The
"Seven Sisters" is the English name given to a group of Moscow skyscrapers designed in the
Stalinist styleStalinist architecture , also referred to as the Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khruschev condemned "excesses" of the past...
. Muscovites call them
Vysotki or
Stalinskie Vysotki , "(Stalin's) tall buildings". They were built from 1947 to 1953, in an elaborate combination of
Russian BaroqueNaryshkin Baroque, also called Moscow Baroque, or Muscovite Baroque, is the name given to a particular style of architecture and decoration which was fashionable in Moscow at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries....
and Gothic styles, and the technology used in building American
skyscraperA skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building. There is no official definition or height above which a building may clearly be classified as a skyscraper...
s.
The seven are: Hotel Ukraina, Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Apartments, the Kudrinskaya Square Building, the Leningradskaya Hotel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow State University, and the Red Gates Administrative Building.
Similar buildingsStalinist architecture , also referred to as the Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khruschev condemned "excesses" of the past...
exist in other former Communist countries, but the only comparable Soviet-designed skyscraper is the Palace of Culture and Science in
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
.
History
The first Soviet skyscraper project,
Palace of SovietsThe Palace of Soviets was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour...
, was interrupted by the
German invasion of 1941Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km front...
, at which point the steel frame was scrapped in order to fortify the Moscow defense ring, and the site was abandoned. Between 1947 and 1956,
Boris IofanBoris Mihailovich Iofan was a Russian Soviet architect, known for his Stalinist architecture buildings like 1931 House on Embankment and the 1931-1933 winning draft of the Palace of Soviets.- Background :...
presented six new drafts for this site, and also for
Vorobyovy GorySparrow Hills, Vorobyovy Gory is a hill on the right bank of the Moskva River and one of highest points in Moscow with an altitude up to 220 m...
on a smaller scale - they were all rejected. In 1946, Stalin personally switched to another idea - construction of
vysotki, a chain of reasonably-sized skyscrapers not tarnished by the memories of
CominternThe Comintern was an international Communist organization founded in Moscow in March 1919...
. As
Nikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
recalled Stalin's words, "We won the war ... foreigners will come to Moscow, walk around, and there's
no skyscrapers. If they compare Moscow to capitalist cities, it's a moral blow to us". Sites were selected in between January, 1947 (the official decree on
vysotki) and September 12, 1947 (formal opening ceremony).
Nothing is known about selection of construction sites or design evaluation; this process (1947-1948) was kept secret, a sign of Stalin's personal tight management. The choice of architects is a clear indicator of a rotation in Stalin's preferences. Old professionals like
ShchusevAlexey Viktorovich Shchusev was an acclaimed Russian architect whose works may be regarded as a bridge connecting Revivalist architecture of Imperial Russia with Stalin's Empire Style....
,
ZholtovskyIvan Vladislavovich Zholtovsky was a Russian-Soviet architect and educator. He worked primarily in Moscow since 1898 till his death. An accomplished master of Renaissance Revival before the Russian Revolution of 1917, later he became a key figure of Stalinist architecture.-Early years:Ivan...
etc., were not involved. Instead, the job was given to the next generation of mature architects. In 1947, the oldest of them, Vladimir Gelfreikh, was 62. The youngest, Mikhail Posokhin, was 37. Individual commissions were ranked according to each architect's status, and clearly segmented into two groups - four
first class and four
second class towers. Job number one, a
Vorobyovy GorySparrow Hills, Vorobyovy Gory is a hill on the right bank of the Moskva River and one of highest points in Moscow with an altitude up to 220 m...
tower that would become
Moscow State UniversityM. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University , for a time the Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be the oldest university in Russia and the tallest educational building in the world...
, was awarded to
Lev RudnevLev Vladimirovich Rudnev was a Russian architect, and a leading practitioner of Stalinist architecture.-Biography:Rudnev was born to the family of a school teacher in the town of Opochka...
, a new leader of his profession. Rudnev received his commission only in September 1948, and employed hundreds of professional designers. He released his draft in early 1949. Dmitry Chechulin received two commissions.
In April 1949, the winner of the Stalin Prize for 1948 was announced. All eight design teams received first and second class awards, according to their project status, regardless of their architectural value. At this stage, these were conceptual drafts; often one would be cancelled and others would be altered.
All the buildings employed over-engineered steel frames with concrete ceilings and masonry infill, based on concrete slab foundations (in the case of the University building - 7 meters thick). Exterior ceramic tiles, panels up to 15 square meters, were secured with stainless steel anchors. The height of these buildings was not limited by political will, but by lack of technology and experience - the structures were far heavier than American skyscrapers..
The effect of this project on real urban needs can be seen from these numbers:
- In 1947, 1948, 1949 respectively, Moscow built a total of 100,000, 270,000, and 405,000 square meters of housing.
- The skyscrapers project exceeded 500,000 square meters (at a higher cost per meter)
In other words, the resources diverted for this project effectively halved housing construction rates. On the other hand, the new construction plants, built for this project (like Kuchino Ceramics), were fundamental to Khrushchev's residential program just a few years later.
Moscow project
Buildings are listed under their current names, in the same order as they appeared in the April 1949 Stalin Prize decree. Note that different sources report different number of levels and height, depending on inclusion of mechanical floors and uninhabited crown levels.
Moscow State University, Sparrow Hills
Boris IofanBoris Mihailovich Iofan was a Russian Soviet architect, known for his Stalinist architecture buildings like 1931 House on Embankment and the 1931-1933 winning draft of the Palace of Soviets.- Background :...
made a mistake placing his draft skyscraper right on the edge of
Sparrow HillsSparrow Hills, Vorobyovy Gory is a hill on the right bank of the Moskva River and one of highest points in Moscow with an altitude up to 220 m...
. The site was a potential landslide hazard. He made a worse mistake by insisting on his decision and was promptly replaced by Lev Rudnev, a 53-year-old rising star of Stalin's establishment. Rudnev had already built high-profile edifices like the 1932-1937 Frunze Military Academy and the 1947
Marshals' Apartments (Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya, 28), which earned the highest credits of the Party.
Lev Rudnev set the building 800 meters away from the cliff. The opening ceremony was followed by less glorious events - building camps for
GulagThe Gulag or GULAG was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. The term is infamous for its association with remote places where prisoners were kept and sometimes disappeared...
laborers, mostly German prisoners of war. A so-called
Site-560 (Строительство-560), run by Gulag, supervised the workforce that reached 14,290. While the constrution was ongoing, some inmates were housed on the 24th and 25th levels to reduce transportation costs and the number of guards required. A story, possibly apocryphal, exists about inmates who tried to escape the tower on self-made plywood gliders. Another apocryphal story asserts that the MGU foundation requires permanent freezing (otherwise it will slide into the river) and the basement is occupied by huge cryo freezer. Actually, the foundation is stable, and the 'freezer' is an ordinary centralised air conditioner.
The main tower, which consumed over 40,000 metric tons of steel, was inaugurated September 1, 1953. Being 240 metres tall, it was the
tallest building in Europe from its completion until 1990. It is still the tallest educational building in the world.
Never built: Zaryadye Administrative Building
In 1934, the Commissariat for Heavy Industries initiated a design contest for its new building on Red Square (on the site of
GUMMain Department Store or GUM is a modern namer for the main department store in many cities of the Soviet Union, known as State Department Store Государственный Универсальный Магазин, Gosudarstvennyi Universalnyi Magazin) in the Soviet times...
). A last showcase for
constructivistsConstructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. It combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly Communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced...
, this contest didn't materialize and GUM still stands.
In 1947, the nearby historical
ZaryadyeZaryadye is a historical district in Moscow established in 12-13th centuries within Kitai-gorod, between Varvarka Street and Moskva River. The name means "the place behind the rows", i.e., behind the market rows adjacent to the Red Square.-History:...
district was razed to make way for the new 32-storey, 275-meter tower (the numbers are quoted as in the 1951 finalized draft). It is sometimes associated with the Ministry of Heavy Machinery, the same institution that ran a contest in 1934. However, in all public documents of this time its name is simply the
administrative building, without any specific affiliation. Likewise, association with Beria is mostly anecdotal.
The tower, designed by Chechulin, was supposed to be the second largest after the University. Eventually, the plans were cancelled at the foundation stage; these foundations were used later for the construction of the
Rossiya HotelThe Rossiya Hotel was a large hotel built in Moscow in 1967 at the order of the Soviet Government. Construction used the existing foundations of a cancelled skyscraper project, the Zaryadye Administrative Building, which would have been the eighth of what is now referred to as the Seven Sisters...
(also by Chechulin, 1967, demolished 2006-2007).
Hotel Ukraina
Ukraina by
Arkady MordvinovArkady Grigoryevich Mordvinov , born Arkady Grigorievich Mordvishev was a Soviet architect and construction manager, notable for Stalinist architecture of Tverskaya Street, Leninsky Prospect, Hotel Ukraina skyscraper in Moscow and his administrative role in Soviet construction industry and...
and
Vyacheslav OltarzhevskyVyacheslav Konstantinovich Oltarzhevsky was a Russian Soviet architect. He was one of the first Soviet experts in skyscraper construction, notable for his collaboration with Arkady Mordvinov on Hotel Ukraina...
(leading Soviet expert on steel-framed highrise construction) is the second tallest of the "sisters" (198 meters, 34 levels), and is still Europe's tallest hotel. Total capacity is 1627 beds.
Construction on the low river bank meant that they had to dig well below the water level. This was solved by an ingenious water retention system, using a perimeter of
needle pumps driven deep into ground.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
This 172 meter, 27 story building was built between 1948 and 1953 and overseen by V. G. Gelfreikh and M. A. Minkus. Currently, it houses the offices for the
Ministry of Foreign AffairsMinistry of Foreign Affairs of Russia is the central government institution charged with leading the foreign affairs of Russia.- See also :*List of Russian foreign ministersIn connection with the Moscow building that houses the Ministry's main office:...
and the Ministry of Trade for the Russian Federation. The Ministry is covered by a light external stone wall with projecting pilasters and pylons and, according to architectural critic Maria Kiernan, was inspired by a neo-gothic
New York cityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
hospital. Its interior is splendidly decorated with stones and metals. According to the 1982 biography of Minkus, draft plans were first drawn up in 1946 and ranged from 9 to 40 stories. In 1947 two designs were proposed: one utilized layered setbacks while the other called for a more streamlined construction which culminated into a blunt rectangular top. The second proposal was accepted but as the Ministry's completion neared, a metal
spireA spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from Anglo-Saxon, so it is related to "spear," rather than the Romance languages and "spirit."...
, dyed to match the building's exterior (and presumably ordered by Stalin), was hastily added to tower's roof, assimilating its silhouette with those of the other Sisters.
Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel
Originally known simply as the Leningradskaya Hotel, this relatively small (136 meters, 26 floors, of which 19 are usable) building by Leonid Polyakov on Komsomolskaya Square is decorated with pseudo-Russian ornaments mimicking
Alexey ShchusevAlexey Viktorovich Shchusev was an acclaimed Russian architect whose works may be regarded as a bridge connecting Revivalist architecture of Imperial Russia with Stalin's Empire Style....
's
Kazansky Rail TerminalKazansky Rail Terminal is one of nine rail terminals in Moscow, situated on the Komsomolskaya Square, across the square from the Leningradsky and Yaroslavsky terminals....
. Inside, it was inefficiently planned. Khruschev, in his 1955 decree "On liquidation of excesses..." asserted that at least 1000 rooms could be built for the cost of Leningradskaya's 354, that only 22% of the total space was rent-able, and that the costs per bed were 50% higher than in
MoskvaThe Hotel Moskva name has been used for two identical buildings on the same spot in Moscow, Russia located near Red Square in close proximity to the old City Hall. The first Hotel Moskva was originally constructed from 1932 until 1938, it opened as a hotel in December, 1935...
Hotel. Following this critique, Polyakov was stripped of his 1948 Stalin Prize but retained the other one, for a Moscow Metro station. After a multi-million dollar renovation ending in 2008, the hotel re-opened as the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya.
Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building
Another of Chechulin's works, 176 meters high, with 22 usable levels, the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building was strategically placed at the confluence of the
Moskva RiverThe Moskva River is a river that flows through the Moscow and Smolensk Oblasts in Russia, and is a tributary of the Oka River.-Etymology:Moskva and Moscow are two different renderings of the same Russian word Москва. The city is named after the river. The origin of the name is unknown, although...
and
Yauza RiverThis article is about a river in Moscow, tributary of Moskva River. There are three other Yauza rivers in Central Russia, tributaries of Lama, Gzhat and Sestra.The Yauza is a river in Moscow and Mytishchi, Russia, a left tributary of Moskva River...
. The building incorporates an earlier 9-story apartment block facing Moskva River, by the same architects (completed in 1940). It was intended as an elite housing building. However, very soon after construction, units were converted to multi-family
kommunalkaA communal apartment, colloquial: kommunalka is a shared apartment in CIS countries. Two or more families share a bathroom and kitchen...
(communal apartments). Built in a neo-gothic design, though also drew inspiration from
Hotel MetropolHotel Metropol is a historical hotel in the center of Moscow, Russia, built in 1899-1907 in Art Nouveau style. It is notable as the largest extant Moscow hotel built before the Russian Revolution of 1917, and for the unique collaboration of architects and artists .In 1898, Savva...
.
Kudrinskaya Square Building
Designed by Mikhail Posokhin (Sr.) and Ashot Mndoyants. 160 metres high, 22 floors (17 usable). The building is located on the end of Krasnaya Presnya street, facing the Sadovoye Koltso and was primary built with high-end apartments for Soviet cultural leaders rather than politicians.
Red Gates Administrative Building
Designed by
Alexey DushkinAlexey Nikolayevich Dushkin was a Soviet architect, best known for his 1930s designs of Kropotkinskaya and Mayakovskaya stations of Moscow Metro...
of the Moscow Metro fame, this mixed-use block of 11-storey buildings is crowned with a slim tower (total height 133 meters, 24 levels).
In this case, cryotechnology was indeed used for the escalator tunnels connecting the building with the
Krasniye VorotaKrasniye Vorota is a station on the Sokolnicheskaya Line of the Moscow Metro....
subway station. The building's frame was erected deliberately tilted to one side; when the frozen soil thawed, it settled down - although not enough for a perfect horizontal level. Then the builders warmed the soil by pumping hot water; this worked too well, the structure slightly over-reacted, tilting to the opposite side but well within tolerance.
Other cities
While many cities in the former USSR and former Soviet Bloc countries have Stalinist towers on top of them, only three fall in the same league as the Moscow
vysotki. Of these three,
Hotel Ukraina in
KievKiev or Kyiv , is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300...
was completed in stripped-down form, without the tower and steeple originally planned for them.
Kiev: Hotel Ukraina
Plans to build a skyscraper on the site of the destroyed Ginzburg Hotel emerged in 1948, but the design was finalized by Anatoly Dobrovolsky as late as 1954, when Stalinist architecture was already doomed. Building work proceeded slowly, with numerous political orders to make it simpler and cheaper. It was completed in 1961, without a tower, steeple and any original ornaments.
Warsaw: Palace of Culture and Science, 1952-1955
Another Lev Rudnev design, with Polish
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
Revival detailing. Built in 1952-1955 (topped out October, 1953).
Construction plans were agreed upon on April 5, 1952 and sealed during Molotov's visit on July, 3 of the same year (after the opening ceremony on May 1). The Soviets planned it as a university, but the Polish side insisted on its current administrative function. A workforce of around 7000 was nearly evenly split between Poles and exported Soviet laborers; 16 were presumed killed during the work. The building remains the highest in Warsaw, but looks dwarfed by the height of modern glass skyscrapers.
Riga: Latvian Academy of Sciences
The 108-meter high Academy is not the tallest in Riga; at the time of completion, St. Peter's of Riga was taller. Unlike other
vysotki, which are based on a steel frame with masonry infill, this is a
reinforced concreteReinforced concrete is concrete in which steel reinforcement bars , plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen a material that would otherwise be brittle.-History:...
structure, the first of its kind in the USSR.
Related Buildings
Many Stalinist buildings have tower crowns, but they do not belong to the
vysotki project and their style is completely different. This is evident in Chechulin's
Peking building. Seen from a low point of the
Garden RingThe Garden Ring, also known as the "B" Ring , is a circular avenue around the centre of Moscow, Russia. The Ring consists of seventeen individually named streets and fifteen squares. It has a circumference of sixteen kilometres. At its narrowest point, Krymsky Bridge, the Ring has six lanes; at...
south, it could be mistaken for a skyscraper, but a frontal view from
MayakovskyMayakovsky of Mayakovskaya can refer to:* Vladimir Mayakovsky , a Russian poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism....
square north is not as promising. There are also several smaller Stalinesque towers in
BarnaulBarnaul is a city and the administrative center of Altai Krai, Russia. Barnaul is situated in the southwest of the Siberian Federal District on the Ob River. Population: 649,600 ; 600,749 .-Geography:...
, St. Petersburg and other cities. Design and construction of such towers became widespread in the early 1950s, although many ongoing projects were cancelled in 1955, when regional "skyscrapers" were specifically addressed by
Nikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's decree "On liquidation of architectural excesses..." as unacceptable expense.
Triumph-Palace, Moscow, 2005
This high-profile tower in north-western Moscow (3, Chapayevsky Lane), completed in December, 2003, attempts to imitate the
vysotki, and actually exceeds the University building in structural height. It is criticized for being placed deeply inside a residential mid-rise area, away from major avenues and squares, where it could be an important visual anchor. A close inspection reveals that this white-red tower has little in common with Stalinist style, except for sheer size and layered tower outline. It competes for the 'Eighth Vysotka' title with an earlier Edelweiss Tower in western Moscow. Construction began in 2001. The 57-story building, containing about 1,000 luxury apartments, was topped out on December 20, 2003, making it Europe's tallest building at 264.1
metreThe metre or meter is the basic unit of length in the International System of Units . Historically, the metre was defined by the French Academy of Sciences as the length between two marks on a platinum-iridium bar, which was designed to represent one ten-millionth of the distance from the Equator...
s or 867 feet. The previous title holder was the
Commerzbank TowerCommerzbank Tower is a skyscraper located in the city centre of Frankfurt, Germany. After it was completed in 1997 it ranked as the tallest building in Europe until 2005 when it was surpassed by the Triumph-Palace in Moscow. The tower is only two metres taller than the MesseTurm which is also...
in
FrankfurtFrankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2008 population of 670,000. The urban area had an estimated population of 2.26 million in 2001...
. However,
Federation TowerThe Federation Tower is a skyscraper currently under construction as part of the Moscow International Business Center in Moscow, Russia. Construction of the towers began in 2003...
also in Moscow is set for completion in 2008.
External links
- Moscow Map with Seven Sisters
- Seven Sisters skyscraper in Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...