Worker and Kolkhoz Woman

Vera Mukhina's sculpture was made in 1937 for the Soviet pavilion at the Paris World's Fair, where it stood facing the German pavilion and became a sensation at once. The architectural part was devised by Boris Iofan, who also set the motif of the striding step and the raised hammer and sickle.

How it was made

The figures, about twenty-five metres tall, are assembled from sheets of stainless chrome-nickel steel half a millimetre thick, stretched over a steel frame. For 1937 this was an engineering experiment: no shell sculpture on that scale had been made before, and the welding was done on site during assembly.

Back in Moscow

After the fair the sculpture was taken apart, brought to Moscow and set up at the north entrance of VDNKh on a low plinth that Mukhina herself thought too squat and damaging to the design. Between 2003 and 2009 the monument was dismantled for restoration: some of the sheets were replaced and the group was raised onto a new pavilion almost thirty-five metres high, repeating the Paris one. Only then did the silhouette read as intended.

Inside

An exhibition hall was made in the pavilion beneath the sculpture. It is currently closed for refurbishment, but the group itself is in place and can be seen from outside at any time, free of charge.

Address

Prospekt Mira 123b, Moscow · metro VDNKh

Opening hours

Pavilion closed for refurbishment; sculpture outside

Prices

Free to view from outside

On the map