Mayakovskaya (Moscow Metro)

The station was built as part of the second stage of the Moscow Metro expansion, opening on 11 September 1938.^[3] Whereas the first stage had focused on building the system itself, the stations of the second stage were far more ambitious, both architecturally and in engineering terms. As a result, the earlier stations appear modest by comparison. Mayakovskaya was the first deep-level column station in the Moscow Metro: instead of the three-vault pylon layout used at earlier deep stations, its central vault is supported by two rows of columns, one on each side.^[4]

Located 33 metres beneath the surface, the station became famous during World War II when it served as an air-raid shelter.^[5] On 6 November 1941, the eve of the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution, Joseph Stalin addressed a meeting of the Moscow City Council held in the central hall of the station.^[6] According to the historian Robert Service, Stalin lived in the station for a time during the war.^[7]

At the 1939 New York World's Fair the Soviet Pavilion included a life-size showcase copy of this station, whose designer Alexey Dushkin was awarded the Grand Prize.^[8]

Alexey Dushkin's Art Deco architecture was based on a Soviet future as envisioned by the poet Mayakovsky. The station features streamlined columns faced with stainless steel and pink rhodonite, walls of white Ufaley marble and grey diorite, a flooring pattern of white and pink marble, and 35 niches, one for each vault.^[4] The niches are surrounded by filament lights.

The station's design and Deyneka's mosaics take flight as their theme, presenting the station as a celebration of Soviet mastery of the skies.^[1] Mayakovskaya was the first Metro station to use facings of stainless steel, a material then associated with aircraft design. Dushkin and his chief engineer consulted the aircraft designer A. I. Putilov on how to work with it.^[1] Instead of the smooth barrel vaults of the earlier stations, the ceiling consists of a series of groin vaults pierced by oval apertures, each rising to a cupola containing a mosaic.^[1] The 35 mosaics were produced to Deyneka's designs by the mosaic studio of the Leningrad Academy of Arts under V. Frolov.^[1] They follow a day in sequence along the platform, from morning at one end to the following morning at the other, and about three-quarters of them depict flight and aircraft, including the TB-3 bomber, parachutists and aerial sports such as diving and pole-vaulting.^[1]

On 2 September 2005, a second northern exit was opened, with a new surface vestibule built into an office building at the corner of 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street and 1st Tverskoy-Yamskoy Lane. The bust of Mayakovsky by the sculptor Alexander Kibalnikov was moved to the new vestibule.^[9] Passengers using the new exit descend a short escalator to an intermediate underground hall, and then take a long escalator to the surface. New mosaics were created for the exit, which also make extensive use of marble and stainless steel. The ceiling of the vestibule is decorated with a mosaic inspired by Mayakovsky's poem "Moscow Sky".^{[citation needed]}

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  Mayakovskaya station
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  Mayakovskaya new (northern) vestibule
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  Mayakovskaya southern vestibule
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  Station platform of Mayakovskaya station
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  Northern exit hall. Columns, ceiling mosaic and texts were inspired by Futurist art
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  Mayakovskaya Metro Station, Moscow, Russia