Five Buildings You’ll Wish Existed.
Part 1 of a regrettable architectural tour.
Tatlin’s Tower.
At first glance, Tatlin’s tower appears to look like the Eiffel tower, if the Eiffel tower had done a little too much acid.
Officially named Pamiatnik III Internatsionala (Monument to the Third International), the tower, designed by Vladimir Tatlin, was the result of Lenin’s push for ‘monumental propaganda’ which was essentially a campaign to remove all the old tsarist monuments after the revolution and replace them with not just something different, but something completely new, like when you get a new haircut after a breakup.
Tatlin did not disappoint, cooking up an entirely abstract building that at 400m would have stood a full 100m taller than the Eiffel tower, while straddling a river below it.
The Third International was an organisation that set out to promote revolution internationally, and the tower would become both a symbol of this idea, and also the headquarters for the organisation itself. Four glass and steel structures rotating within the gargantuan abstract structure would each house an aspect of The Third International; A large cube, rotating once a year would include The Legislature, the Executive would rotate once a month within their glass and steel pyramid, the…
