In the history of architecture there aren’t that many buildings that not only defined a new architectural style, but also instantaneously became symbols of a whole age

Dimplomatic relations between the USSR and France were first established on October 28th 1924. By the 1st of November the same year, the Soviet Union received an invitation to participate in the Paris exhibition that was going to commence in the spring of 1925.

In contrast to the luxurious style of art-deco, created for the consumerism-driven capitalist society, in the USSR the architecture did not offer much ornamentality. The country had other priorities to attend to, rather than to construct palaces. The brutish principles of avant-garde were a much better fit for the Soviet Russia, and it was the Russian constructivists who blazed the trail when it came to the avant-gard style.

It was decided that the USSR’s participation in the exhibition was to be used to promote the leftist ideas in Europe, so the country approached its programme in earnest. All of the best architects from the USSR took part in a series of competitions to qualify as the USSR pavilion’s architect.

There were no windows in his building — the vertical inset walls alternated with the floor to glazing extending from the 2nd the 1st floor, the openwork mast served as a vertical landmark and flagpole. Melnikov took a rectangular building as a basis — nothing could be more traditional — and cut it diagonally with a staircase leading to the first floor. This diagonal is covered by shield-wings painted in red. All visitors to the pavilion, who would pass under these wings, would inevitably be coloured "red". This was the way the world architectural revolution took Europe by storm.

The construction budget was limited, and Melnikov designed a light and inexpensive wooden structure. On 26 January Melnikov arrived in Paris, and in February the finished pre-assembled parts of the building arrived. The construction budget was limited, and Melnikov designed a light and inexpensive wooden structure. Nine workers erected the pavilion in a space of one month.

Almost the entire facade of the pavilion consisted of a glazed surface, thanks to which visitors to the exhibition could see the Soviet exposition without entering the room itself. And those observing from the stairs could see the entire exposition from above.

The area on which we built the pavilion was not only small (29.5 by 11 metres), but also highly inconvenient to build on. Tramways ran across the site, which, subject the conditions imposed on us by the Parisian authorities, we were not allowed to remove. Consequently, the dimensions of the building were limited not only horizontally but also vertically

Thanks to the support from Lunacharsky, the then Minister of Education, Vladimir Mayakovsky, one of the most acclaimed Soviet poets, and Commissar Leonid Krasin, who headed up the Commissariat for Foreign Trade, a young and promising architect named Konstantin Melnikov got the nod. He travelled to Paris in the beginning of 1925.

Alexander Rodchenko, оne of the founders of Constructivism, was in charge of the pavillion’s interior design. He selected the unique colour pallette for the building — red, white and grey. The most famous of the pavilion’s elements was his project for the workers' club interior design.

Rodchenko painted the floors of his club with soot so that it would spread to other parts of the exhibition covered with bourgeois carpets, symbolically "infecting" them and speaking of the promiscuity of market trade.

As Melnikov himself admitted 42 years later (in a conversation with historian Frederick Starr) — after the triumph in Paris, he had a strong urge not to return to Soviet Russia. But People’s Commissar Krasin called him back and in November 1925 Konstantin returned.