page_title: Vesnin brothers
section_title: Likhachev Palace
hierarchical_section_title: Vesnin brothers / Tangible constructivism (1927-1937) / Likhachev Palace
caption_attribution_description: Library wing of DK Zil in Moscow
context_page_description: The Vesnin brothers: Leonid Vesnin, Victor Vesnin and Alexander Vesnin were the leaders of Constructivist architecture, the dominant architectural school of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. Exact estimation of each brother's individual input to their collaborative works remains a matter of dispute and conjecture; nevertheless, historians noted the leading role of Alexander Vesnin in the early constructivist drafts by the Vesnin brothers between 1923 and 1925. Alexander also had the most prominent career outside of architecture, as a stage designer and abstract painter.
  The brothers’ earliest collaboration in architecture dates back to 1906; their first tangible building was completed in 1910. Between 1910 and 1916 the Moscow-based family firm designed and built a small number of public and private buildings in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, stylistically leaning towards neoclassicism. During the Russian Civil War Leonid and Victor concentrated on industrial projects and teaching while Alexander had a successful solo career as theatre stage designer.
context_section_description: The first public constructivist building actually built in Moscow by the Vesnin brothers, a 1927 department store in Presnensky District, was a scaled-down clone of their 1925 TsUM department store draft. It was followed by the Institute of Mineral Resources building in Zamoskvorechye District (1928) and a theater on Povarskaya Street (designed in 1929–1930, completed in 1931–1934).
  The Vesnins did not take part in the public 1930 competition for the Proletarsky District Palace of Culture, to be built on the site of the demolished Simonov Monastery. After the competition ended with no clear winner the job was awarded to the Vesnins. Their original proposal, influenced by Le Corbusier’s ideas of ‘’flowing spaces’’, comprised two buildings – a complex T-shaped public services building with a 1,000 seat theatre hall, large dancing space, a library for 200,000 volumes and winter gardens, and a detached 4,000 seat main theatre. The latter, based on Kharkiv theatre draft, did not materialize. The smaller hall was inaugurated in 1933, construction of the public services building dragged until 1937. Unlike other constructivist buildings of the period, "enhanced" by stalinist facades, the Palace of Culture was completed in precise agreement with 1930 drafts. After World War II its exterior was, indeed, altered but all the Stalinist additions were stripped in the 1970s.
  The building, operated by ZIL throughout most of its history, is known as Likhachev Palace of Culture.
caption: Library wing of Likhachev Palace, 1933-1937 (2008 photo)
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