Stalin's Architect

Boris Iofan (1891 – 1976) was considered Josef Stalin’s ‘court architect’ due to his closeness to the dictator, whose design ideas he translated into reality. His name is associated with projects such as the House on the Embankment, the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair and the Palace of the Soviets, which was never realised. In the period from 1932 to 1947, he was one of the most important, if not the most important architect of the Soviet Union. This biography, a detailed study of Iofan’s creative development, is based on previously unpublished documents. It also contains never-before-published visual material, including original drawings and sketches by the architect and his collaborators: most of this comes from Iofan’s archive, which is now in the collection of the Museum für Architekturzeichnung in Berlin.

Vladimir Sedov, born 1960, is an architectural historian and professor at Moscow State University, where he holds the Chair of the History of Russian Art since 2015. He is the author of numerous publications and curator of exhibitions on the history of Russian architecture and architectural drawings. Sedov lives and works in Moscow.