Dome

Frontal view, showing the east entry; Situated in Red Square in Moscow, the mausoleum serves as the current resting place of Vladimir Lenin. His embalmed body has been on public display there since the year he died in 1924 (with rare exceptions in wartime). Aleksey Shchusev's diminutive but monumental granite structure incorporates some elements from ancient mausoleums, such as the Step Pyramid and the Tomb of Cyrus the Great. Numerous design variants lay between the first improvised timber version (1924) and the final building (1929-1930) of red, black and grey marble and granite. Rhythmically, volumetrically and in its colour this fitted in superbly with the Kremlin Wall behind, while remaining an uncompromisingly undecorated example of Modernist monumentality. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 6/22/2009)