Russian Skyscraper

High-rise construction is one of the most demanding areas of architecture. As architect Yakov Chernikhov once said, the horizontal is strength, while the vertical is will. Creating something that asserts will requires both energy and thought.

Until the 18th century, the tallest building in Russia remained the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, extended in 1600 by Boris Godunov (81 metres). For a long time, Russian architects showed little ambition to build anything taller: land was plentiful, and the aristocracy’s needs were satisfied by palaces no more than two to four storeys high, often without even tower structures — unlike most of their European counterparts. This contrast gave rise to the legend of a supposed ban on building "higher than Ivan the Great."

This changed fundamentally under Peter the Great, who travelled twice to Western Europe and saw the spires of Gothic cathedrals and the towers of Dutch Baroque architecture. In 1707, the Menshikov Tower was built in Moscow, reaching a height of 84.3 metres, but in 1723 its spire was struck by lightning and completely destroyed. In 1733, the tallest building in the country became the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg (122.5 metres), which held this title until 1922, when the Shukhov Radio Tower in Moscow was completed (160 metres).

Although the history of truly high-rise construction in Russia spans little more than a century and largely belongs to the realm of paper architecture, the country’s skyscraper designs — though relatively few — are now widely recognised around the world. These include the architectons of Kazimir Malevich and Lazar Khidekel, Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, Boris Iofan’s Palace of the Soviets, and the most ambitious project of its time — the 4-kilometre-tall Nikitin-Travush Tower, designed to accommodate the population of an entire city.

The architectons of Malevich, Khidekel, and Chashnik were seen by their creators not only as the translation of Suprematism into three-dimensional architectural form, but also as the foundation for a single global city for all of humanity — new forms for a future planetary civilisation.