House of Soviets
Noi Trotsky · Saint Petersburg, Russia · 1941
Noi Trotsky’s House of Soviets was planned as the monumental governmental centerpiece of a proposed new southern administrative center for Leningrad. The enormous symmetrical façade, tall central portico and sculptural massing represent the decisive shift from constructivism toward Stalinist classicism. Construction began in the 1930s and was completed around the outbreak of the Second World War, but the intended transfer of central government functions never fully occurred. The building remains one of Saint Petersburg’s largest pre-war civic structures and a powerful record of unrealized plans to reorganize the city around Moskovsky Prospekt.