains, testifying to sandy soils, exclude the possibility of building a large structure not only on the slopes, but also on the top due to the danger of uneven settlement.

The Labor Palace in Moscow is an unrealized project of 1922-1923. In the center of the capital, on the section between Tverskaya Street and the squares: Sverdlovskaya, Revolution and Okhotnoryadskaya (on the site of the current hotel "Moscow"), it was planned to build a grandiose complex.

The Palace of Labor was supposed to accommodate all the workers' organizations in Moscow, large proletarian libraries, a meeting room for several thousand people, an audience for eight thousand listeners, a museum of social knowledge, a dining room with a capacity of six thousand people, sports organizations and much more.

The exhibition of projects "Palace of Labor" opened in March 1923. This largest competition was supposed to determine in many respects which path Soviet architecture would take. The project presented by the Vesnin brothers became the first building in the constructivist style. However, its construction did not begin, and in 1935 the Moscow hotel appeared here.

Sukharevskaya square

In 1931, a plan for the general reconstruction of Moscow was developed. He assumed a complete change in the town-planning concept of the city. Wide transport routes and high-rise buildings were to appear in the center. To do this, they began to demolish the historical buildings. In 1933, it came to the Sukharev Tower. Famous architects tried to defend the tower. The painter and restorer Igor Grabar, academicians of architecture Ivan Fomin and Ivan Zholtovsky wrote a letter to Stalin, in which they indicated that the decision was wrong: “The Sukharev Tower,” they wrote, “is an unfading example of the great art of building, known to the whole world and equally highly valued everywhere ... We ... strongly object to the destruction of a highly talented work of art, tantamount to the destruction of a painting by Raphael. "

The authors of the letter offered to develop a project for the reconstruction of Sretenskaya Square within a month, which would allow solving the transport problem, while preserving the Sukharev Tower. The architect Fomin soon presented this project - with a circular movement across the square. There were other options - to skip transport to the west of the tower, move it to another place, arrange a tunnel for transport. All this, alas, was not destined to come true.

During the dismantling of the Sukharev Tower, one of the frames of the windows of the third floor was preserved and transferred to the Donskoy Monastery, where it was embedded in the monastery wall. The clock from the Sukharev tower is now installed on the tower of the Front Gate of the Kolomenskoye estate. The foundations of the tower have also been preserved, but hidden under the modern square.

In the 1980s, the Moscow executive committee decided to restore the tower. A design competition was announced, but none of them were accepted. Nowadays, only a memorial sign in the park on the Garden Ring reminds of the existence of the Sukharev Tower.

The Palace of Soviets in Moscow was designed as a gigantic building 420 meters high, which was to be crowned with a 70 meters high statue of Lenin. Thus, the building was supposed to be the tallest in the world. A place where the Cathedral of Christ the Savior had previously stood was allocated for the construction. The project was proposed by Boris Iofan, and Sergei Merkurov was commissioned to work on the monument to Lenin. Construction was interrupted with the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War and never resumed.

Zaryadye

In accordance with the new aesthetics, the Soviet government planned to double Red Square, and to reconstruct the central squares named after Nogin, Dzerzhinsky, Sverdlov and Revolution within three years. They wanted to free the territory of Kitay-gorod from the existing small buildings, with the exception of certain large structures, and instead of them to build several monumental buildings of national importance.

The eighth Stalinist skyscraper was supposed to be the administrative building in Zaryadye. The 32-storey skyscraper, which was laid on the day of Moscow's 800th anniversary, was never completed. All the erected structures were dismantled, and in 1964-1967 the hotel "Russia" was built on the remaining foundation.

Zakrestovsky overpass

The decision to open the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VDNKh) influenced the reconstruction of 1st Meshchanskaya Street and Yaroslavskoye Highway. From the 1st Meshchanskaya Yaroslavka was separated by the tracks of the October railway, through which the old overpass was thrown. Its width was so small that even tram tracks could only be laid in one line.

The first draft of the architectural solution was completed in 1935 by the architect Mikhail Zhirov. The structure was supposed to have dimensions unprecedented for Moscow: its width was 40 meters. Zhirov's project was not approved, and further work on the overpasses was entrusted to a team consisting of engineer Yuri Werner and brothers-architects Konstantin and Yuri Yakovlev. Construction started in 1936 was completed two years later.

House TASS

In 1934-1935, a competition was announced for the construction of the TASS building. It took place in three rounds, and a new location was chosen for the building - Pushkin Square. The author of one of the projects was Leonid Grinshpan, a famous architect of the post-constructivist era. However, his plans were never realized. The existing building of the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia was built in 1976 on Tverskoy Boulevard by architects Viktor Yegerev, Anatoly Shaikhet, Zoya Abramova and Gennady Sirota.

Big Academic Cinema on Teatralnaya Square

The Bolshoi Academic Cinema is a large public building, which, according to the reconstruction plan of Moscow, was supposed to be built on Sverdlov Square (now Teatralnaya Square), opposite the Bolshoi Theater building. Since cinema was recognized as "the most important of the arts," the new cinema was supposed to architecturally subordinate the building of the Bolshoi Theater. The cinema should surpass the Bolshoi in size: the theater has two thousand seats, and the Bolshoi cinema should have four thousand (later, however, this figure dropped to three thousand seats).

The competition for the project of the Bolshoi Academic Cinema was announced in the fall of 1936, but all the projects were ultimately declared unsuccessful, all the proposed buildings suffered from gigantomania, which they were just beginning to struggle with. Despite the fact that the cinema never appeared on the square, it was his project that we owe to the creation of a combined lobby for the stations “Revolution Square” and “Sverdlov Square”.

Pantheon of Glory

The Pantheon in Moscow is an unrealized project of a memorial tomb, "a monument to the eternal glory of the great people of the Soviet country", where the sarcophagi of Lenin and Stalin were to be transferred, as well as "the remains of prominent figures of the Communist Party and the Soviet state buried at the Kremlin wall."

In 1953, immediately after Stalin's death, a competition for the projects of the pantheon was announced, but its specific location was not specified. The central authorities began to receive numerous projects, many of which echoed those that appeared during the competition for the construction of the Palace of Soviets.

Monument to Chelyuskinites

The return from the Pole of the Chelyuskinites, taken off the ice by Soviet pilots (by the way, they became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union), became a national holiday. Therefore, the Moscow City Council announced a competition for the design of the monument. It was planned to place the monument on the arrow of the Obvodny Canal (now there is a monument in honor of Peter I Zurab Tsereteli on this place).

Children's railway in the I.V. Stalin (Izmailovsky Park)

In 1932-1933, a children's railway already existed in Moscow - in the children's town of the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure. By the end of the 1930s, it was closed.

The construction site for the Moscow ChRW was then chosen to be the Citywide Park of Culture and Leisure named after Stalin in Izmailovo (now Izmailovsky Park). The general plan for the development of Moscow envisaged turning this park into the main recreation area for Muscovites. Near the northwest entrance, the Central Stadium of the USSR named after Stalin for 100 thousand spectators was supposed to be located. In the eastern part of the park, it was planned to open the world's largest zoo, and in the center of the park, in the floodplain of the Serebryanka River, to equip a huge pond with an area of \u200b\u200bmore than 110 hectares with well-groomed beaches for 10 thousand people, a yacht club and a racing boat station.

The children's railway was supposed to connect all the cultural and entertainment facilities of the park and become the main mode of transport. When it was created, it was decided to abandon the practice of designing children's roads by children or young specialists in their free time, which was established in those years. A competition was announced for the best design of a children's road and all its structures. According to its terms, the architecture of the station buildings had to be at the quality level of the Moscow metro, the structures of the Moscow-Volga canal, the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition and be a vivid example of “joyful Soviet architecture”. Particular attention was paid to the variety of styles, and therefore each of the participants prepared a project not for the entire road, but only for one of the stations. The results of the architectural competition were announced in the spring of 1940.

In 1940-1941, Moscow children's technical stations and palaces of pioneers recruited young railway workers into circles. From the very first day, they were distributed by services (movement, traction, carriage and so on). In the spring of 1941, after completing the initial theoretical course, the guys began practical training. But since the road had not yet been built by that time, the classes were held at the enterprises of the Moscow railway junction. For example, young steam locomotives, under the guidance of experienced machinists, drove passenger trains from the Savyolovsky station.

On June 20, 1941, the final version of the children's railway project was submitted for approval. And two days later the Great Patriotic War began. After the war, several attempts were made to return to the issue of building a children's railway, but all of them were not crowned with success.

What the streets we are used to look like

Ambitious city reconstruction projects have touched almost all the central streets and squares of our city. Manezhnaya Square, Tverskaya, and Kurskiy railway station could have looked quite different from what we are used to.

PALACE OF SOVIETS, unrealized project of a building intended for construction in Moscow. For the first time, the idea of \u200b\u200bbuilding a Palace of Soviets in Moscow was expressed by S. M. Kirov (see Sergei Mironovich KIROV) in 1922 at the First Congress of Soviets. Design ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Palace of the Soviets. Project of B. M. Iofan, V. A. Shchuko and V. G. Gelfreikh. 1935 - 1937. Moscow. "Palace of the Soviets" the name of the station in 1935-57 ... Moscow (encyclopedia)

The project of the Palace of Soviets (architects B. M. Iofan, V. A. Shchuko, V. G. Gelfreikh). Palace of the Soviets unfulfilled construction project of the Soviet government, on which work was carried out in the 1930s and 1950s: a grandiose administrative building, ... ... Wikipedia

It was designed in 1931-33 and 1957-59. The idea of \u200b\u200bbuilding the complex arose in 1922 at the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR. In the 1930-50s. it was promoted in every possible way, acquiring the symbolic meaning of the expression of state, political and ... ... Moscow (encyclopedia)

The Palace of Arts is an ambiguous term. Palace of Arts (Ivanovo) Palace of Arts (Lvov) Palace of Arts (Minsk) National Palace of Arts "Ukraine" See also Palace Palace of Fine Arts Palace of Culture Palace of Pioneers Palace of Soviets ... Wikipedia

N. Trotsky's project, which won the first prize, the Palace of Labor in Moscow ... Wikipedia

Place of interest Pałac Kultury i Nauki Palace of Culture and Science ... Wikipedia

Palace Palace of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich ... Wikipedia

Coordinates: 59 ° 55'58 ″ s. sh. 30 ° 20'41 "in. d. / 59.932778 ° N sh. 30.344722 ° E etc ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Yusupov Palace. Coordinates: 59 ° 55′45.8 ″ s. sh. 30 ° 17'56.12 ″ east d. / 59.929389 ° N w ... Wikipedia

Books

• Architecture of the Palace of Soviets, The team of authors. Palace of the Soviets and Art Cooperation. Construction of the Palace of Soviets and the Commonwealth of Arts. Constructions and materials. Interior architecture. The main sculpture of the Palace of Soviets is the statue of V.
• Palace of Soviets architecture,. Palace of the Soviets and Art Cooperation. Construction of the Palace of Soviets and the Commonwealth of Arts. Constructions and materials. Interior architecture. The main sculpture of the Palace of Soviets is the statue of V.

On December 5, 1931, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was blown up. Shortly before this, an international competition was announced for the design of the country's main building - the Palace of Soviets, the place for which was cleared by the explosion of the temple.

The new power, the new ideology, the global swing towards total happiness of mankind demanded adequate embodiment in a structure that would be "visible from all over the world."

The competition caused a nationwide response: sketches with ideas for the Palace of Soviets were sent by schoolchildren and workers' faculty members, active pensioners and housing associations. There were 160 professional architectural projects alone, of which 24 were from foreign masters. Despite the large number of brilliant works, the Construction Council, announcing the results of the second round, awarded the projects B. Iofan, I. Zholtovskyand American G. Hamilton... All three winners presented projects of pompous, heavy structures dating back to the Empire style. At the same time, bright, modern designs were ignored. brothers Vesnin, architects of the German architectural school "Bauhaus", perhaps the most popular master in the world Le Corbusier.

1920s turned out to be the time of the triumph of constructivism in the USSR - a new style in which an architectural image is created with minimal means. Buildings K onstantin Melnikov, Ilya Golosov, Moisey Ginzburg, the same brothers Vesnin, bold projects Tatlin and El Lissitzky managed to gain world fame for the new Soviet architecture. And suddenly - a demonstrative rejection of these conquests, a programmatic return to the "big style" of the empire.

The disappointment of the architectural community was so great that the world leaders of new architecture wrote surprised letters to Stalin, who was naively called the president. The International Congress of Contemporary Architecture, which brought together the leading masters, planned to meet in Moscow for the fourth time in 1933, but the results of the competition for the Palace of Soviets prompted to abandon this idea. As discouraged he wrote Lunacharsky Le Corbusier, "The people love the royal palaces."

Project of the Palace of Soviets by architect Boris Iofan. Photo: RIA Novosti / Mikhail Filimonov

The abandonment of revolutionary architectural ideas in favor of traditional ones was not the first. The competition for the Red Stadium on Vorobyovy Gory ended in approximately the same way. The strongest in the competition for the Palace of Labor was recognized as the constructivist project of the Vesnin brothers, but for some reason they were awarded not 1st, but only 3rd place (apparently, so as not to orient all Soviet architecture to a new style), and the project was never started. A talented constructivist won the competition for the building of the Central Telegraph Grigory Barkhin, but when implementing the project, the old master Ivan Rerberginstructed to dress the building with a translucent frame in a "decent" stone coat. In the same way, the winners of the competition for the building of the Moscow Hotel were not allowed to fully implement the bold project - on the construction site it was “corrected” in an academic spirit Alexey Shchusev - a proven old master.

According to Yuri Volchok, professor at Moscow Architectural Institute, the point here is not Stalin's personal preferences. The colonized manor house, which had become customary for two centuries, to a greater extent corresponded to the people's idea of \u200b\u200bthe main building of the country.

Image of the Palace of Soviets on the "Plan of the City of Moscow", compiled and published in 1940 by the Geodetic Office of the Moscow City Planning Office. Photo: Public Domain

There is an underground entrance

As you know, the Palace of Soviets was destined to remain a gigantic mirage: the 416-meter largest "skyscraper" in the world weighing 1.5 million tons, a quarter of which is the colossal figure of Lenin (only one index finger of the leader is a two-story house), would crush the historical buildings Moscow. The war intervened: the foundation piles of high-strength steel, already built to a height of seven underground floors, were dismantled into anti-tank "hedgehogs". And after the war, no one wanted to poke around in the impassable mud of the Chertoriy stream, the construction site was moved to the ridge of the Lenin Hills, and somehow imperceptibly the Palace of Soviets was replaced with a new building of Moscow State University.

Lev Rudnev, having become the architect of the new "high-rise", had a very tight deadline for completing the design, therefore, Iofan's project was taken as the basis, thereby emphasizing the continuity of the Moscow State University building in relation to the Palace of Soviets. And the other six Moscow skyscrapers have a genetic relationship with an unrealized project.
Their creation by the forces of Soviet architects, designers, materials scientists, builders was, in the opinion of the same Y. Volchko, a technological breakthrough, comparable to a flight into space. Without these skyscrapers, we would not have had mass construction, the country would not have moved from barracks to Khrushchev, today anecdotal, but at one time saving for the country, mired in solving the housing problem.

The competition for the design of the Palace of Soviets coincided in time with the development of the first general plan of Moscow in 1935. The idea of \u200b\u200ba vertical that “holds” the megalopolis has not lost its relevance today. The principle of polycentrism, defined by the Palace of Soviets, is relevant even now, when the capital has grown into a south-western "shirt front", and again an international competition of architectural ideas is required so that the new Moscow does not turn out to be a miserable suburb of historical Moscow. Exist the Palace of Soviets in reality, believes Yuri Volchok, a bouquet of glass, called the City, would have moved much farther from the city center (like the Défense skyscraper district in Paris was removed from the Eiffel Tower's line of sight).

And we have a metro station from the Palace of Soviets as a keepsake - formerly of the same name, today known as "Kropotkinskaya", the work of an excellent master Alexey Dushkin, the best, perhaps, among the world's subways. It was once conceived as ... an underground lobby of the Palace of Soviets. That would, by the way, return its historical name!

He passed away in December 2013 saveliy Kashnitsky, journalist for Argumenty i Fakty... In memory of a talented colleague and a wonderful person, AiF.ru publishes the author's best materials in recent years.