The pinnacle of Soviet modernism

Abstract

The Moscow television tower, built between 1963 and 1967, could be compared with Iofan’s famous design for the Palace of Soviets. Both were in fact conceived in order to achieve, by means of a sophisticated structure, a record height to bear witness to the greatness of their country. However, apart from that similarity, the two towers are completely different and can be taken as models of Stalinist realism and of the ‘modernism’ which followed it under Khrushchev’s rule. The intention to build a town of extraordinary height in order to reach the whole of the Muscovite region, the most populous in the country, with modern television messages was in fact perfectly consistent with the period in which the design was conceived of and implemented. This consistency is borne out by the numerous echoes of the cold war, which can be seen in the history of the design, the construction site and the building: ranging from Fritz Leonhardt’s consulting services to the Solaris film set.