#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. This architectural dominant was conceived in the style of Moscow skyscrapers, in the so-called Stalinist Empire style, combining baroque and classicism. One of the options even suggested placing a hundred-meter television center antenna on the tower.
In the mid-1950s, taking into account the high-altitude load, they laid the foundation and began to build walls. But the famous “Hrushchevation” swept through the architecture.
Norilsk city planners could not focus on Moscow skyscrapers when the country’s new leader Nikita Hrushchev, having visited one of them – the Leningradskaya hotel – criticized it for its temple pomposity. For example, when he saw a unique chandelier in the hall of the building, penetrating seven floors, he asked: “What a Jesse is this?”
As a result, the main building of Gvardeiskaya square (which at first had to be square shaped) was decided to be built five-story, without a high-rise tower.
The shortened building was finished in 1960, and it was not the House of Industry at all, but the Norilsk Hotel.
In the mid-1980s, the hotel moved to Kirova street. And the building on Gvardeyskaya square was increased by one more, “director’s” floor, and it became the “house of industry”: the Norilsk Nickel headquarters were located there.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we told about the planned construction of a steel plant in Norilsk.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive