Today, the photograph of Louis Kahn’s long ago and entirely lost competition drawing for the Lenin Memorial in Leningrad in 1933 is considered the only available document confirming Kahn’s involvement in this mysterious assignment.

Signed by the architect, the authenticity of whose authorship was confirmed by William J. Whitaker, chief curator of the Louis I. Kahn Collection at the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania, this photograph, in good condition and with some traces of time, has been described by archivists as a ‘miraculous survival’ and a precious document.