Art historian Maria Kostyuk speaks about the author of the iconic design for the Palace of the Soviets at the launch of the book about the architect by DOM publishers
Boris Iofan is remembered as the author of the grand project for the Palace of the Soviets that was to be built on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in the very centre of Moscow. However, his work was not limited to neoclassicism, which dominated Soviet architecture under Stalin. Iofan’s style changed and evolved throughout his career, from early Italian projects that gravitated towards the classical order, through the revisited avant-garde of the expressive and monumental designs of the 1930s and to innovative use of concrete slabs in the construction of residential houses in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout his career, Iofan kept searching for an architecture that could represent modernity as a unique moment in history.