Ekaterinburg has one of the world's finest collections of constructivist architecture outside Moscow — a legacy of its role as the USSR's industrial showcase city in the 1920s and 1930s. The style, which emerged from the Russian Avant-Garde movement and sought to use pure form and industrial materials to create a new socialist aesthetic, produced some of the most radical buildings of the 20th century. Several excellent examples are concentrated within walking distance of each other in the central city.
Key buildings include the Chekist Town (Gorodok Chekistov) — a residential complex for NKVD workers designed as a hammer and sickle when seen from above — the Ural Workers' Newspaper Building with its dramatic curved facade, and the White Tower water tower. The constructivist architecture is often in poor repair and sometimes inaccessible, but the exteriors can be walked to freely. An architectural walking map is available from the tourism centre in the city. The contrast between these modernist 1920s buildings and the 18th-century merchant architecture a few blocks away is one of Ekaterinburg's distinctive pleasures.