Palace of the Soviets
In the autumn of 1956, Iofan's work finally stopped after the announcement of a new competition for a new Palace of the Soviets. The volume of the new structure was capped at 500,000 cubic meters, 15 times less than Iofan's design. The main hall had to seat 4,600 people (five times less), with two lesser halls seating 1,500 people each. The new concept was as dysfunctional as the old one: the Supreme Soviet remained a purely decorative appendage of the Party machine, and never needed a permanent base. For most of the year, The Palace of the Soviets would serve in its secondary role as a public theater or a convention center, yet it had to look like a top level government building, a material statement of the Soviet ideology.