Designers write to Putin to express support for Moscow's Shukhov television tower as it faces demolition decision

In another part of the world, it would likely be a prime tourist attraction. But in Moscow, where rusting Soviet architectural feats are a dime-a-dozen, the 160m-tall Shukhov television tower faces a demolition decision before the end of the month.

A prime example of Soviet constructivist architecture, it has been called Russia's answer to the Eiffel Tower and has influenced engineers and architects, including Lord Foster, whose Gherkin skyscraper in London also employs such a diagonal grid. Foster called the Shukhov Tower a work of "dazzling brilliance and great historic importance" in a 2010 statement calling for its restoration.

Now more architects, including Rem Koolhaas, Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma, have weighed in on the need to preserve the tower in an open letter to President Vladimir Putin. Their support comes at a critical moment, as the Russian government is expected to make a decision on whether to tear it down on 24 March.

Built by the pioneering engineer Vladimir Shukhov during the Russian civil war, the hyperboloid structure is built from a diagonal grid of straight steel beams yet seems to pulsate as it rises skyward, each of its six sections growing smaller in the form of an upside-down spyglass.

The letter argues that the tower has "withstood the test of time" physically and in terms of its influence, noting that the concept of hyperboloid construction has been used in water tanks, electrical pylons, lighthouses and even communications masts on US warships.

"It is one of the emblems of Moscow, and one of the superlative engineering feats of the 20th century, still influencing and enriching technical and architectural ideas globally," the letter reads, calling on Putin to take immediate steps to ensure its preservation.

The tower carried the first television broadcasts in Moscow when it was completed in 1922. Since it stopped broadcasting in 2002, however, the tower serves no function for the Communications Ministry, which owns it, and it is closed to tourists and residents.

Instead, it offers a lucrative development opportunity, as it is in central Moscow's zone of historical construction, where new buildings cannot be taller than those they replace. The Shukhov Tower could be replaced by a 50-storey building in a prime location in one of the most expensive real-estate markets in the world.

The Communications Ministry has suggested that the tower be dismantled and later reassembled in a different place, arguing that it could fall on the residential buildings surrounding it.

But according to the Melnikov Central Research and Design Institute of Steel Structures, which was founded in part by Shukhov and has monitored the tower throughout its existence, the surface corrosion on the tower does not yet threaten its structural integrity and even if it did fall, it wouldn't fall sidewise on homes.

At a roundtable of architects, engineers and professors on Wednesday, the 92nd anniversary of the start of operations at the tower, Shukhov's grandson, also Vladimir, told the Guardian that dismantling the tower would lead to the loss of a monument of worldwide significance, which was one of the first buildings to be constructed on the basis of a mathematical model.

"The only method to work on the tower is for restorationists to work on it with professional climbers," he said.

The Shukhov Tower Foundation, headed by Vladimir, envisions conducting an international appraisal of the tower, changing its status from a regional to a federal monument, applying for Unesco status and holding a tender for restoration work to be carried out at the expense of its new owner, either the Culture Ministry or the City of Moscow. But before any of that occurs, the Russian government must rule against dismantling it, Shukhov said.

Yury Volchok, a professor at the Moscow Architectural Institute who has drafted a project for restoring the tower and developing tourist infrastructure around it, said it should be preserved as an example not only for students but also for professional architects, as it foreshadowed the modern trend of employing "linear elements to create non-linear spaces".

"Its greatness is that after almost 100 years without renovation, it's still standing, thanks to its form," Volchok said.

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