Abstract
On July 10, 1935, Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov signed the decision to adopt the General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow. Drawn up between 1932 and 1935 by a group of architects and engineers led by urban planner Vladimir Semionov and later by architect Sergei Chernyshev, this plan was to serve as a model for other cities in the USSR and, after 1945, in the Eastern bloc.
The names commonly used to designate this project and the architectural productions that resulted from it - the plan itself, the high-rise buildings, the Stalinist apartment blocks - emphasize, through the adjective form, the role of Stalin, nicknamed the "brilliant zodtchi (architect) of Moscow".
The reality of this "vertical of power" will be put into perspective through the study of forms, places of expression and constructions revealing the taste and action of the political decision-maker. Rather than calling into question the effects of the doctrine of "socialist" realism, the aim is to highlight the complexity of the relationships and decision-making that took place between the political sphere and the professional world between 1932 and 1954.
