History and culture: Exhibition “Forge of great architecture. Soviet contests of 1920-1920” in Moscow

The exhibition "Forge of great architecture. Soviet contests of 1920-1950" opened on November 20, 2014 at the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow.

As part of the exhibition project in seven exhibition halls of Enfilade Architecture of the Museum of Architecture are presented objects of unique architectural drawings, models and photographs of competitive materials for seven iconic buildings of Moscow: it is a hotel "Moscow" in Okhotny Ryad, the newspaper "Izvestia" on the Pushkin Square, the Central Telegraph on Tverskaya, the V. I. Lenin Library, the P. I. Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the M. V. Frunze Military Academy and the building of the Academy of Sciences. Construction of all these objects were preceded by serious competitions, the magnitude of which can be judged by the number of options presented. On the example of the competitive materials visitors will be able to assess for themselves the very role of competition in the formation of architectural styles and changing urban spaces.

Even before the grand buildings of Moscow 1930-1950s thanks to conducted competitions, architectural designs became the subject of special attention of the whole country.

However, due to the fact that Moscow has always been a major landmark and a cultural model for the Soviet Union and Russia, the curators of the project, Irina Chepkunova and Sergey Choban, limited selection near the capital's buildings. The project traces the history of not only the seven selected buildings, but entire urban areas in which they were built. The lives of entire neighborhoods and areas more to the point, their plans included in the competitive job history themselves competitions, challenging fate approvals, orders, revisions and finally, building construction materials of the Museum.