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Monument to the Third International (1920)
In 1919 and 1920, Vladimir Tatlin produced sketches and a model for what was projected to be a Monument to the Third International. This utopian design, so typical for the frenzied mood of Russians in the years immediately following the Bolshevik revolution was, in theory, to have been taller than that great symbol of modernity, the Eiffel Tower. Its spiraling structure, however, was to lend the Monument a structural dynamism lacking in Eiffel's more symmetrical (and more stable) design. In theory, the Monument was to house a telegraph office, and other office space, but Tatlin, who was no architect, did not even attempt to work out the engineering problems that would have had to be overcome. Instead, like so many other early Soviet projects of utopian intent, Tatlin's tower (as it came to be called) never went past the planning stages. The model was exhibited--and photographed--in Petrograd in November 1920, at the same time as the mass theatrical action, The Staging of the Winter Palace, was performed.

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