文学历史｜二十世纪的苏维埃建筑

🔘文章节选自二十世纪建筑百科全书，中文部分为机翻，部分地方有歧义或语句不通顺，英文为原文。

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20世纪俄罗斯建筑的起源不仅源于世纪之交建筑技术的进步，而且源于对19世纪西方折衷主义风格的反应，圣彼得堡和莫斯科的建筑师们将这种风格大量应用于公寓房和商业建筑的外墙。到19世纪70年代，出现了一种以中世纪莫斯科的装饰元素为基础，以民间艺术和传统木制建筑为主题的民族风格。莫斯科俄罗斯风格的主要例子包括历史博物馆（1874-83年），它是根据弗拉基米尔-舍武德（1833-97年）的设计在红场北侧建造的，以及亚历山大-波美兰采夫（1848-1918年）在建筑工程师弗拉基米尔-舒霍夫（1853-1939年）的协助下建造的上贸易行（1889-93年）。这种历史主义的影响一直持续到20世纪初，成为现代风格的 "新俄罗斯 "组成部分。画家们如维克多-瓦斯涅佐夫（1848-1926），他创作了特列季亚科夫画廊的入口建筑（约1905年），以及谢尔盖-马里乌廷（1859-1937）特别积极地使用传统的俄罗斯装饰艺术作为新建筑美学的一部分。

世纪之交在俄罗斯建筑中出现的 "新风格"，或称现代风格，在其不同的来源中，包括俄罗斯复兴风格的工艺美术成分，以及新艺术和维也纳学派。它的主要重点是创新地使用材料，如玻璃、铁和釉面砖，在功能性和高度美学的设计中。这种风格首先在莫斯科蓬勃发展，在那里它的主要实践者是费多尔-谢赫特尔（1859-1926）。谢赫特尔主要为莫斯科的企业家精英们工作，如Riabushinsky家族。他最著名的作品是为斯捷潘-里亚布申斯基设计的豪宅（1900-02年），与他为亚历山德拉-德罗辛斯基豪宅（1901年）设计的更具现代主义风格的作品相媲美。谢赫特尔还在莫斯科设计了许多商业建筑和公共建筑，如雅罗斯拉夫尔火车站。

20世纪初莫斯科的其他主要建筑师包括列夫-凯库舍夫（1863-1919）、阿道夫-埃里克森和威廉-沃尔科特（1874-1943）。三人都参与了俄罗斯最大、最重要的现代建筑之一的长期建设：大都会酒店（1899-1905）。与谢赫泰尔一样，克库舍夫和沃尔科特在为富人客户设计私人住宅时，都创造了现代风格的主要范例。

在圣彼得堡，现代风格主要出现在建筑师设计的公寓群中。圣彼得堡相对紧凑的城市规划阻碍了独立式私人住宅的建设）。然而，尽管公寓空间迅速扩大，但缺乏足够的住房，特别是工人的住房，仍然是一个主要的社会问题。中式风格也出现在圣彼得堡的商业建筑中，如帕维尔-修佐尔（1844-c.1919）在涅夫斯基大街上建造的辛格大厦（1902-04）。

1905年以后，中庸风格开始与现代化古典主义的一种形式合并，在俄罗斯被称为新古典主义。圣彼得堡的建筑师们特别能接受新古典主义的复兴，他们几乎将其应用于所有主要的结构类型，包括银行、百货公司、公寓楼和私人住宅。在这种风格中最有成就和多才多艺的建筑师之一是费多尔-利德瓦尔（1870-1945），他是阿斯托利亚酒店（1911-12）的设计师。

在莫斯科，最有成就的复兴主义者是罗曼-克莱因（1858-1924），他是美术博物馆（1897-1912年；1937年起称为普希金博物馆）和穆尔和米里埃利斯百货公司（1906-08年）的建筑师。虽然不如克莱因多产，但其他建筑师在莫斯科商业中心的主要办公建筑中，以新古典主义复兴的更严谨的变体而脱颖而出。与同时代的美国建筑师相比，俄罗斯建筑师在设计大型建筑时很少使用骨架，但他们经常应用钢筋混凝土结构的新技术。

俄罗斯快速发展的工业基础在经历了一场战争、一场革命和一场内战之后，变得一片狼藉；在这个仍然以农村为主的国家里，技术资源极其有限；莫斯科的人口在战前就很贫乏，随着1918年莫斯科成为一个彻底管理国家的行政中心，人口急剧增加。苏联最早的法令之一，在1918年8月，废除了城市房地产的私人所有权。即使在国家陷入内战的时候，莫斯科和彼得格勒（原圣彼得堡）的建筑师群体设计的工人居住区，代表了第一次世界大战前十年间已经初步出现在俄罗斯的花园城市运动的延伸。

革命前的建筑热潮在建筑理论和实践上为大规模的城市发展奠定了可行的基础。此外，在革命后俄罗斯文化的其他领域遭到破坏的移民之后，俄罗斯的建筑专业相对完整。此外，莫斯科和彼得格勒最著名的艺术和建筑学校尽管有时在师资构成上发生了大刀阔斧的变化，但仍能为培养新干部提供基础。然而，在恢复这些院校的活力、分配资源进行新的建设、制定计划协调进一步发展等方面都存在着巨大的问题。

随着20世纪20年代经济的逐步复苏，大胆的新设计--通常是乌托邦式的概念--使苏联受到全世界现代建筑师的关注。建筑学革命（以及其他艺术）将不可避免地伴随着政治革命的假设，很快就受到了社会和经济现实的考验。苏联建筑学前卫派短暂的历史中，存在着理论争论和派别之争，如理性主义和建构主义之间的争论。同时，埃尔-利西茨基、卡齐米尔-马列维奇、弗拉基米尔-塔特林和尼古拉-普宁等艺术家在定义新的体量和结构方法方面的作用，对前卫建筑的概念化产生了深远的影响。

建构主义是最富有成效的现代主义运动，它采用了严格的功能设计方法，拒绝 "资产阶级 "的装饰效果，集中于明确界定的几何体量，以纪念碑式的规模来表达新国家的精神。具有讽刺意味的是，20世纪20年代苏联建筑技术的落后状况，往往导致那些达到实施阶段的建构主义项目的原始实现。

在莫斯科，主要的建构主义建筑师和理论家包括莫伊塞-金兹堡（1892-1946），他最著名的建筑是人民财政委员会的公寓房（1928-30）；格里戈里-巴尔金（1880-1969），伊兹韦斯蒂亚大厦（1925-27）的设计者；伊利亚-戈洛索夫（1883-1945），祖耶夫工人俱乐部（1927-29）的建筑师。潘特莱蒙-戈洛索夫（1882-1945），《真理报》大厦（1930-35）的作者；维斯宁兄弟，列昂尼德（1880-1933）、维克多（1882-1950）和亚历山大（1883-1959），他们是一些重大工程的建筑师，如为大型汽车厂工人建造的利哈切夫文化宫（1931-37）。

这些项目和莫斯科的其他构造主义项目为行政和公寓建筑以及工人俱乐部等社会机构的功能设计树立了标准。另一位活跃在同一时期但不属于建构主义运动的著名现代主义者是康斯坦丁-梅尔尼科夫（Konstantin Melnikov，1890-1974年），他以设计世博会展馆、一些工人俱乐部（最著名的是鲁萨科夫俱乐部，1927-28年）、工业建筑如莱兰巴士车库（1926-27年）和他自己在莫斯科阿尔巴特区的房子（1927-29年）而闻名。

建构主义建筑师的重要项目也出现在其他苏联城市，如列宁格勒、哈尔科夫、高尔基（下诺夫哥罗德）、斯维尔德洛夫斯克（叶卡捷琳堡）和新西伯利亚。列宁格勒的著名例子包括基洛夫区苏维埃建筑群（1930-35年），其总体设计是委托建筑师诺伊-特罗茨基（1895-1940年）完成的。从1928年开始，五年计划强调重工业的迅速扩张，导致工业中心的大规模重建。在哈尔科夫，由谢尔盖-谢拉菲莫夫(1878-1939)为首的建筑小组设计了一个由几座建筑组成的大型综合体，称为国家工业大厦(Gosprom，1926-28)。在斯维尔德洛夫斯克，整个城市中心在莫伊塞-金兹堡等建筑师的参与下进行了重新设计，由伊-安东诺夫、维-索科洛夫和阿-通巴索夫设计了一个被称为 "切克主义者村"（1929-38年）的样板房开发项目。工业建筑也备受关注，恩斯特-梅（Ernst May）、埃里希-门德尔松（Erich Mendelsohn）、汉内斯-迈耶（Hannes Meyer）和阿尔伯特-卡恩（Albert Kahn）等外国建筑师与苏联建筑师和工程师合作，创造了巨大的工业综合体。伊万-列昂尼多夫（1902-59）等理论家为新的工业中心提出了 "线性城市 "的概念。

20世纪30年代，随着受古典主义、文艺复兴和其他历史主义模式启发的设计得到党的批准，更多的保守趋势在官僚机构赞助的主要建筑中得到了体现。著名的传统主义者，在革命前的新古典主义复兴中接受过训练，包括伊万-佐尔托夫斯基（1867-1959）、阿列克谢-舒舍夫（1873-1949）和诺伊-特罗茨基（1895-1940）。尽管在形式上与建构主义决裂，但什丘塞夫和特罗茨基的早期作品属于建构主义运动，与20世纪20年代建筑的其他联系一直持续到30年代。战前斯大林主义建筑的宏大狂热，由鲍里斯-伊凡（1891-1976）、弗拉基米尔-格列菲克（1885-1967）和弗拉基米尔-什丘科（1878-1939）设计的莫斯科苏维埃宫（1933-35）项目最能体现。该建筑本应建在巨大的基督救世主大教堂（1931年拆除）的原址上，但该项目在40年代末被取消。

二战后，建筑设计更加牢牢地锁定在传统的、往往是高度华丽的折衷主义风格上，战后莫斯科和其他苏联城市的摩天大楼就是一个缩影。在莫斯科的七座这样的塔楼中，最大的是由列夫-鲁德涅夫（1885-1956）、帕维尔-阿布罗西莫夫（1900-61）和亚历山大-赫里亚科夫（1903-76）设计的莫斯科国立大学大楼（1949-53）。在这个项目上，和斯大林时期的其他几个项目一样，大部分的建设是由监狱劳工完成的。

在斯大林去世后的1953年3月，对优先事项进行了重新评估，特别是在住房危机方面，导致了功能主义，这一直是20世纪20年代苏联设计和规划的目标之一。工程师和建筑师团队开始制作标准化的规划，可以用相对简单的技术来应用，对建筑风格历史框架的追求也基本被抛弃，赫鲁晓夫时代初期废除建筑学院就说明了这一点。标准化建设的加速实现了惊人的体量，先是全国各地出现了五层的公寓楼，后来批量生产的建筑高达20层，极少数甚至更高。

建筑工业化和装饰浮夸的遏制，产生了一系列不同的问题。除了设计的普遍单调之外，创造性的项目还受到基于预制模块或现场组装的预制混凝土模板的标准化、"工业化 "建筑过程的限制。这种组装方法所产生的接缝和裂缝，使许多建筑显得粗劣。不管是哪种类型的项目，苏联建筑师通常都面临着受大规模施工方法和微薄财政资源限制的狭窄选择范围。

即使是得到相当多支持的展示项目，也分享了普遍的单调性。战后苏联现代主义最多产的实践者是米哈伊尔-波索金（Mikhail Posokhin，1910-89），他曾合作设计过起义广场上的斯大林主义公寓楼，但却巧妙地转向了斯普特尼克时代的新功能主义。他为克里姆林宫会议宫所做的设计（1959-61年，与A.Mndoiants等人合作）具有巨大比例的现代音乐厅的外观，其大理石覆盖的矩形轮廓由狭窄的塔楼（也是用白色大理石覆盖的）和多层的平板玻璃竖井所标志。其风格的主要优点是，在历史悠久的克里姆林宫建筑群中，这座大型建筑相对不显眼，其中部分建筑已在20世纪30年代被摧毁。

并非所有现代时期的苏联建筑都是一成不变的。未来主义的建筑技术出现在奥斯坦金诺电视塔（1967年，N.Nikitin，L.Batalov等）中，这是一座设计和工程令人印象深刻的钢筋混凝土巨石。铁混凝土竖井高385米（基础只有4米），支撑着另外150米高的钢架天线上层建筑。技术上的独创性也是当代许多体育场馆设计的特点，就像电视一样，这些体育场馆为政权的宣传利益服务。大型体育场馆群甚至在斯大林主义后期就开始形成，如列宁格勒的基洛夫体育场（1950年，A.Nikolskii等人）在克列斯托夫斯基岛上，而莫斯科南部的卢日尼基体育场群（1955-56年，A.Vlasov等人）则达到了高潮。对体育文化的重视，在1980年夏季奥运会的筹备中达到了高潮，产生了当代俄罗斯建筑中最有趣的一些形式。位于莫斯科西郊Krylatskoe的Velotrek自行车赛车场（1978-79年，Natalia Voronina等）就是一个以高科技和线条优美而著称的例子，它的屋顶是由四毫米厚的轧钢膜组成的，拉伸在由桁架系统支撑的一对倾斜的椭圆形拱门之间。

随着苏联共产主义制度的消亡，建筑业私人执业的复兴似乎有可能改变这个行业的面貌，甚至在分区、住房和资源分配方面也出现了新的问题。外国投资鼓励了西方商业建筑的同化，从现代主义到后现代主义再到解构主义。同时，俄罗斯甚至斯大林主义建筑中的历史主义元素在莫斯科等城市的新项目中被回收利用，以实现特色鲜明、丰富多彩的城市环境。现在评论这些努力是否成功还为时过早，但俄罗斯建筑正在迅速恢复20世纪初的多样性。

威廉·布鲁姆菲尔德 森诺特R.S. 二十世纪建筑百科全书，第3卷（P-Z）。 菲茨罗伊·迪尔伯恩（Fitzroy Dearborn），2005年。  〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️

1874–83, the Historical Museum, Moscow, RUSSIA, Vladimir Shervud

1889–93, the Upper Trading Rows, Moscow, RUSSIA, Alexander Pomerantsev

1897–1912, the Museum of Fine Arts (since 1937 the Pushkin Museum), Moscow, RUSSIA, Roman Klein

1899–1905, the Hotel Metropole, Moscow, RUSSIA, Lev Kekushev, Adolf Erikhson, William Walcot

1900–02, a mansion for Stepan Riabushinsky, Moscow, RUSSIA, Fedor Shekhtel

1902–04, the Singer Building, Saint Petersburg, RUSSIA, Pavel Siuzor

c. 1905, the Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow, RUSSIA, Viktor Vasnetsov

1906–08, the Muir and Mirrielees department store, Moscow, RUSSIA, Roman Klein

1911–12, the Hotel Astoria, Saint Petersburg, RUSSIA, Fedor Lidval

1925–27, the Izvestiia Building, Moscow, RUSSIA, Grigory Barkhin

1926–27, the Leyland Bus Garage, Moscow, RUSSIA, Konstantin Melnikov

1927–28, the Rusakov Club, Moscow, RUSSIA, Konstantin Melnikov

1927–29, the Zuev Workers’ Club, Moscow, RUSSIA, Ilya Golosov

1927–29, MELNIKOV HOUSE, Moscow, RUSSIA, Konstantin Melnikov

1928–30, the apartment housefor the People’s Commissariat of Finance, Moscow, RUSSIA, Moisei Ginzburg

1931–37, the Likhachev Palace of Culture, Moscow, RUSSIA, Vesnin brothers

1933–35, Palace of the Soviets, Boris Iofan, Vladimir Gelfreikh, Vladimir Shchuko

1949–53, Moscow State University, Moscow, RUSSIA, Lev Rudnev, Pavel Abrosimov, Alexander Khriakov

1959–61, the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, Moscow, RUSSIA, Mikhail Posokhin (in collaboration with A. Mndoiants and others)

1967, the Ostankino Television Tower, Moscow, RUSSIA, N.Nikitin, L.Batalov, and others

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The origins of 20th-century Russian architecture derive not only from technological advances in construction at the turn of the century but also from a reaction to 19thcentury Western eclectic styles that architects in St. Petersburg and Moscow applied profusely to the facades of apartment houses and commercial buildings. By the 1870s, there arose a national style based on decorative elements from medieval Muscovy as well as on motifs from folk art and traditional wooden architecture. Major examples of the Russian style in Moscow include the Historical Museum (1874–83), built on the north side of Red Square to a design by Vladimir Shervud (1833–97), and the Upper Trading Rows (1889–93) by Alexander Pomerantsev (1848–1918), assisted by the construction engineer Vladimir Shukhov (1853–1939). The influence of this historicism continued through the early 1900s as the “neo-Russian” component of the style moderne. Painters such as Viktor Vasnetsov (1848–1926), who created the entrance building at the Tretiakov Gallery (c. 1905), and Sergei Maliutin (1859–1937) were particularly active in using traditional Russian decorative arts as part of a new architectural aesthetic.

The “new style,” or style moderne, that arose in Russian architecture at the turn of the century included among its diverse sources the Arts and Crafts component of the Russian Revival style as well as Art Nouveau and the Vienna School. Its main emphasis was on the innovative use of materials such as glass, iron, and glazed brick in functional yet highly aesthetic designs. The style flourished above all in Moscow, where its leading practitioner was Fedor Shekhtel (1859–1926). Shekhtel worked primarily for patrons among Moscow’s entrepreneurial elite, such as the extended Riabushinsky family. His most notable work was a mansion (1900–02) for Stepan Riabushinsky, which is rivaled by his more modernist design for the Alexandra Derozhinsky mansion (1901). Shekhtel also designed a number of commercial buildings and public buildings in Moscow, such as the Yaroslavl Railway Station.

Other leading architects of the early 20th century in Moscow include Lev Kekushev (1863–1919), Adolf Erikhson, and William Walcot (1874–1943). All three were involved in the prolonged construction of one of the largest and most significant moderne buildings in Russia: the Hotel Metropole (1899–1905). Like Shekhtel, both Kekushev and Walcot produced major examples of the modern style in the design of private houses for wealthy clients.

In St. Petersburg, the style moderne appeared primarily in the design of apartment complexes by architects. (St. Petersburg’s relatively compact urban plan impeded the construction of detached private houses.) Yet, despite the rapid expansion of apartment space, the lack of adequate housing, particularly for workers, remained a major social problem. The style moderne also appeared in St. Petersburg’s commercial buildings, such as the Singer Building (1902–04) on Nevsky Prospekt by Pavel Siuzor (1844-c.1919).

After 1905 the style moderne began to merge with a form of modernized classicism, known in Russia as neoklassitsizm. Architects in St. Petersburg were especially receptive to the neoclassical revival, and they applied it to almost every major structural type, including banks, department stores, apartment buildings, and private houses. One of the most accomplished and versatile architects in this style was Fedor Lidval (1870–1945), designer of the Hotel Astoria (1911–12).

In Moscow the most accomplished revivalist was Roman Klein (1858–1924), architect of the Museum of Fine Arts (1897–1912; known since 1937 as the Pushkin Museum) and the Muir and Mirrielees department store (1906–08). Although less prolific than Klein, other architects distinguished themselves in a more austere variant of the neoclassical revival for major office buildings in Moscow’s commercial center. In contrast to their American contemporaries, Russian architects made little use of the skeletal frame in the design of large buildings, but they frequently applied new techniques of reinforcedconcrete construction.

Russia’s rapidly developing industrial base lay in a shambles after a war, a revolution, and a civil war; technological resources were extremely limited in what was still a mainly rural nation; and Moscow’s population—poorly housed before the war—increased dramatically as the city became in 1918 the administrative center of a thoroughly administered state. One of the USSR’s earliest edicts, in August 1918, repealed the right to private ownership of urban real estate. Even as the country plunged into civil war, groups of architects in Moscow and Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) designed workers’ settlements that represent an extension of the Garden City movement which had already tentatively appeared in Russia during the decade before World War I.

The prerevolutionary building boom had established a viable foundation, in both architectural theory and practice, for urban development on a large scale. Furthermore, the Russian architectural profession was relatively intact after the emigration that decimated other areas of Russian culture after the revolution. In addition, the most prominent art and architectural schools in Moscow and Petrograd were capable of providing a base for the development of new cadres despite sometimes sweeping changes in the composition of the faculty. Nonetheless, there were enormous problems in resuscitating these institutions, of allocating resources for new construction, and of devising a plan for coordinating further development.

With the gradual recovery of the economy in the 1920s, bold new designs—often utopian in concept—brought the USSR to the attention of modern architects throughout the world. The assumption that a revolution in architecture (along with the other arts) would inevitably accompany a political revolution was soon put to the test by social and economic realities. The brief history of the Soviet avant-garde in architecture was marked by theoretical debates and factional disputes, such as that between rationalism and Constructivism. At the same time, the role of artists such as El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, and Nikolai Punin in defining new approaches to volume and structure had a profound impact on the conceptualization of avant-garde architecture.

Constructivism, the most productive modernist movement, adopted a rigorously functional approach to design that rejected “bourgeois” decorative effects and concentrated on clearly defined geometric volumes articulated on a monumental scale that expressed the ethos of the new state. Ironically, the backward condition of Soviet building technology in the 1920s often resulted in a primitive realization of those Constructivist projects that reached the stage of implementation.

In Moscow leading Constructivist architects and theoreticians included Moisei Ginzburg (1892–1946), whose most notable building was the apartment house (1928–30) for the People’s Commissariat of Finance; Grigory Barkhin (1880–1969), designer of the Izvestiia Building (1925–27); Ilya Golosov (1883–1945), architect of the Zuev Workers’ Club (1927–29); Panteleimon Golosov (1882–1945), author of the Pravda Building (1930–35); and the Vesnin brothers, Leonid (1880–1933), Viktor (1882–1950), and Alexander (1883–1959), architects of a number of major projects, such as the Likhachev Palace of Culture (1931–37), built for the workers of a large automobile factory.

These and other Constructivist projects in Moscow set a standard for functional design in administrative and apartment buildings as well as social institutions, such as workers’ clubs. Another prominent modernist active during the same period but not a part of the Constructivist movement was Konstantin Melnikov (1890–1974), known for his designs for exposition pavilions, a number of workers’ clubs (most notably the Rusakov Club, 1927–28), industrial structures such as the Leyland Bus Garage (1926–27), and his own house (1927–29) in the Arbat district of Moscow.

Important projects by Constructivist architects also appeared in other Soviet cities, such as Leningrad, Kharkov, Gorky (Nizhnii Novgorod), Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg), and Novosibirsk. Notable examples in Leningrad include the Kirov District Soviet complex (1930–35), whose overall design was entrusted to the architect Noi Trotskii (1895–1940). Beginning in 1928, the five-year plans, with their emphasis on the rapid expansion of heavy industry, led to the massive rebuilding of industrial centers. In Kharkov, a massive complex of several buildings known as the State Industry Building (Gosprom, 1926–28) was designed by an architectural team headed by Sergei Serafimov (1878–1939). In Sverdlovsk, whose entire city center was redesigned with the participation of architects such as Moisei Ginzburg, a model housing development known as “Chekists’ Village” (1929–38) was designed by I.Antonov, V.Sokolov, and A.Tumbasov. Industrial architecture also received much attention, as foreign architects such as Ernst May, Erich Mendelsohn, Hannes Meyer, and Albert Kahn collaborated with Soviet architects and engineers in creating mammoth industrial complexes. Theoreticians such as Ivan Leonidov (1902–59) developed concepts of the “linear city” for new industrial centers.

During the 1930s, more conservative trends asserted themselves in major buildings sponsored by the bureaucratic apparatus, as designs inspired by classical, Renaissance, and other historicist models received the party’s approval. Prominent traditionalists, trained in the prerevolutionary neoclassical revival, included Ivan Zholtovskii (1867– 1959), Aleksei Shchusev (1873–1949), and Noi Trotskii (1895–1940). Despite the formal break with Constructivism, earlier work by Shchusev and Trotskii belongs to the Constructivist movement, and other connections with the architecture of the 1920s continued throughout the 1930s. The grandomania of prewar Stalinist architecture is best expressed by the project for the Palace of the Soviets (1933–35) in Moscow, designed by Boris Iofan (1891–1976), Vladimir Gelfreikh (1885–1967), and Vladimir Shchuko (1878–1939). The structure was to be built on the site of the massive Cathedral of Christ the Savior (demolished in 1931), but the project was canceled in the late 1940s.

After World War II, architectural design became more firmly locked in traditional, often highly ornate eclectic styles, epitomized by the postwar skyscrapers in Moscow and other Soviet cities. Of the seven such towers in Moscow, the largest is the building of Moscow State University (1949–53) by Lev Rudnev (1885–1956), Pavel Abrosimov (1900–61), and Alexander Khriakov (1903–76). On this, as on several other projects during the Stalinist period, much of the construction was done by prison labor.

In the period following Stalin’s death, in March 1953, a reassessment of priorities, particularly in regard to the housing crisis, led to a functionalism that had been among the goals of Soviet design and planning during the 1920s. Teams of engineers and architects began to produce standardized plans that could be applied with relatively simple technology, and the pursuit of a historical framework for architectural style was largely discarded, as indicated by the abolition of the Academy of Architecture in the early Khrushchev era. The acceleration of standardized construction achieved an impressive volume, first with five-story apartment buildings that appeared throughout the country and subsequently with mass-produced buildings as high as 20 stories and, in rare cases, even higher.

The industrialization of building and the curbing of decorative pomposity produced a different set of problems. Apart from the general monotony of design, creative projects were constrained by the processes of standardized, “industrial” construction based on prefabricated modules or precast-concrete forms assembled on-site. The seams and cracks that resulted from such methods of assembly gave many buildings a shoddy appearance. Whatever the project type, Soviet architects were usually faced with a narrow range of options limited by mass-construction methods and meager financial resources.

Even showcase projects with considerable support shared in the general monotony. The most prolific practitioner of postwar Soviet modernism was Mikhail Posokhin (1910–89), who had collaborated in the design of a Stalinist apartment tower on Insurrection Square but shifted adroitly into the new functionalism of the Sputnik era. His design for the Kremlin Palace of Congresses (1959–61, in collaboration with A. Mndoiants and others) had the appearance of a modern concert hall of huge proportions, whose marble-clad rectangular outline was marked by narrow pylons—also faced with white marble—and multistoried shafts of plate glass. The main virtue of its style was how relatively unobtrusively the large structure stood among the historic Kremlin ensemble, part of which had been destroyed in the 1930s.

Not all Soviet architecture of the modern period descended to nondescript conformity. Futuristic construction technology appeared in the Ostankino Television Tower (1967, N.Nikitin, L.Batalov, and others), a reinforced-concrete monolith of impressive design and engineering. The ferroconcrete shaft, 385 meters in height (on a foundation of only four meters), supports a steel-frame antenna superstructure that rises another 150 meters. Technological ingenuity also characterizes the design of many contemporary sports arenas, which, like television, served the regime’s propaganda interests. Large stadium complexes began to take shape even in the late Stalinist period, such as Leningrad’s Kirov Stadium (1950, A.Nikolskii and others) on Krestovskii Island and culminating with the Luzhniki stadium complex (1955–56, A.Vlasov and others) in south Moscow. The emphasis on the culture of sports, which reached a crescendo in the preparations for the 1980 Summer Olympics, produced some of the most interesting forms in contemporary Russian architecture. An example notable for its high technology and sweeping lines is the Velotrek bicycle racing stadium (1978–79, Natalia Voronina and others) in the west Moscow suburb of Krylatskoe, with a bifurcated roof composed of rolled-steel membranes four millimeters thick stretched between a pair of tilted elliptical arches supported by a truss frame system.

With the demise of the Communist system in the USSR, the revival of private practice in architecture seems likely to change the face of the profession, even as new problems arise in zoning, housing, and resource allocation. Foreign investment has encouraged the assimilation of Western commercial architecture, from modernism to postmodernism to deconstructivism. At the same time, historicist elements from Russian and even Stalinist architecture are being recycled in new projects for cities such as Moscow in order to achieve a distinctive, colorful urban environment. It would be premature to comment on the success of these efforts, but Russian architecture is rapidly regaining the variety that characterized it at the beginning of the 20th century.

WILLIAM C. BRUMFIELD

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.3 (P-Z). Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.