[Reader-list] Moscow Metro -Underground Palace Panoramas

[Punam Zutshi]

This is to share the most stunning panoramic images by Bee Flowers (!) of
the Moscow Metro/Subway which should add a different dimension to the worlds
that Shivam Vij and Zainab Bawa have introduced to us.
Enjoy Yourself!
Punam


Here are the two websites that need to be seen in tandem.The second website,
that of the photographer makes for easier viewing of the images.The third
website provides a history of this socialist dream of Stalin from which I
reproduce the introduction

http://vrm.vrway.com/issue15/MOSCOW_METRO_STATIONS_-_UNDERGROUND_PALACE_PANO
RAMAS.html

http://www.beeflowers.com/Metro/Komsomolskaya/Kom1/mainpage.htm

http://www.forevermore.com/metro/intro.htm

Moscow Metro: The Underground Dream
    As a system of public transportation and a work of urban infrastructure,
the Moscow Metro is an unparalleled example of architecture and design. The
most grandiose architectural phenomenon of the Stalinist era, the vast
system maps not only the huge ambitions of the Soviet State under Stalin,
but records in amazing detail the ideological and artistic shifts that
characterize the period. The historical photographs and contemporary
documentation on this website illustrate not only the evolution of a rapid
mass transit, but also the remarkable attention paid to aesthetic media --
architecture, sculpture, painting and decorative arts -- in a monumental
public works project.

    The Moscow Metro provided a stage on which life in the Soviet Union was
vividly played out, from the vast forces marshaled for its construction to
the shelter it provided for Moscovites during World War II. By the end of
the Stalinist era, it had evolved into a strange hybrid of palace, basilica
and fortress.

    The political and ideological course of the Soviet Union during the
Stalinist period is reflected in the distinct aesthetic styles of the four
principle lines and forty stations constructed under Stalin from 1932 to
1954.

    The First Line, built in the early `1930's, possesses an invigorating
modernism that is a high-water mark of the Soviet avant-garde. With the
Second Line, built in the late 1930's, a program of monumental sculpture and
art was introduced that signaled Stalin's stranglehold on the ideological
goals of the Soviet state. The Third Line, built during the "Great Patriotic
War" from 1939 - 1944, became a symbol of Soviet tenacity and ultimately a
memorial to the people's resistance during this devastating period. The
Fourth Line, completed in 1954 shortly after the death of Stalin, is perhaps
the most flamboyantly ideological and represents the epitome of the leader's
vision for the Metro. With the demise of Stalin, the expression of the
system reverted to its rationalist origins.

    Although constructed by a tyrant for a people living in terror, this
subterranean proletarian paradise offers an ironically humane vision of
public social space, both beautiful and functional. Today, with construction
continuing, the Moscow Metro covers over 200 kilometers of track and serves
9 million people each day