Shukhov Tower

Moscow, 1922, about 160 meters. Vladimir Shukhov's radio tower on Shabolovka Street is a stack of hyperboloid sections, each one a mesh of straight steel bars that twist into a curved, waisted shape. That trick gave enormous stiffness for very little metal, which mattered: his first design called for 350 meters, and a shortage of steel in the years after the revolution cut it down to this. The photo shows the stacked sections narrowing toward the antenna at the top. It went into service as a radio transmitter in 1922 and became one of the landmarks of early Soviet engineering.