The Moscow Metro: “Ode to Joy”

Abstract

This article explores the architecture and artwork of the metro stations of Russia’s capital in the context of the country’s sociohistorical development. The author focuses on the phase when the first lines were designed and built, when the concept of the metro, closely linked to the state ideology, was being shaped. It is characteristic that at the very inception of underground architecture, the most impressive and decorative style was selected from amongst a host of conceptually diverse design proposals. In the late 1930s and 1940s this grand and representational manner continued to develop, reaching its prime in the design of stations and overground pavilions built during the Second World War and postwar period.

KEYWORDS:

• Moscow metro
• underground architecture
• “intermediate” space
• design competition
• Russian metro building
• decorative plastic
• mosaic
• emblem studies

Notes

1. The article was written under the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation (RGNF) Project #15–04-00353/15.

2. The word “metropolitan” (from “metropolis”) derives from the name of the “Metropolitan” company which opened an underground railway in London in 1863. With the introduction of electric traction in 1890 a new phase in subterranean travel was commenced in Paris and Berlin as well as other cities in Europe and the USA.

3. The second phase included the extension of the Arbatsko–Pokrovskaia Line to Kiev and Kursk Stations, as well as the construction of the new Gorkovskaia Line from the center to the Sokol quarter along Gorky Street (now Tverskaia) and Leningrad Avenue.

4. This was particularly evident in the designs for stations connected with the name of Stalin, i.e. Stalin Factory (Avtozavodskaia) and Stalin Stadium (Izmailovskii Park) (Figure 12). The station identified in the plans as Semenovskaia was actually called Stalinskaia once it opened. Such circulation of the leader’s name, in part as preparation for his sixtieth birthday celebrations, served to emphasize the role of the metro’s design in the wider panorama of Soviet architecture.

5. M. Zelenin, “Otdelochnye i dekorativnye raboty na stantsiiakh moskovskogo metro” [“The finish and decoration of the Moscow metro stations”], Arkhitektura SSSR, no 8 (1944): 31. The author produces some interesting facts: the third phase of metro construction saw expenditure on marble that was twice as great as in the first, and it also witnessed the introduction of granite floors (rather than asphalt, ceramic, or marble tile) and large-scale use of mosaic.