The Palace of Soviets Competition 1931: Re-Loaded

Intro:

In my re-brief for the Palace of Soviets competition, I inserted the futurist ideals of architecture onto all existing categories of styles within the competition. This implementation of futurism will spawn a new generation of avant-garde style which will challenge all existing styles here after. The Futurist movement is consistent to the historic timeline of pre-revolution Russia, which began in 1912. The strategy of altering the competition will allow me to maintain the integrity of the futurist movement by retaining all the historic styles that influenced Russia up till the second world war. This new avant-garde style will then, inheritably maintain some classical influences.

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Blueprints by the Future.

Then Future came forth and said, Speak to me Style.

And he answered and said:

"In the days foreseen, your insertion of ideals in architecture has spread through all existing expressions of me. For, with your presence spawns a new generation of avant-garde styles, plotting to maintain my integrity by retaining all my history.

I then, reborn, will inheritably hold scars of classicism."

To this, Future responds:

"Anti-historicism is of a long horizontal line, depicting speed, motion and urgency. Thus violence and technology are the only themes that
can truly redefine themselves.

For I am like any novelty, having never been recognized by my shape, dynamic lines or even my presence in materials. I can only be seen as I come approaching, portrayed in such visions as that of
Sant'Elia's."

Plate 1

Plate 2 & 3

Future continues:

"With the emergence of a new style, I am moved to impress my aesthetics and ideologies upon constructivism, modernism, rationalism and Neo-Gothic.  With just basic architectural elements, my expression occurs only to come to terms with its influences.

I came here today to reinterpret buildings by redefining circulation and the play of space. Here I have stood to suit the density of nations, as you suggest for greater spans and more structures consisting of glass.  You, as the industrial style defined in architectural elements, fill space with imperial and military might. Your height and expressions of movement, flow like crisp edges that rip through time like a sun dial, casting shadows over each open space. Together we can speed past the orthodoxy of monotonous life to find magnificence within our own destiny."

Design discription plate 2: From the constructivists, the VOPRA team of Alabyan, Karra, Mordvinov, Revyakin and Simbirtsev's first round entry building presents, the main hall with a pivot. The composition was cited and organized so that all the congress delegates' seats faced the main square. Here, demonstrators could move towards them when the glass front partition was opened. The design of the building was already
very modern and bold to feature a globe structure behind 2 huge open gates.  The refinement of the 3 main columns was sufficient enough to create further input onto an already simple scheme. Each column was treated as an individual building. The accentuation of the column was with the use of 2 circular columns , were the recess between the thinner columns serves as glass facade that allows the inner lifts to face the exterior landscape as it carries its passengers to the top sky bridges that is connected to the main dome. The horse shoe glass atrium on the roof, services as a look
out deck, accenting the columns to a higher level.

Original VOPRA 1st entry

Plate3

Design discription plate 3: From the Rationalists entry, the ARU team, consisting of Nikolai Beseda, Georgy Krutikov, Vitaly Lavrov and Valentin Popov. Their building's main component was an accommodation made up of a large rectangular hall capable of holding 15,000 people and was arranged so that it could open to the demonstration area or provide access to it.To maintain the porosity of the design. Sky bridges were used to accentuate the void areas. A large tube face facade is sandwich between 2 glass facades, as the base straddles over the heavy traffic entrance. The cubistic geometry for the smaller building on the left, acts like gates to divide the people along the massive court area. The building on the right has a facade with industrial definitions. Chimney like structures that feeds into the sky, stripping the heavy mass blocks into open voids.

Original ARU entry

Style nervously ponders into the abyss and questions:

"But where is our value in all this?  Am I merely an act of discipline that can be revised to suit the needs of men?"

Future smiles with relation and thus answers:

"I stand here only to express time, a time beyond your presence. I seek your friendship to hasten evolution, while our value is demised in history. Together, we can span the bridges of functionalism into artistry. Your birth has gained a close following of disciples, rationalism, constructionalism and modernism as such, but what has become of you now? Torn by idiosyncrasies of time and ideas, you find only the abstractions of yourself. A personality that varies to individual control and a life that divides into the expression of mediums used.  Your value as such, is of less response to the world as mine is of classicism."

Plate 4

Design discription plate 4: BORIS IOFAN's winning entry, which sided in the category of the traditionalist, was revised to be an imperial building. The classical base commemorates communism with its statues, carrying with it bold large blocks that in frames and slits the lower part of the building. It also exposes the inner building core to the outside, serving more as an exterior public access and circulation as it connects itself to the exterior and the main entrance. As the building stretches vertically. A more modern and futuristic characteristics emerge. Multiple lifts are located along the side of the building, connecting itself to the main building with large span bridges. The statue of Lenin, is held securely between 2 pillars, with a backdrop of glass facades. The 2 narrow strips of glass along the 2 pillars protrude eagerly off the columns surface, acting like flag poles to decorate Lenin's triumph.

original Boris Iofan winning entry


Future continues:

"Our unity explores the essence of humanity, a character that speeds forward without acknowledging what is in front or behind them. It is their urgency that fuels our existence. Functionalism is a necessity we grew up with, for the practicality of men. We have endured the objectivity of functionalism and now it's time to be more. Together, we have the time and space to abuse the objective set by man and clear the paths for subjectivity which nurtures art
and technology, for I stand for everything infinite and you lack the confidence
to consolidate your ideals."

Plate 5

Manifesto

Future continues:

"In the subjective, we find the essences of beauty, an aestatic ruled not by practicality or history. It is the demure of cultural evolution that sits to be refined by time and technology. Iconicity does not need to be a reflection of the past; it is an entity that has been so reinterpreted that it can hold cultural values of the now.

Evolution is my motion, time is my infinity and the urgency is in my people. Here we can stand for something for today and not yesterday or any day past. Our mark in existence is to share the time spent in minutes with each other in defining the new and not revising the old. This is the value we can share, and this is where our existence is not defined by human intervention but by human nature."