CONTRASTING POLITICAL ARCHITECTURE
|
I discovered this image on my research of Albert Speer’s work in Germany. This is from the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris. The organizers of the fair staged that Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union’s pavilions would face opposite each other at the event. To the left is the Soviet Union pavilion designed by Boris Iofan with the sculpture of a male and female worker on top by Vera Mukhina. Albert Speer saw the plans of this pavilion before developing his own for Nazi Germany, and decided that Germany’s would be larger and act as a wall to the spirits of the Soviet Unions. It is fronted by a statue of a pair of strong nude german men, and crowned by the German Eagle and swastika showing the strength of Germany. This image is so amazing with two separate political ideologies at the forefront of a national monument representing France (in turn representing democracy). This must have been a fantastic event to have attended. Three years after this event Germany invaded paris, and then the Soviet Union a year later.  |
