for most conjectures concerning Stalin's personal influence. February 1933 – The fourth competition closes with no winner announced. May 1933 – Public approval of Iofan's draft. September 1933 – All Moscow architects are assigned to twenty Mossovet workshops, most of them directed by traditionalist architects (Shchusev, Zholtovsky etc.). The architects invited to direct these workshops included traditionalists Ivan Zholtovsky, Alexey Shchusev, Ivan Fomin, Boris Iofan, Vladimir Schuko as well as practising constructivists: Ilya Golosov, Panteleimon Golosov, Nikolai Kolli, Konstantin Melnikov, Victor Vesnin, Moisei Ginzburg and Nikolai Ladovsky. This began an important trend that lasted until 1955. Stalin chose Iofan for one project, but retained all competing architects in his employ. Pre-war Stalinist architecture (1933–1941) Early Stalinism (1933–1935) The first years of Stalinist architecture are characterized by individual buildings, or, at most, single-block development projects. Rebuilding vast spaces of Moscow proved much more difficult than razing historical districts. The three most important Moscow buildings of this time are on the same square, all built between 1931 and 1935, yet each draft evolved independently, with little thought given to overall ensemble (see prewar movie stills 1936 1938 1939). Each set its own vector of development for the next two decades. The Mokhovaya Street Building by Zholtovsky, an Italian Renaissance architecture fantasy, is a direct precursor of post-war exterior luxury (Stalin's "Empire" style). However, its size is consistent with nearby 19th-century buildings. The Moskva Hotel by Alexey Shchusev. This line of development was uncommon in Moscow (a tower on top of Tchaikovsky Hall was never completed), but similar grand edifices were built in Baku and Kiev. Slim Roman arches of Moskva balconies were common all over the country in the 1930s. After the war they persisted in southern cities but disappeared from Moscow. Finally, Arkady Langman's STO Building (later Gosplan, currently State Duma): a modest but not grim structure with strong vertical detailing. This style, a clever adaptation of American Art Deco, required expensive stone and metal finishes, thus it had a limited influence – the House of Soviets in Leningrad, finished in 1941, and Tverskaya Street in Moscow. А separate type of development, known as "early Stalinism" or Postconstructivism, evolved from 1932 to 1938. It can be traced both to simplified Art Deco (through Schuko and Iofan), and to indigenous Constructivism, being converted slowly to Neoclassicism (Ilya Golosov, Vladimir Vladimirov). These buildings retain the simple rectangular shapes and large glass surfaces of