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Nikolai Vassiliev - Shukhov Tower in Moscow - guided tour for architects / Николай Васильев - Шуховская телебашня - экскурсия для зарубежных архитекторов. «Lord Foster fires up campaign to save rusting Russian radio tower» - Architect brands structure as a work of 'dazzling genius' and inspiration that must be saved. From a distance it looks a bit like an upturned wastepaper basket, soaring over the concrete skyline of southern Moscow. The Russian capital's unique Soviet-era radio station was built in 1922 to spread the message of revolutionary communism around the world, but it is badly neglected and suffering from corrosion. Now British architect Lord Foster has backed a campaign to save the 150-metre-high steel tower designed by the engineering genius Vladimir Shukhov. In an open letter, Lord Foster describes the tower as “a structure of dazzling brilliance and great historical importance“. Calling the structure Shukhov's masterpiece, Foster says it is the “first major landmark of the Soviet period“. Made up of a delicate lattice structure, the tower has five interlocking “hyperboloids“, each smaller in size, giving the impression of an inverted telescope. The revolutionary design is an inspiration for several of Foster's own landmark projects including the Gherkin, or Swiss Re building, in the City of London. Lenin commissioned the tower to adorn his new Soviet Union during a period of romantic optimism. It was built between 1919-1922. Nearly 90 years on, it is badly neglected and suffering from corrosion. Russia's federal and local government are locked in dispute over which one of them should pay for repairs. Neither seems willing to stump up the cash. In the meantime, Foster says, the structure is “neglected and dying“ and without “faithful restoration“ is doomed to fail. Several other leading European and US architects have backed Foster's letter, sent last month to the Moscow authorities. The art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon is another fan, and rode to the top in his recent BBC series on Russian art. Dixon-Smith hailed it as “one of the great monuments of the constructivist post-revolutionary period“. Today Shukhov's grandson, also called Vladimir, said the tower near Moscow's Shabolovskaya metro station was inaccessible and closed to visitors. The idea was to restore it and turn it into a major Moscow tourist attraction, he said. Last year Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, expressed his support for the scheme, but since then nothing had happened, Shukhov said. The steel framework had not undergone any anti-corrosion treatment for 20 years, he said, and was at risk of falling down. “We are in a very dangerous situation. There's been a lot of talk but no activity. You have the architectural equivalent of a diamond here, and yet nothing is being done to save it.“ Under the headline “corroded masterpiece“, Russia's Izvestiya newspaper contrasted official Russian indifference to the building's fate with Foster's vigorous campaign. “Only foreigners care about its destiny,“ the paper said. Russia's state TV and radio station -- which owns the tower -- had no money and even less desire to save it, the paper added. Shukhov was one of the greatest structural engineers of the early 20th century and the leading engineer of his era in Russia. He pioneered the use of new structural systems, creating hyperboloid structures of double curvature whose lightness and geometric complexity defy the imagination, even in the computer age. He also built Russia's first oil pipeline as well as numerous railway bridges. Luke Harding
