How the design of the Tsentrosoyuz Building evolved and what Nikolai Kolli contributed

The Tsentrosoyuz Building at 39 Myasnitskaya Street was designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, while Nikolai Kolli led the preparation of construction drawings in Moscow. Between the competition in 1928 and the completion of the finishes in 1940, the geometry of the blocks, the layout of the office halls and the engineering solutions changed. These changes had different causes and cannot be attributed to one person.

The overall composition, reinforced concrete frame and ramp system were retained in the completed building, while the finishes, parts of the layout and the engineering systems changed. This is evident from a comparison of the Le Corbusier Foundation’s account With with the 2022 heritage assessment. Sources give different dates for the completion of the complex, so the dates in this article refer to specific parts of the building and types of work.

The 1928 competition and the Tsentrosoyuz brief

The client wanted a large administrative complex with communal spaces for staff. According to the Le Corbusier Foundation, the 1929 brief catered for 2,500 people and included a canteen, assembly and recreation halls, a library and a physical culture club. The 2020 assessment gives a figure of 2,000 workplaces for the 1928 competition brief. The sources relate to different stages and do not explain whether the capacity calculations were revised. From the outset, the ‘Tsentrosoyuz Building’ included both offices and communal spaces.

The competition was announced in 1928. The 2022 heritage assessment report mentions three rounds and 32 designs, while the 2020 report assigns the 32 entries to the first, open selection round. These documents do not establish the total number of proposals submitted. The Foundation specifies that Nikolai Popov, who headed Tsentrosoyuz’s Paris office, invited Le Corbusier to take part in May 1928. The design he prepared with Pierre Jeanneret was recommended to the client and selected for further development.

In his article ‘The Narkomlegprom Building’, published in issue No. 10 of Architecture of the USSR in 1936, Kolli himself distinguished between the open competition and the subsequent invitation to leading architects. According to his account, this stage produced no design that the client could immediately approve for construction. Participants in the invited competition included Ivan Zholtovsky, the Vesnin brothers, Ivan Leonidov, Max Taut, Peter Behrens and Le Corbusier. The open competition, the invited competition and the subsequent development produced several versions of the building’s design.

In October 1928, Le Corbusier came to Moscow and revised his competition sketch in response to the committee’s comments. In December 1928 and early 1929, he worked on a new design in Paris with Kolli, who had been sent there on assignment. The Moscow architect’s involvement began before construction crews arrived on site.

In the summer of 1929, clarification of the site boundaries required adjustments to the positioning of two blocks: Kolli described their new orientation at obtuse angles to the street, whereas the early sketch had shown right angles. This adjustment makes the phrase ‘Le Corbusier’s 1928 design’ insufficiently precise: the competition drawing and the 1929 working version already differed in the geometry of the building’s placement on the site.

The brief imposed strict requirements while leaving room for architectural interpretation. According to the Foundation’s account, the competition brief required reinforced concrete load-bearing structures, specified a main entrance on Myasnitskaya Street and allowed the ground floor to be raised above pavement level. The architects were free to propose the materials and treatment of the façades. This balance explains how they were able to combine a large institution with principles that Le Corbusier was developing in other buildings.

The Foundation’s account divides the design by function: administration and accounting, trading departments, communal spaces, workshops and support services. The heritage assessment describes the completed building’s arrangement in four parts: the office block, the central entrance hall with a canteen and kitchen, the service block and the club. These are two ways of breaking down the brief, so the number of functional groups cannot simply be taken as the number of separate buildings.

What did Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret propose?

The architects proposed linking several large volumes through a shared circulation space. The Le Corbusier Foundation records three versions of the design; in the approved scheme, rectangular blocks raised on supports framed the club. Inside, visitors and staff were to use stairs, lifts and long ramps.

How the early design changed before construction began

Architectural historian Jean-Louis Cohen compared the competition designs with material from the Le Corbusier Foundation. In his reconstruction, the initial scheme included a broad main block along Myasnitskaya Street, two narrower side wings and a club hall connected to a fourth wing extending towards a proposed parallel street. Discussions in Moscow in October 1928 led to a different composition: Le Corbusier removed the additional volume, changed the axis of the hall and developed the idea of supports beneath the main volumes. The design was thus changing even before the adjustments prompted by construction.

Cohen also describes the architect’s intention to reshape the urban space beyond the site allocated to the complex. When a drawing shows a new street or an additional volume, its absence from today’s built environment does not necessarily mean that construction was left unfinished; some proposals were not included in the approved working scheme.

Le Corbusier designed the ramps as a route through six storeys. According to the Foundation’s description, the sections varied in width and curvature, offering changing views of the blocks as people ascended. Within the large office complex, the ramps connected the floors and made the building’s organisation visible from within.

How the design connected the blocks for everyday use

In Kolli’s description, the central entrance hall was more than a grand space in front of the offices. Two ramps began there, with paternoster lifts nearby and two conventional lifts beside each. A bridge at first-floor level connected the office blocks to the club foyer. This arrangement gave staff and visitors several ways to move around and explained why the main entrance, workspaces and communal areas were grouped around a shared hub.

Kolli gave dimensions that help convey the scale of this hub: the entrance hall covered 1,723 square metres, the cloakroom catered for 2,000 people, and each ramp was 2.5 metres wide, with a gradient of one in six. These figures relate to his description of the design and the state of the building in the mid-1930s. They cannot be applied to current access arrangements or the institution’s actual capacity without further verification.

The horseshoe-shaped ramp provided a continuous ascent, while side openings admitted light onto its turns. Kolli described its black rubber flooring and round oak handrail. For the institution, it was a practical circulation route; architecturally, it made the long ascent part of the visible space of the entrance hall. The heritage assessment report later included the ramps’ location and construction among the monument’s protected features.

The document also records the structural framework: the reinforced concrete frame, columns, piers and floor slabs. The free plan meant that internal partitions could be altered to suit the institution’s work while retaining the load-bearing system. This feature later allowed the office halls to be reconfigured for a new occupant without abandoning the overall composition of the building’s volumes.

On the exterior, large glazed planes were to alternate with ribbon windows and solid sections of wall clad in pink tuff. Much of the ground level was left open beneath the building’s supports, and the roofs were designed to be flat. The heritage assessment report lists these among Le Corbusier’s principles that were successfully realised. Differences between the design and the completed building emerge in particular areas of the ground floor, the engineering systems and the interiors.

The Le Corbusier Foundation links the arrangement of the ramps to the architect’s observations of pedestrian movement in Moscow. This explains his design intent, but does not show how the internal routes functioned after the building was handed over to a new institution.

Nikolai Kolli and construction in Moscow

Kolli linked the Paris studio with the construction site in Moscow. According to the heritage assessment, Le Corbusier’s studio developed the façades, plans, sections and some details, while the Moscow team, under the overall direction of Nikolai Yakovlevich Kolli, prepared working drawings for general construction, structural elements and technical installations.

Who turned the overall design into working drawings

Kolli himself provides a first-hand account of this process. In his 1936 article, he wrote that Le Corbusier had entrusted him with overall direction of the design work in both Paris and Moscow. The Moscow working drawings were initially prepared in Mosstroy’s reinforced concrete construction office and, from 1932, at Mosproekt. Among those involved, Kolli named the engineer M. S. Ozernov and the architects A. N. Fedorov and D. I. Tarasov. His account brings into view a team whose contribution is usually obscured by the name of the concept’s author.

The division of responsibilities was substantial. The Paris studio defined the façades, plans, sections and some details; the Moscow specialists prepared structural and technical drawings and selected workable solutions. Kolli was responsible for coordinating these strands of work. When Mossovet’s Studio No. 6 was established in 1933, it continued to develop architectural details under his direction. The source describes how the design work was organised; it does not provide grounds for attributing every individual drawing to one person.

Kolli listed solutions unfamiliar to the builders: reinforced concrete columns with elliptical cross-sections, substantial cantilevered frame elements, curved ramps and large metal glazing frames. In his assessment, fabrication and assembly depended on the capabilities of industry at the time and the quality of the materials.

Le Corbusier continued to take part in securing approval for the design in Moscow after construction began. Kolli dated his visit to the site and presentations to the approving authorities to March 1930, while the 2020 assessment places them in May. The sources disagree on the month; letters or official documents are needed to establish the precise date. Both confirm that the Paris studio remained in contact with the Moscow design team.

The 2020 assessment states that Kolli had worked on the design in Paris from 1928, adapting it to Soviet standards, and later discussed changes with Le Corbusier by letter. The document also names the Czechoslovak architect František Sammer among those involved in construction in Moscow.

Construction began in August 1929, and the authors of the Paris design were not permanently on site. According to the Foundation, Kolli supervised the work locally. During a visit to Moscow, Charlotte Perriand sent Le Corbusier updates on construction progress and warned of difficulties with the colour scheme devised in Paris. These reports show that the design team remained in contact with the site after the design had been approved.

In 1933, Architectural Design Studio No. 6 was established under Mossovet, led by Kolli, to work on the building. By that time, according to the heritage assessment report, the frames of the administrative blocks were complete and construction of the club had begun. Kolli’s role spanned several levels: reconciling the architects’ concept with local construction solutions, overseeing the working documentation and bringing specific interior elements through to completion.

This role is particularly clear in the description of the main entrance hall. The heritage assessment report attributes its finishes to Kolli’s designs: the grey artificial marble of the columns, the oak panelling and ramp handrails, and the surrounds of the lift and paternoster entrances. The document also quotes his description of the office block’s corridor, with its timber and glazing. It would therefore be inaccurate to describe the interiors as a literal reproduction of the Paris drawings.

In his 1936 article, Kolli wrote that the interiors were designed in Moscow, while Le Corbusier’s guidance was general and occasional. The 2022 heritage assessment report confirms that the interiors were developed in Moscow: it lists the columns, panelling and entrance surrounds in the main hall executed to the Moscow architect’s designs.

In 1934, Charlotte Perriand passed on to Le Corbusier information about the colour scheme and samples of finishes sent from Moscow. The historian Jean-Louis Cohen links the choice of more expensive decorative materials to the requirements of Isidor Lyubimov. In 1928, Lyubimov headed Tsentrosoyuz, and from 1932 he led the People's Commissariat of Light Industry, to which the building was transferred. The choice of materials therefore cannot be attributed to Kolli alone.

The same correspondence clarifies the limits of the statement that ‘Le Corbusier was absent from the site’. He did not supervise the work daily, but received progress reports and responded to proposed materials. Kolli remained the local design lead, while Perriand was one of the intermediaries relaying observations to Paris. The Moscow team was responsible for the interior as built, while maintaining correspondence with the designers in Paris.

The finishes combined several materials, chosen in relation to the spaces. Kolli listed supports without capitals, oak elements at their tops, ramp panelling and marble portals on the landings. In the passage lobby facing what was then Kirov Street, the walls were clad in yellow Crimean marble, while the columns in the main hall were finished in grey artificial marble. The finishes thus distinguished the entrance passage from the lofty shared space where routes between the blocks converged.

Kolli's account is also important because he did more than praise the building. He considered the arrangement of the blocks clear and noted the good natural light, but criticised the building's artistic expression. This is an architect's assessment, recorded in the professional and ideological climate of 1936, rather than an established fact about the quality of the design. It shows his independent judgement of Le Corbusier's work; it cannot be used as evidence of a personal conflict between them.

The archival context helps prevent Kolli's words from being treated as a final verdict. His article appeared in 1936, when attitudes towards avant-garde architecture had changed; praise for the clear layout sits alongside criticism of insufficient artistic expression. Cohen also cites the opposing assessment of Alexander Vesnin, who thought highly of the composition of the complex under construction. These differing views reflect a professional debate of their time; the configuration of the ramps and the allocation of drawing work are matters to be verified separately from aesthetic preferences.

The source does not, however, attribute every wall built and every colour used to a named designer. Kolli's contribution is confirmed by the working drawings, his leadership of the studio and the finishing decisions listed; this does not establish his sole authorship of the entire complex. It is equally inaccurate to obscure his work behind the impersonal phrase ‘Soviet adaptation’.

What happened to the layout after the client changed?

In 1932, the unfinished building was transferred to the USSR People's Commissariat of Light Industry. The new occupant required a different working arrangement, and the large open-plan halls in the office blocks were divided into individual offices on either side of a central corridor. The heritage protection document describes this as a partial alteration of the internal layout that preserved the overall composition and principal structures.

Once the partitions were installed, staff of the People's Commissariat of Light Industry reached their offices along a central corridor instead of through the former open-plan hall. The load-bearing reinforced concrete frame was retained. It was this frame that allowed the working layout to change without altering the principal structures.

Kolli described the large office block as built: rooms were arranged on either side of a central passage. The lower 1.4 metres of the corridor walls were clad in light oak, with walnut used on the third floor; above was frosted glass in timber frames. In his assessment, the glazed upper section provided sufficient diffused light and relieved the monotony of the long passage. This last observation is the interior designer's testimony, rather than a measurement of present-day lighting.

The halls were subdivided during construction, before the building's final finishes were applied. The arrangement of individual offices introduced in the 1930s therefore belongs to the history of Tsentrosoyuz's creation; it should be distinguished from alterations made in the second half of the 20th century.

The document states that construction accelerated after the transfer to the People's Commissariat. This does not mean, however, that the entire building immediately took on its finished appearance. By 1933, the frames of the administrative blocks had been completed and work had begun on the club section; finishing and bringing individual sections into use continued for several more years. The change of institution explains the shift in layout, but does not in itself explain every technical simplification.

Which design decisions changed during construction?

At least three changes of different kinds are documented: the abandonment of the planned heating and ventilation system, the reconfiguration of the ramps in the club section, and the enclosure of part of the open ground floor along Myasnitskaya Street. These cannot be grouped together under a single phrase such as ‘the failure of the design’: some affected the building services, others the movement of people and the building's relationship with the street.

The Fondation Le Corbusier states that the architect's proposed ‘precise breathing’ system, which involved special air treatment, was rejected because the necessary technology was unavailable. The heritage protection document also records that the planned heating and ventilation systems were not implemented. The large expanses of glazing were nevertheless incorporated into the completed building.

The original circulation layout was changed in the club section. According to the 2022 expert assessment, a single flight of stairs was built from the lower level of the lobby, with ramps branching off in two directions from its upper landing. The change in circulation geometry therefore did not mean that the sloping routes disappeared. The central circulation system, with its curved ramps, remained one of the complex's recognisable features.

During construction, part of the ground floor along Myasnitskaya Street, which the design had left open between the supports, was enclosed. The heritage protection document also records surviving sections of the colonnade. The concept of a block raised above the ground was only partially realised.

The designers also had a specific purpose in mind for the open level. Kolli wrote that part of the space between the supports was intended for temporary car parking, sheltered from rain, snow and sun. He considered this arrangement successful during the early years of use. His observation should not be applied to the way the grounds are managed today: it describes the operation of an institution whose premises were still unfinished in the 1930s.

Structurally, the open ground level was made possible by reinforced concrete frames and cantilevers supporting the floor slabs and external walls of the upper storeys. Kolli specified 40-centimetre-thick blocks of Artik tuff for some walls. These details make the challenges of realising the design clearer: large building volumes had to be supported above an open space, with external walls and expanses of glazing secured to the engineered frame. The later enclosure of individual bays changed the visible boundary between the building and the street.

Jean-Louis Cohen notes several further changes to the façades during construction. The metal frames for the double glazing proved thicker than the slender glazing bars shown in the Paris drawings, while a shortage of high-quality glass led to the use of sheets in two shades — white and green. Some supports at the rear of the building were fluted. The overall glazing concept was retained, but the materials and profiles of individual elements differed from the drawings.

Not every discrepancy between the design drawings and a photograph can be attributed to construction in the 1930s. Windows and façade glazing were subsequently replaced several times, rooms were subdivided with new partitions, and some surfaces were restored. Without distinguishing these periods, it is easy to mistake modern metal glazing bars for Kolli's design, or to regard restored finishes as unquestionably original.

Why completion dates differ

The complex was brought into use and finished in stages, and sources identify different milestones of completion; some of their dates differ. The Fondation Le Corbusier reports that the office section came into use in 1934 and the club section was completed in 1935. The 2022 heritage protection document states that most of the office blocks and the lobby had been completed and handed over by the end of 1936, while work on the club section's concrete structures was still being finished.

The document dates the completion of the building to 1939, and the last construction and finishing work to 1940. These formulations do not allow a single precise date to be given without specifying the stage: the opening of the offices, completion of the club block, the handover of a substantial part of the building, or the finishing of the interiors. The monument's name in the register includes the period ‘1928–1936’, but the register's dates are likewise no substitute for a stage-by-stage history of the work.

Kolli's article in the journal Architecture of the USSR appeared in 1936. At the beginning, he speaks of construction having been completed, but later clarifies that part of the lobby and the second ramp were still being finished, while concreting of the main structures in the club section was nearing completion. The details he supplies himself mean that his statement about completion cannot be taken as a date when the entire complex was ready.

Kolli's account does not, however, automatically invalidate the Foundation's report that the office section was in use in 1934. The start of occupancy and the completion of the entire complex are different events. The sources diverge more sharply over the club section: the Foundation dates the end of work to 1935, whereas Kolli describes concreting still under way in 1936. Without comparing specific handover certificates and the dates of the original documents, it is more reliable to retain this discrepancy than to declare either date definitive.

Which features of the present building belong to the original design?

The monument's protected features include its composition of building volumes as revised in 1934, the balance of glass and solid façade surfaces, the character of the cladding, the reinforced concrete frame, and the positions of ramps, stairs and lifts. Protected interior features include the lobby and its circulation system. This provides a reliable set of features through which to discuss the building's significance, but does not mean that every material present today was installed in the 1930s.

The 2022 document notes that timber and metal window structures were replaced with aluminium ones in the 1960s, while retaining the pattern of the glazing bars. Reconstruction took place in the 1980s and 1990s, including alterations to floor slabs; much of the planned restoration work was not carried out at that time. In 2014, in the part of the building occupied by Rosstat, window units and glazed façade structures were replaced, the tuff cladding was restored, and the gallery of the main foyer was opened up by removing later partitions.

Cohen adds two names to the history of later interventions: in the 1960s, Kolli oversaw some restoration work on the façade, and in the 1970s, the architect Leonid Pavlov supervised the replacement of the glass walls. These details do not alter the dates given in the heritage protection document, but show that the exterior may have passed through several stages after the original construction. The appearance of today's glazing bars therefore cannot be attributed solely to either Le Corbusier or Kolli without dating the specific element.

In a 2008 article, Cohen warned of another pitfall of restoration: returning to an imagined ‘original’ layout could create a state in which the building had never existed in its entirety. This is particularly significant for Tsentrosoyuz, because the open-plan halls began to be subdivided during construction, while the protected composition of building volumes is defined by the 1934 revision. Deciding what to preserve requires identifying a historical state and checking which details survive in their original materials. This is a conclusion drawn from comparing documents, rather than a description of a new restoration programme.

The heritage protection document distinguishes between recreation and restoration: the marble floor was recreated, while some other elements were restored. Any reference to a ‘surviving interior’ therefore requires clarification: it may refer to the original ramp structure, historic finishes or the reinstated appearance of a space.

The 2020 heritage assessment names Pierre Jeanneret as a contributor to the project alongside Le Corbusier and Kolli. The 2022 document emphasises the monument's legal designation — ‘architect Le Corbusier, with the participation of architect N. Ya. Kolli’. This difference in abbreviated wording should not erase Jeanneret from the design history. Nor does the statutory list of protected elements replace research into the contributions of those who prepared the drawings and supervised the work.

How can you read the Centrosoyuz Building from the street?

From Myasnitskaya Street and Academician Sakharov Avenue, the most apparent features are the interconnected volumes of different sizes, the alternation of glass and tuff-clad surfaces, and the sections raised on supports. The heritage protection document describes precisely this relationship between the building and the two urban thoroughfares. The exterior reveals the logic of the composition, although the distribution of functions and the arrangement of partitions remain behind the façades.

It is worth looking closely at the passage beneath the building volumes and the places where the ground floor is enclosed. This helps reveal the documented alteration of the originally open area without assuming that the entire colonnade has been lost. Tuff, glass and render form surfaces that differ in texture and response to light; their authenticity cannot be judged from a single walk, as the cladding and glazing have been restored and replaced.

The façade cannot reveal what remains of the original partitions or how the paternoster lifts are configured. Drawings and heritage protection documents provide that information. From outside, the building volumes, façades and open sections of the ground floor can be compared with descriptions of the design.

What does comparing the design with its construction reveal?

The comparison shows that Tsentrosoyuz was a collective undertaking spanning many years. Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret established the composition and spatial concept; Kolli led the preparation of working drawings in Moscow and the work to realise the design, including the lobby finishes. The office halls changed after the change of occupant, while technical and construction conditions affected other elements. The overarching architectural idea nevertheless remained discernible.

You can see the exterior composition of the Centrosoyuz Building in the context of neighbouring buildings from other periods on excursions “Architecture in Moscow”: the bureau’s published route runs from Krasnye Vorota to Yauzskiye Vorota and includes the building on Myasnitskaya Street. It offers an opportunity to compare the visible façade with the history of the design; the description does not mention access to the interior.

Sources

1. Fondation Le Corbusier: Centrosoyus
2. State Historical and Cultural Expert Assessment of the Centrosoyus Building, 2022
3. State Historical and Cultural Expert Assessment Report on the Tsentrosoyuz Building, 2020
4. N. Kolli. ‘The People’s Commissariat of Light Industry Building’ // ‘Architecture of the USSR’, No. 10, 1936. Reprinted by Tatlin
5. ‘Architecture of the USSR’, No. 10, 1936: contents of the issue
6. Jean-Louis Cohen. Le Corbusier’s Centrosoyuz in Moscow // Future Anterior, 2008
7. ‘Architecture, Moscow Style’: the bureau’s tour itinerary description