This is a huge grey building with expansive facades facing three streets – Lunacharskogo, Malysheva, and Mamina-Sibiryaka, which is why the residents have nicknamed it the “pentagon.” This had nothing to do with the external appearance of the colossal building resembling the US defense building, but rather the special status of the enterprise located hear (scientific development and production company “Avtomatika” deals in the development and manufacturing of hardware for space rocket technology). The story of its erection is a story of mind-boggling ambition and plans not brought to fruition. The All-Union competition for the development of the House of Industry project was announced in 1927 and involved the participation of the first stars in Soviet architecture – the Ural Oblast founded in 1923 and combining within its auspices the former Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen governments could afford that. The national economy residential trust was supposed to include, among other things, a 140-meter skyscraper, the highest in the Union, with an airship port on the roof. The construction works were begun in 1931. Lying at its foundation was an author team project under command of Daniil Fridman. By the summer of 1932, 4 floors of the skyscraper were ready, and the erection of the seven-story U-shaped building along the block’s perimeter. But in 1934, the Ural Oblast was broken up. Then a year later a new blow followed: a fire erupted that destroyed the two top floors of the future high-riser. As a result, construction of the main frames was completed with substantial modifications only in the 1960s; meanwhile, the might-have-been skyscraper, making its way only to 12 floors, has been put into operation later, only in the 1970s.