the suicide the nations are so elaborately preparing to commit

October 24, 2016 1:59 PM

"A sculpted pair of figures thirty-three feet tall, on a high platform, were striding triumphantly toward the German pavilion. I therefore designed a cubic mass, also elevated on stout pillars, which seemed to be checking this onslaught, while from the cornice of my tower an eagle with the swastika in its claws looked down on the Russian sculptures. I received a gold medal for the building; so did my Soviet colleague." A story of dueling architecture at the Paris International Exposition of 1937.
posted by theodolite (4 comments total)

Meanwhile, in modern Brussels...
posted by chavenet at 2:27 PM on October 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

This was a really interesting article, thanks! They're both such menacing buildings...

One of my favorite historical fiction books set around WWII, The Invisible Bridge, is in part about architecture in Paris in the late 1930s. Le Corbusier plays a minor role.
posted by ChuraChura at 4:24 PM on October 24, 2016

A nice piece, thanks for posting it! I enjoyed the unexpected detour to Simon Karlinsky's slam at "the groundswell of enthusiasm for Soviet Russia among America’s intellectuals which came just as Stalin was consolidating his power and plunging the country into the worst nightmare in its history. What amazes a person even minimally acquainted with Soviet realities about the intellectual climate of America in the thirties is the almost inconceivable gullibility of the intellectual community..." I learned about the pavilions from the chapter about the International Exposition in Karl Schlögel's Moscow 1937, a superb book I recommend to anyone interested in the history of the '30s. (There's a good review here from The Atlantic.) Schlögel ends his chapter by mentioning that Walter Benjamin was in town at the time; how one would like to know what he made of it!

Also, seeing that Mukhina statue always gives me a warm feeling because it's at the start of all those great Mosfilm movies.
posted by languagehat at 5:31 PM on October 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I remember seeing that Mukhina statue on a visit to the USSR in the 80s. We went out to the national exhibition centre because I wanted to see the nearby Botanic Gardens, and that huge statue was really striking. My recollection is that it looked rather shabby, and I see from the Wikipedia article that it was taken apart and restored around 10 years ago.
posted by Azara at 9:13 AM on October 25, 2016