Vladimir Tatlin’s Tower
Sketch by Vladimir Tatlin showing an elevation of his 1920 tower proposal. The design included a steel exoskeleton that envelops four glass volumes, each meant to rotate at different speeds.
Tatlin’s Tower has always made me uneasy. There’s something about it’s form that rubs me the wrong way, but at the same time, it’s strangely captivating. In school, I was exposed to it many times in architecture history classes, but it was always glossed over as just another example of Russian Constructivism. Let’s take a closer look and see just how strange it is.
Vladimir Tatlin designed his tower in 1920 as both a monument and headquarters to the Third International, which was an organization with the goal to spread communism throughout the world. This double-duty meant the tower itself needed to be a political symbol for communism. As such, Tatlin’s task was to exemplify socialist values through the built form, and the main way he did this was through verticality. At the time, the tallest building in the world was the Eiffel Tower, itself a monument to the Industrial Revolution, at 300 meters (984 feet). As a response, Tatlin made his tower 400 meters (1,310 feet) tall to leave no doubts about the superiority of the communist ideology. This simple act of out-competing the Eiffel Tower for the tallest label is distinctly un-communist, but verticality is such a strong indicator of importance, Tatlin still decided to use it as a political tool.
Formally, the tower is quite unique. The first thing I notice is the slanted form, which creates a sense of instability. This is odd, since the project was meant to exemplify the values of an ideology, and a lack of stability shouldn’t be brought to mind in this way. The second element I notice is the main structure, consisting of two spiraling elements connected by a lattice and anchored by a slanted shaft that runs the entire height of the building. This iron exoskeleton creates a strong visual vocabulary, which makes it easy to miss the four interior glass volumes supported by said skeleton. To be honest, I was unaware of these volumes until I took a closer look whilst writing this post. They are most visible in the above section drawing, delicately perched inside the external framework. Each volume is a platonic solid, starting with a cube at the base, a pyramid, a cylinder and a dome at the top. Together, these volumes are meant to house the headquarters of the Third International. The result of all these elements put together is a muddled composition that is visually interesting, but lacking any overall organizational quality.
Photograph showing a model of Tatlin’s Tower from 1921 in Petrograd. The tower was designed as a monument to and a headquarters for the Third International, and a symbol of communism.
This lack of an overall organizational quality might be Tatlin’s attempt to symbolize the communist ideology, which values the collective over any central power source. This sounds like a stretch, however, because of the aforementioned lack of stability, which undermines any symbolism Tatlin may have been after. I suppose this is why I have a hard time taking it seriously as a project. It’s more a symbolic work of sculpture rather than a serious architectural proposal, and it works best at the scale of the above photograph, rather than the scale of the tallest building in the world.
Competing for the tallest building in the world is generally seen as a capitalist act, so it’s interesting to see proposals like Tatlin’s Tower and other Soviet structures that use verticality as a political tool. Projects like these are evidence of just how deeply rooted our need for verticality goes, that it can cut through opposing political ideologies like this.
For further reading about how the Soviet structures fit into the history of verticality, check out the Conquering The Skies chapter of the verticality narrative.
Check out other unbuilt designs here.