Was Albert Speer a phoney?

BlaasForRafa

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

The seven sisters were built with the idea of showing the world how powerful mother Russia really was. This monumentalism was similar to what occured in Hitlers time. As I said already the period of this style lasted longer in USSR, until Stalins death. It ended in Germany in 1945 obviously. That they ended in these years shows that they were both forced styles rather than natural developed styles as per the examples of Bauhaus and Soviet realism.

Your missing something important about the seven sisters. Stalin wanted to show the power of the soviet state to his own people, not to the outside world. Do you think the USA would give a crap about the Seven sisters when it had the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and dozens of other skyscrapers in New York alone and thats not even counting Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati etc.

The soviets were decades behind in skyscraper technology at this time, while the seven sisters were being built, the americans were building the United Nations building and the Lever House building, both examples of the International style which was heavily influenced by the Bauhaus style of Mies Van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.

Compare


To


They're both pleasing in their own ways but the soviet building is heavily over-engineered and way way behind in design terms. The story goes that Stalin was very impressed by pictures of the Manhattan Municipal building and ordered that his architects base the designs of the seven sisters on it. The Manhattan Municipal Building was built in 1913. Its also taller than any of the Soviet buildings

jonniebgood1

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Your missing something important about the seven sisters. Stalin wanted to show the power of the soviet state to his own people, not to the outside world.

I would say that it was aimed at both but if you have a source to show he was more concerned about internal views then feel free to post it.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

They're both pleasing in their own ways but the soviet building is heavily over-engineered and way way behind in design terms. The story goes that Stalin was very impressed by pictures of the Manhattan Municipal building and ordered that his architects base the designs of the seven sisters on it. The Manhattan Municipal Building was built in 1913. Its also taller than any of the Soviet buildings

I dont think this is correct. I think a couple of the seven sisters were taller, certainly the Moscow state University is. It was the tallest building in europe until 1990 when a tower in Frankfurt passed it out.

For oversize structures see the proposed palace of the Soviets proposal


Size comparison of the statue of Lenin at the top

Morlar

To contrast those 'BIG' ones I'd recommend this clip (at fullscreen with sound) to get an idea of how the Speer/Hitler postwar architectural plans were all designed to come together :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOXmrVR00RI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOXmrVR00RI

Odd that this clip has only had 100 views as it is probably one of the best I have seen on this subject.
. . .

Here is another, it's a excerpt from a BBC Speer interview where he briefly mentions Germania :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1C56wwgNk0