Stalin's Architect

Boris Iofan (18911976) was considered Josef Stalins 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 Worlds 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 This biography, a detailed study of Iofans creative development, is based on previously unpublished documents.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 Iofans archive, which is now in the collection of the Museum fr Architekturzeichnung in Berlin.