On August 20, the White Tower, one of Yekaterinburg’s signature constructivist-era buildings, opened its doors to the public. Podelniki architecture group director Polina Ivanova told Strelka Magazine the story of how the group got its hands on the tower and launched Yekaterinburg’s latest cultural venue.

The White Tower is located in Uralmash, Yekaterinburg’s now-absorbed satellite town built next to a major factory. Constructed in the 1930s under the auspices of a project developed by Moisei Reischer, the tower was the cherry on top of the cake of the ultra-modern – at the time – constructivist town and a symbol of a new, Soviet era. However, in the late 1960s the tower was stripped of its primary function and abandoned. The building had stood empty until the early 2010s when a group of fresh Ural State University of Architecture and Art graduates took it upon themselves to reanimate the tower. Following several years of intense work, this August the building, which at one point almost turned into a public toilet, opened to the public. Inside, a media screen narrates the story of the construction of the tower, the Uralmash factory and the adjacent district. And this is only the very start of the public program within a large project being implemented by Podelniki architecture group......Continue Reading

Top image: White Tower. December 14, 1931. Archive photo, courtesy of Strelka 

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