Decorative Elements in the “Stalinist” Architecture of the MSSR. From Sketch to Realization

With the end of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin’s governance, the period of totalitarian Stalinist architecture ended. From monumentalism, aesthetics and unique buildings, architecture was oriented to industrialization, prefabrication, project-type and economy, characteristic of the reign of Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. After the monotony, it was passed to the architectural plasticity, brutalism and Soviet modernism characteristic of the time of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev’s rule. Creative ambitions change with the succession of Soviet political leaders. Later, the arts did not know so many political “conductors”, the architecture developing more freely and diversified. The research focuses on the analysis and detailed descriptive study of ornaments on some components of “Stalinist” buildings in the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic. The author presents for the first time the original sketches of the architects. The images are a collage of past drawings and current photo fixations. Such an approach allows a visual comparative analysis between what was proposed by the author and what was achieved. The architects’ sketches allow the correct “reading” of the decorative elements, because today the buildings no longer keep the original version. Unfortunately, the decorum of socialist classicism has not been preserved over the years and it has been mutilated or even intentionally removed.