For Boris Iofan, the most prominent of Stalin’s architects, the patronage of a murderous dictator came at serious personal risk — as much to his critical reputation as to his life. Rather than not build at all, he was prepared to build what the dictator demanded of him. As a result, Iofan is now remembered not for his considerable talent, but for the way that his buildings came to define Stalinist architecture as it was practiced from Warsaw to Beijing.
