 Work began on Prague's Stalin monument
towards the end of 1949, and in May 1955,
it was finally unveiled.The largest group
sculpture in Europe during its existence,
the monument had a reinforced-concrete
structure faced with 235 granite blocks,
weighing 17,000 tonnes and costing
140 million crowns to complete.The gigantic composition, by sculptor
Otakar Švec and the architects Jiří
and Vlasta [his wife] Štursa, did not tower for long
over the medieval centre of Prague