Bookvica

[LENIN’S MAUSOLEUM] Arkhitektura Mavzoleia Lenina [i.e. Architecture of the Lenin’s Mausoleum]

Stoianov, N.N.

Moscow: Gos. izdatel’stvo arkhitektury i gradostroitel’stva, 1950. Item #339

103 pp.: ill., 2 ill. 23x17 cm. In original Soviet cloth with gilt lettering on the spine and stamping on the front board (both faded). Very good, erased inscription on the front board, inscriptions in pen on the t.p. and front and rear free endpapers, number on the back of the frontispiece (ink), some rubbing and soiling of the boards. On one of two plates Beria’s fidure is painted over with a pencil (he was arrested and executed in 1953, and his images were banned).

First edition of a very thorough account on construction of today’s classic Moscow building - Lenin’s mausoleum. The book includes many rare photographs of a temporary and then permanent building as well as design of exterior and interior. The author goes through history shining light on how the temporary and permanent mausoleum was created and its features, he analyzes its architecture, brings together a list of all 59 illustrations in the text and a list of bibliography (16 items).
The mausoleum of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is a unique architectural object, a monument of the Russian avant-garde. For many years the mausoleum was one of the symbols of the Soviet state and is now considered a classic of Soviet architecture. Also the building is a UNESCO monument as part of the Red Square ensemble.

Initially the author of the mausoleum Aleksei Shchusev completed the project of the temporary mausoleum - for all the preparatory work was given three and a half days, and it was a simple cube made of wood. Shchusev wrote about the internal structure:''The layout of the mausoleum was calculated by me in such a way as to create a traffic schedule ensuring the uninterrupted skipping of large masses of visitors’’. In May 1924 the mausoleum was rebuilt into a massive wooden structure made of oak with metal fasteners. The third version was formed in Shchusev’s sketches gradually. The interior is distinguished by strict, large forms of geometric decoration. It is noteworthy that the coffin of Lenin was placed in a special triangular shaped glass sarcophagus. It was performed by another famous architect - Konstantin Melnikov, creating a unique sarcophagus in the form of a crystal (after the war, this sarcophagus was replaced by another).

Sold