Building of the People's Defence Commissariat. L. Rudnev. 1933

Architect L.Rudnev's buildings are among the most noticeable in Moscow. He headed the planning group of the high-rise Moscow State University building on Lenin Hills (1953). In the 1930s, a number of buildings assigned to the People's Defence Commissariat were designed by Rudnev; the Frunze Military Academy of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (1932), the buildings of the People's Defence Commissariat on the Frunze Embankment (1936) and on Shaposhnikova street (1933). For buildings of this profile the architect developed a specific style, conveying an impression of grim impregnability and crushing might to correspond to the official image of the Red Army. The project of a building on Arbat Square, which was only partly realised, reflects the architect's transition from the oppressive grandeur of the People's Defence Commissariat constructions of the 1930s to the bоuуant pomposity which became a hallmark of the architecture of the 1940s and early 1950s.