Les architectes soviétiques, "conseillers" des républiques du Bloc de l'Est

Abstract

Even before the victory in 1945, the "Great Patriotic War" gave a new dimension to the architectural practice in the USSR: hitherto for interior use, it became an exportable article. Reconstructions of cities such as Stalingrad, Kiev and Minsk served as models proposed to the capitals of countries now under the orbit of the USSR. In 1944, Aleksei Shchusev was sent with Karo Alabian and Arkady Mordvinov in Bulgaria to intervene on the reorganization of Sofia. Mordvinov was again in 1949 the Soviet voice in the Bucharest "Casa Scânteii" competition - which resulted in a Romanian variant of the Moscow Lomonosov University formal principles. Similarly, Aleksandr Vlassov was sent to Berlin to examine the plans of the German team in charge of the Stalin-Allee. Similar missions were entrusted to Lev Roudnev and Viatcheslav Oltarjevski in Riga in 1951, while Rudnev realized the Warsaw Palace of Culture. These Russian architects had a significant influence during the Stalin Era, reorienting and deeply transforming the projects of their colleagues in the Eastern Bloc republics. In fact, their intervention was less that of a big brother than that of a paternalist godfather who put back in trails the lost sons...