The author of the present article subjects the skyscrapers of Moscow City to philosophical analysis on the basis of Ernst Cassirer’s theory of symbolic forms. According to the author, the look of these skyscrapers has been inspired by objects of a technological nature – a battery, crankshaft, mobile telephone with sliding keyboard, etc. The author writes, “The crankshaft and battery look back to the industrial revolution. And industrial objects have been the main motif of modernism ever since Le Corbusier. There is no need to remind the reader that cutting-edge modern architecture has advanced far beyond this point. And then, there is always a difference in the way we perceive technology and the way we perceive architecture that is fascinated with technology. It has been noted that people never have problems with the relevance of forms used in automobiles. You can argue about whether the design is better or worse, but the fundamental approach is uncontroversial. But when all this is applied to architecture, when architecture is taught to imitate technology, and its historical and comprehensible language is infected with all these technological hieroglyphs, then architecture’s existence as art comes into question.”

Photo: Vladimir Ganin