Palace of The Soviets - The Decision

The Decision

The international contest was followed by not one, but two more rounds of closed competition. The third contest (March–July 1932) round invited 15 design teams, the fourth (July 1932–February 1933) invited only five. On May 10, 1933, Boris Iofan's draft was declared the winner. A duo of neoclassicist architects, Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh, were assigned to Iofan's team, and the design became known as the Iofan-Schuko-Gelfreikh draft.

Recently published correspondence between Joseph Stalin and Lazar Kaganovich, however, pinpoints the moment of selection as no later than August 1932. On August 7, Stalin wrote a memo to Kaganovich, Vyacheslav Molotov and Kliment Voroshilov, clearly naming Iofan's draft as the best, and proposing changes:

• Drive the main tower upward, like a column (as Iofan did in his first entry)
• Make it as tall as the Eiffel tower or even taller
• Crown the column with a brightly lit Hammer and Sickle
• Place monuments to Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in front of the building