A Parable

In Karl Schlogel's Moscow, an early 80s city-driftwork, there is a wonderful discussion of how the site for the vast 400m Palace of the Soviets eventually held a huge open air swimming pool.

'The idea of swimming in winter in the heart of an icy, snow-covered city, enveloped in clouds of steam that billow across the the street, has something boldly fantastical about it, almost like deciding to pull down the wall street banks to make way for kindergartens'

An afterword outlines how the cathedral that was demolished in the 30s at the palace site was reconstructed piece by glittering piece in the 1990s- a photo shows it, curiously enough, looking much like a typical early 90s pomo confection.



The 20th century society's building of the month illustrates an almost identical scenario currently playing itself out in Berlin.