> What do you consider to be the defining features of Stalinist architecture though
It's complicated because it has rarely been studied in an ideological-free manner (or not that I know of), so I'm basing my judgements mostly on what I've seen built around me from that era and by reading a couple of local architecture magazines back from those days, magazines that were actively putting forward said "stalinist" style.
I'd say that this definition: "whatever happened to be built during Stalin's reign, whatever the style" is generally correct, with a small correction when it comes to the "whatever the style" part, as in it looks to me that there was some consistency in said style going from the mid-to-late 1930s to Stalin's death (in 1953), so that "whatever" part is a little forced.
As per said style itself I don't know how best to define it, mostly neo-classical with intense tints of grandiloquence, for example this building from Bucharest, Casa Scânteii [1], is a very good example of that style (said building is a "scaled-down" replica of the Main building of the Moscow State University [2]).
A good starting point could be this wikipedia page of a "stalinist" architect named Alexey Shchusev, the style that I'm talking about can be seen in his works going from about ~1935 to his death, so I wouldn't include the Constructivist period (which was in place throughout the '20s) as part of Stalinist architecture proper, but maybe that's just me. For those that know Romanian there's a recently published book about Shchusev called Alexey Shchusev, An Architect of the Imperial Russian Style [4], and by the same author I now see that there's a more general book on Stalinist architecture called Die Architektur Stalins [5], this one in German.
Leter edit: There's also an English version of that book on Shchusev: Alexey Shchusev: Architect of Stalin's Empire Style [6]
It's complicated because it has rarely been studied in an ideological-free manner (or not that I know of), so I'm basing my judgements mostly on what I've seen built around me from that era and by reading a couple of local architecture magazines back from those days, magazines that were actively putting forward said "stalinist" style.
I'd say that this definition: "whatever happened to be built during Stalin's reign, whatever the style" is generally correct, with a small correction when it comes to the "whatever the style" part, as in it looks to me that there was some consistency in said style going from the mid-to-late 1930s to Stalin's death (in 1953), so that "whatever" part is a little forced.
As per said style itself I don't know how best to define it, mostly neo-classical with intense tints of grandiloquence, for example this building from Bucharest, Casa Scânteii [1], is a very good example of that style (said building is a "scaled-down" replica of the Main building of the Moscow State University [2]).
A good starting point could be this wikipedia page of a "stalinist" architect named Alexey Shchusev, the style that I'm talking about can be seen in his works going from about ~1935 to his death, so I wouldn't include the Constructivist period (which was in place throughout the '20s) as part of Stalinist architecture proper, but maybe that's just me. For those that know Romanian there's a recently published book about Shchusev called Alexey Shchusev, An Architect of the Imperial Russian Style [4], and by the same author I now see that there's a more general book on Stalinist architecture called Die Architektur Stalins [5], this one in German.
Leter edit: There's also an English version of that book on Shchusev: Alexey Shchusev: Architect of Stalin's Empire Style [6]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Free_Press
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_building_of_Moscow_State_...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Shchusev
[4] https://cartier.ro/libraria/arta/alexei-sciusev-un-arhitect-...
[5] https://www.amazon.de/Die-Architektur-Stalins-Bd-Bilddokumen...
[6] https://ribabooks.com/Alexey-Shchusev-Architect-of-Stalins-E...