Palace of The Soviets - Public Contest

Public Contest

The second, public, international contest was declared on July 18, 1931. A total of 272 concepts were collected, including 160 architectural works (136 Soviet, 24 foreign). The contest attracted international architects like Le Corbusier, Joseph Urban, Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn, and Armando Brasini, Boris Iofan's Italian teacher; American entries were coordinated by Albert Kahn. It was the foreigner Brasini who literally expressed the idea of "Lenin atop the skyscraper" in the most clear form.

Enormous publicity followed the project until 1941; in 1931–1932, it was broadcast internationally, with reviews and reports published all over the world. The Council of Experts was chaired (at least formally) by old Bolshevik Gleb Krzhizhanovsky; Time magazine called it "a jury whose most noteworthy member was Dictator Stalin."

Instead of announcing a clear winner, in February 1932 the Council declared three leading drafts by Boris Iofan, Ivan Zholtovsky and a 28-year-old British architect living in New Jersey, Hector Hamilton. This outcome called for a third round of competition—or a state intervention. All three runners-up turned their backs on the avant-garde and leaned towards neoclassicism (or eclecticism). This "reactionary" decision caused an uproar among European avant-garde artists. Le Corbusier and Sigfried Giedion, leader of the CIAM, claimed to Stalin that the "decision of the council is a direct insult to the spirit of Revolution and the Five-year plan... a tragic betrayal."

See also:

• Draft by Dmitry Chechulin
• Draft by Karo Alabyan, Arkady Mordvinov et al.