Erected on the grounds of Königsberg Castle, which had been blown up, the House of Soviets was intended to double up as the seat of the municipal government and the Communist Party. This dual usage was expressed by the two wings. Given the stylized face the building is also called the “buried robot”.

Construction started in 1970 and never ended owing to load-bearing difficulties and financial problems. Additional construction phases in the 1980s. Façade made in 2005 and repainted since. The interior was never completed, so it remained basically a ruin.

The House of Soviets in Kaliningrad was demolished in 2023 after being considered unused and controversial for a long time. Planned renovations and possible uses never materialized. Instead, there are plans to create a park on the site. This is seen as part of a wider urban development plan for the center of Kaliningrad, and the decision to demolish the building was met with both support and criticism. The demolition of the building was announced on November 12, 2020 and the demolition works took place from May 18, 2023 to August 2024.

This building was included in the red list, published in our exhibition catalog SOS Brutalism: A Global Survey (September 2017). After a status review on October 28, 2024, it was reclassified in the online database from red (endangered) to black (demolished).