State Central Stadium as an element of the representation of power in the history of soviet architecture 1920–1950-s

Abstract

The concept of a "Central" or "All-Union" stadium arose in Soviet Russia for the first time in the history of Russian architecture, along with the formulation of the concept of a communist state, which was gradually gaining a totalitarian character, and the transformation of utopian models that had their roots in the first post-revolutionary years and avant-garde culture. In the history of Soviet architecture, there were three attempts to build the main stadium of the country; each of them was undertaken at the time of the formation of a new paradigm which viewed sport both as a factor of cohesion for the society and as an instrument of external representation. The best architects of the country were involved in the search for the image and the development of the architectural solution of the ideal socialist stadium. However, the path from the initial design to the implementation of the project stretched out for more than thirty years, almost turning into one of many unrealized utopias. The International Red Stadium (1920's), the Stalin Central Stadium (1930's), and the Lenin Central Stadium (1950s) were projects with different titles and programs, but they were united in the task of creating a giant architectural sports park to demonstrate the advantages of the communist sports and physical culture movement over the "bourgeois Olympic" movement. Paradoxically, but only with the entry of the Soviet Union into the international Olympic family, Moscow ended up with such a stadium, the Lenin Central Stadium, still the largest in the country.