Chapter two case Studies

MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY

The skyscraper built to house Moscow State University is visible across the city (Figure 2.23). Its site is the highest point of the Vorobievy Hills overlooking the River Moskva, and its placement created a new vista from the Kremlin along the river. It signalled the primary direction of the city’s development, to the south-west of the centre, and stood as the chief reference point when approaching the city from several main entry roads. The elevated plateau, moreover, provided a rare opportunity for experimentation in the field of university planning.³¹

In terms of planning and architecture, Moscow State University was wildly different to other educational institutions designed at that time. A comparison with contemporaneous examples such as Black Mountain College, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Harvard’s Graduate Centre reveal the degree of the institution’s individuality that is intimately bound to the socio-historical context of Stalinist Russia. Rather than a scattering of individual buildings, the university was conceived as a single, huge structure. Built from 1949–1953 under the architects Lev Rudnev, Pavel Abrosimov, and Alexander Khryakov, the enormous complex consisted principally of three component parts: the main building rising to 26 storeys, flanked by a pair of 18-storey tall wings. The whole is governed by absolute symmetry. The main section is a stepped pyramidal construction, surmounted by an opulent spired tower. Containing auditoria, libraries, lecture rooms, laboratories, lounges, cafeterias and service rooms, it originally housed all academic functions. The two adjoining wings provided accommodation for students, supplemented by a further stepped extension of 12 storeys for staff housing flanking each wing. The scale of the ensemble is nothing short of breathtaking. Its width is imposingly colossal, a scale upheld by the grand entrances approached by wide staircases and tall rusticated base. The unrelieved, regulated pattern of tall, narrow windows enforces the impression of soaring, upward motion, recalling New York’s skyscrapers. The façades are enlivened by its undulating plane of projections and recessions, pillar-like lanterns and statues upon plinths. The main elevation is accented at its centre point by a classicizing motif of a ten-column wide portico, supported by an Ionic colonnade. The grandiose entry leads down to a rectangular pool with fountains, and equally symmetrical yet beautiful landscaped gardens.³²

The visual impact of its external appearance was the chief priority of the campus’s design. Function was of far less import to Stalinist urbanism than form, and accordingly many planning decisions for the university building were dictated by the all-embracing totality that characterized urban development of the era. Although undoubtedly this uncompromising approach reaped rewards in terms of its imposing presence and the panoptic absoluteness of its aesthetic, subjugating the functioning of the university to an umbrella concept has had negative effects. The complex is wasteful of inside space, producing vast tracks of corridors that hinder internal communications. The sum of the 67 lift shafts, for example, is over six kilometres, while the cumulative length of the corridors is 33 kilometres. Charles Jencks has referred to the building as a ‘battery-hatch palace’ of students in regards to its planning. Similarly profligate is the building’s decoration. Despite the fact that the country lost approximately 30 per cent of its national wealth during the Second World War, the luxury of the interior space is arresting. Walls, floors and ceilings enjoyed lavish treatments. The steel structure was clad with brick then adorned with a profusion of classical ornamentation; walls were encrusted with friezes, murals and reliefs of Russian heraldry, images of celebrated scientists, inscriptions and ornamental motifs. Sculptures were placed at high, impossible to see from ground level. The opulence is awe-inspiring (Figure 2.24).³³

The university’s design is emblematic of the peak of Stalinist architecture, and enormously revealing as to how architecture was exploited to express the ideology of the Soviet state. The construction of the university building and its sister ensembles in Moscow consumed staggering sums of money at a time when the country was lying in ruins. Grand façades were prioritized above the undeniable needs of the overcrowded population; function, design and material were subordinated to symbolic mission, glorifying Muscovite culture and its centrality within the Communist world, and, fundamentally, the authority of Stalin’s dictatorship. The overwhelming size of the university complex is a compelling demonstration of the power of the state. At the time of construction, it was the tallest building in the world outside of New York, rising to 240 metres. Its spire alone is 57 metres tall, while the star and wheat motif at its apex weighs 12 tons and is nine metres in diameter. Ultimately, the university building was a means via which the state communicated with the masses, championing its supremacy. Looming monumentally over the city, it symbolized the pervasive presence of the regime.

Contemporary commentators extolled the building. ‘The rich plasticity of the volumes and the skylines of the University complex, and the symphonic nature of the whole, are instructive and brilliant examples of innovatory Russian town planning,’ wrote one critic in 1953. Its reconciliation of function and form was commended by contemporaries.³⁴

Although this quality is questionable today, the university complex should be recognized for its success in terms of placemaking. Rarely can a single building dominate a metropolis as Moscow State University does. To Russians, the skyscraper is as much an emblem of the city

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as is the Empire State Building of New York. Its prodigious size and grandeur imbue the institution with an unforgettable identity. This placemaking capacity is the signal achievement of the complex. Although its original message of the authority of Communist totalitarianism is today deplored, the complex demonstrated to the maximum the expressive potential of architecture. Today its symbolic potential can be appreciated as a representation of the prestige and magnitude of education.

Since the completion of Rudnev’s complex in 1953, the university has expanded into buildings immediately surrounding the tower.

The Departments of Biology and Soil Science are located in a C-shaped structure, characterized by a restrained Socialist classicism with the same repetitive organization of windows. The new library, opened in 2005, shares a similar aesthetic (Figure 2.25). Reviving the classical realist idiom of the main complex, it is an angular mass, with tall base and vertical bands of windows. The entrance is a colonnade of four pilasters imposed upon a façade of glass. The Faculties of Journalism, Psychology and the Institute of Asian and African Studies now occupy the Palladian-style building that housed the university from the late eighteenth century until 1953. Built by Matvei Kazakov from 1782 to 1793, and rebuilt after the Fire of Moscow in 1812 by Domenico Giliardi, the university was transferred to this neo-classical building by Catherine the Great.

Akin to Rudnev’s design, these buildings are architecturally assertive, imparting a sense of the prestige and might of the Moscow State University. The complex is an indulgent piece of statement architecture, but one noteworthy for its encapsulation of the propagandist aims of the institution and the political regime. The university’s muscular silhouette creates a presence on Moscow’s skyline not easily forgotten (Figure 2.26).