Cover Osteuropa 9/2005

In Osteuropa 9/2005

The Struggle for Soviet Architecture
Foreign Architects in the USSR during the Stalin Era

Dmitrij Chmel’nickij


Deutsche Fassung

Abstract

In the 1920s, the Soviet Union was still considered a showcase for the future of architecture and thus attracted luminaries such as Le Corbusier or Erich Mendelsohn. However, in the 1930s, the situation changed radically. Stalin invited Western experts such as Albert Kahn or Ernst May to collaborate in "socialist industrialisation" and the construction of the Soviet arms industry. Once the transfer of military-industrial know-how reached a point where the Soviet Union no longer needed Western architects and experts, Stalin abruptly broke off.

(Osteuropa 9/2005, pp. 91–111)