The Perfect Metro

The architectural history of the Moscow Metro began with a competition for projects: the acceptance of submissions started in March 1934, and already a year later, some ideas were realized in the stations of the first metro line.

For a long... time, it was believed that such competitions, popular in the 1930s and the first half of the 1950s, were not held in the second half of the 20th century. This book proves the opposite: the practice of competitions existed even in the post-war period, and their results became, for example, the designs of the stations "Kitai-gorod", "Nagatinskaya", "Tsvetnoy Bulvar".

Competition architectural projects are interesting not only as a historical fact: they represent a dream of the ideal image of the metro, ideological and artistic. Rare sketches and illustrations presented in this book reveal intentions that often remained unknown to the general public. The projects reflect the era; they contain echoes of various architectural and cultural phenomena. It was these competitions that paved the way for bold and original solutions. Some were realized immediately, some years later, and many remained on paper, but each project is interesting in its own way.