The Soviet pavilion at Expo 58 and the search for a modern socialist style

This chapter focuses on the design of the USSR pavilion for Brussels and the meanings it was intended to convey both at home and abroad. The specific conditions of Brussels, the contiguity of the United States and USSR pavilions, and the anticipated comparison with the USA together helped shape the Soviet conception of its pavilion and displays. The Soviet Union, by contrast, was expected to appear at the fair as belligerent and un-modern. A key question for the Soviet exhibition planners was whether the USA would capitalize on the higher elevation of its site by building a tower to dominate over its Soviet neighbor and mark their aspiration to world supremacy. The conquest of gravity through advanced engineering and technology, which towers represented, was certainly an achievement the post-Stalin Soviet Union wanted to proclaim abroad whether in the form of architecture or of space flight and Sputnik.