Khrushchev in Wonderland: The Pioneer Palace in Moscow’s Lenin Hills

You might be forgiven if you have never noticed the Pioneer Palace in Moscow 's Lenin or, formerly, Sparrow Hills (figure 1). You may have dismissed it as ju st anotherof those postwar prefabs that reminds you of your high school. Or perhaps you were too busy looking at Stalin's Moscow University, which looms over it. Yet, when the Pioneer Palace was built between 1958 and 1962, at theheight oftheKhrushchevThaw,thismodernistbox ofglass and reinforced concreteinspired enormousenthusiasm.