Seven Sisters (Moscow)

As Nikita Khrushchev recalled Stalin's words, "We won the war ... foreigners will come to Moscow, walk around, and there are no skyscrapers.

Nothing is known about selection of construction sites or design evaluation; this process (1947–1948) was kept secret, a sign of Stalin's personal tight management.

Job number one, a Vorobyovy Gory tower that would become Moscow State University, was awarded to Lev Rudnev, a new leader of his profession.

On the other hand, the new construction plants, built for this project (like Kuchino Ceramics[7]), were fundamental to Khrushchev's residential program just a few years later.

He made a worse mistake by insisting on his decision and was promptly replaced by Lev Rudnev, a 53-year-old rising star of Stalin's establishment.

Rudnev had already built high-profile edifices like the 1932–1937 M. V. Frunze Military Academy and the 1947 Marshals' Apartments (Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya, 28), which earned the highest credits of the Party.

When the construction was nearing completion, some inmates were housed on the 24th and 25th levels to reduce transportation costs and the number of guards required.

[13] Ukraina by Arkady Mordvinov and Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky (leading Soviet expert on steel-framed highrise construction) is the second tallest of the "sisters" (198 meters, 34 levels).

This was solved by an ingenious water retention system, using a perimeter of needle pumps driven deep into ground.

The second proposal was accepted but as the Ministry's completion neared, a metal spire, dyed to match the building's exterior (and presumably ordered by Joseph Stalin), was hastily added to tower's roof, assimilating its silhouette with those of the other Sisters.

[16][17] Originally known simply as the Leningradskaya Hotel, this relatively small (136 meters, 26 floors, of which 19 are usable) building by Leonid Polyakov on Komsomolskaya Square is decorated with pseudo-Russian ornaments mimicking Alexey Shchusev's Kazansky Rail Terminal.

The building is located on the end of Krasnaya Presnya street, facing the Sadovoye Koltso and was primarily built as high-end apartments for Soviet cultural leaders rather than politicians.

Designed by Alexey Dushkin of the Moscow Metro fame, this mixed-use block of 11-storey buildings is crowned with a slim tower (total height 133 meters, 24 levels).

The building's frame was erected deliberately tilted to one side; when the frozen soil thawed, it settled down – although not enough for a perfect horizontal level.

Then the builders warmed the soil by pumping hot water; this worked too well, and the structure slightly overreacted, tilting to the opposite side but well within tolerance.

In 1934, the Commissariat for Heavy Industries initiated a design contest for its new building on Red Square (on the site of State Universal Store, GUM).

[citation needed] Plans to build a skyscraper on the site of the destroyed Ginzburg Hotel emerged in 1948, but the design was finalized by Anatoly Dobrovolsky as late as 1954, when Stalinist architecture was already doomed.

Construction plans were agreed upon on April 5, 1952, and sealed during Vyacheslav Molotov's visit in Warsaw on July 3 of the same year (after the opening ceremony on May 1).

[citation needed] Initially planned as House of Kolkhoz workers (Kolhoznieku nams), construction was started in 1951 and finished in 1958, although the building was officially opened only in 1961.

Unlike other vysotki, which are based on a steel frame with masonry infill, this is a reinforced concrete structure, the first of its kind in the USSR.

Seen from a low point of the Garden Ring south, it could be mistaken for a skyscraper, but if viewed from Triumfalnaya Square it is clear that the building is far less imposing.

Design and construction of such towers became widespread in the early 1950s, although many ongoing projects were cancelled in 1955, when regional "skyscrapers" were specifically addressed by Nikita Khrushchev's decree "On liquidation of architectural excesses..." as unacceptable expense.

[citation needed] The high-profile Triumph Palace tower in north-western Moscow (3, Chapayevsky Lane), completed in December 2003, attempts to imitate the vysotki, and actually exceeds the university building in structural height.

It is criticized for being placed deeply inside a residential mid-rise area, away from major avenues and squares, where it could be an important visual anchor.