Stalin used architecture as a political and ideological tool to reflect the modernity, ambition and triumph of the Soviet Union. After crushing avant-garde architecture (along with other experimental art forms) Stalin sought a new style that would express the image of the Soviet state: Stalinist Empire. It was spearheaded by the architect Boris Iofan – the remarkable subject of Deyan Sudjic’s biography Stalin’s Architect: Power and Survival in Moscow, shortlisted for the Pushkin House Book Prize 2022.
Join Professor Deyan Sudjic and Dr Michał Murawski for a discussion on the architect, an exploration of architecture as an instrument of statecraft, and the personal story of one man who witnessed many of modern history’s most pivotal moments.
A gifted designer and committed communist, Iofan rapidly rose to fame as the Soviet Union’s most celebrated architect. He was instrumental in developing the new national style, moving from his earlier Constructivist designs to elaborate Stalinist Empire projects. He developed grand designs such as the House on the Embankment, the official residence of the Soviet elite (a third of whom disappeared from this very house during Stalin’s purges); early sketches for Moscow State University on Sparrow Hills; and the unrealised but iconic Palace of Soviets, which led to the dynamiting of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral. Iofan’s work took him to the Paris World Exhibition in 1937, where his Soviet pavilion faced Albert Speer’s Nazi one; and to Stalingrad to develop a rebuilding strategy for the desecrated city.
Yet architecture and politics came hand in hand, and Iofan found himself at the centre of Soviet political life. His success depended not just on his technical excellence, but on his ability to navigate and survive the treacherous, conspiratorial and murderous state of affairs in the upper echelons of the state. How did Iofan have to sacrifice his integrity and talent to stay alive in the midst of Stalin’s purges?
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Deyan Sudjic is director emeritus of the Design Museum, and Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Design Studies at Lancaster University. He studied architecture at Edinburgh University, but choose not to practice, working as a critic and writer. He was a co-founder of Blueprint magazine in London, director of Glasgow 1999, UK City of Architecture and Design, edited Domus magazine in Milan, and was the director of the Venice Architecture Biennale. He has been the architecture critic for the Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Observer. He has curated exhibitions in Copenhagen, Istanbul and Seoul. His books, which include the Edifice Complex (2006), The Language of Things (2008), and B is for Bauhaus (2014) have been translated into 12 languages. His most recent work, Stalin's Architect: Power and Survival in Moscow, has been shortlisted for the Pushkin House Book Prize 2022.
Michał Murawski is an anthropologist of architecture and Associate Professor in Critical Area Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. His first book, The Palace Complex: A Stalinist Skyscraper, Capitalist Warsaw and a City Transfixed, was published by Indiana University Press in 2019. He is now working on a book about architecture, politics and violence in post-Soviet Moscow. He is Director of the FRINGE Centre at UCL SSEES and Co-Convenor of PPV (Perverting the Power Vertical: Politics and Aesthetics in the Global East), an art and research platform based at UCL. More information about Michał’s research and writing can be found on his website: www.michalmurawski.net