Moscow Metro Stations

As a primer to this studio we were asked to look into some evil clients / evil buildings.  Deciding not to grapple initially with defining evil, I decided to just pick the most evil client I could find.  Although Adolf Hitler initially came to mind, I stumbled across the Moscow Underground stations built during Joseph Stalin’s reign and could not resist posting them here.  Additionally, Stalin may have been even more evil than Hitler depending on which victim count you use. 

These stations are decidedly not the New York City subway.   Their interiors resemble baroque palaces more than subterranean public utilities. The design of these stations reflects the stranglehold Stalin had over Soviet artistic and architectural production during his tenure.  They are without exception done in the Art Deco and Neo-Classical motifs he preferred, and they are rife with propagandistic national motifs.  Mosaics, statues, and frescoes are all done in the state-mandated Socialist Realist style, which holds as its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism.   Series of stations were conceived of as permanent national monuments, imbuing infrastructure with civic meaning. 

However, I think that any civic pride that could be derived from these stations is overwhelmed by the sheer excessiveness of the decoration and bluntness of the propaganda.  Gaudy excess such as this makes the insecurity of authoritarian regimes almost palpable.  I can’t help but think of the new design for the US passport…