Polytechnic Museum
In 1928, Le Corbusier was invited to participate in a closed competition, which included Peter Behrens, Max Taut, and the Vesnin brothers, for the new headquarters of the Central Union of Consumer Cooperatives in Moscow. After winning the competition, Le Corbusier in October 1928 traveled to the Soviet Union to inspect the site for the Tsentrosoyuz building. Before his trip, Le Corbusie frequented the “Amis de Spartacus” film club, which projected banned Soviet avant-garde films, like Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. When he arrived, Pravda heralded his arrival on its front page. It announced, “To Moscow has come Le Corbusier, the most brilliant representative of today’s advanced architectural thought in Europe.” In Moscow, Le Corbusier gave a lecture at the Polytechnic Museum. He would later write of his trip in his diary, “My works have passed the blockade. I am very well known, very popular. My lectures are held before a packed assembly."