Monthly Archives: February 2011

If you discovered Part One of our Soviet Union Top Ten blog last week, you’ll know that we’re showcasing the most interesting architecture from the old USSR. Some are beautifully odd, with space-age influences and an aversion to Western design; some have fascinating stories, with architecture that reveals the politics and cultural obsessions of the time.

Part two of our look at the strange and the beautiful of Soviet Union architecture is found below.

6. DRUZHBA HOLIDAY CENTRE, YALTA

Photo courtesy of Argenberg

There’s no way round it; the Druzhba Holiday Centre is a remarkably strange building. Constructed near Yalta in 1984 and designed by Igor Vasilevsky, the iconic structure was designed for a holiday camp in the popular resort of Yalta in the Ukraine. Visitors enter the camp through the glass tube catwalk that is clearly visible on the above photo to the left of the building, and can then descend into the camp through the legs of the building, which house lift shafts and stairs. Within the main building is a cinema, dance hall, cafe and swimming pool, with the guest rooms around the outside creating the circular saw shape that adds an edgy sharpness to the futuristic style. In fact, the building’s style looks so far from its purpose that the American Department of Defence mistook it for a rocket launcher when it was originally constructed. Ironically, ‘Druzhba’ translates as ‘friendship’.

7. THE NARKOMFIN BUILDING

Left: The Narkomfin building in 2009, photo: Nikolai Vassiliev

Right: The Narkomfin building in the 1930s, photographer unknown

The Narkomfin building may not look very special from the outside, but it has been described as ‘one of Russia’s most important Constructivist buildings’ and ‘one of the most daring buildings of the 20th century’. Built in 1928, and completed in 1932, it was designed by Moisei Ginzburg to house workers for the Commissariat of Finance (nicknamed the Narkomfin). The architect wanted to build along collectivist lines, with much of the building’s facilities being communal. However, he faced the problem of housing shortages in Moscow; space was at a premium, and any housing that contained more than one room was

The Narkomfin building in the 1930s, photographer unknown often converted into a kommunalka – accommodation for multiple families. To combat this, he created ‘vertical’ apartments – apartments that were small enough avoid partitioning and had one living area downstairs that connected to an exterior corridor, with a bedroom above. Whilst this may sound unreasonably sparse, the complex’s facilities were communal, with kitchens, dining spaces, laundry, crèches, library and gymnasium provided for all residents to use. Through this, the idea was to emphasise the collectivist principles of socialism and to break down the perceived oppression of women within the family unit by allowing women to break free of their traditional roles. Unfortunately, the Soviet utopianism that drove forward the project waned almost as soon as the Narkomfin building was completed, following the beginning of the Five Year Plans and Stalin’s consolidation of power. This new era of purges and secret police didn’t fit with the romantic ideals of communal living, and the building was labelled ‘Trotskyist’ and old-fashioned. The original plans for the building included for three other blocks to be built along the same lines; these plans fell through, and an adjoining block was built in a Stalinist fashion. The roof garden overlooked the American Embassy, and as such became little-used; the communal recreational area on the roof became the penthouse of the Commissar of Finance, and the use of other communal facilities petered out following the rising paranoia and suspicion prevalent in Russian society with the introduction of the secret police and the purges. Tenants instead partitioned tiny kitchen spaces into the living area of their apartments.

The building is now in an extremely dilapidated state, despite still having residents occupying half the apartments, and has three times been on the World Monument Fund’s watch list and is at the top of UNESCO’s endangered buildings list – a sad demise for a project that inspired the likes of Le Corbusier, Moshe Sadie, Berthold Lubetkin and Denys Lasdun. The grandson of Moisei Ginzburg, Alexey Ginzburg, has proposed turning the Narkomfin building into an apartment hotel, thus revitalising and renovating such an important structure in Soviet history.

8. RUSAKOV WORKERS’ CLUB

Photo courtesy of NVO

Rusakov Workers’ Club in Moscow is an extraordinarily modern looking building considering that it was constructed in 1928. Designed by Konstantin Melnikov, who described the building’s exterior as ‘a tensed muscle’, the workers’ club was a venue commissioned by trade unions that provided education, propaganda and community centre-style functions for the communities of workers that lived nearby. Melnikov won competitions to build five clubs around the Moscow area; the Rusakov club is the most architecturally impressive. The cantilevered sections at the front each hold a seating area; the three can be used as completely independent theatre halls, or linked together to create an auditorium that can seat up to 1,000 people. Offices are located to the rear of the building.

The cantilevered sections also provide an important aesthetic function, casting the structure ‘as individualist against the general backdrop of urban buildings, and setting apart the socialist building from a Moscow that had been shaped by Tsars. Once Stalin began to establish his own architectural style in the 1930s through his state architectural department, Melnikov refused to design any further buildings, and retired from architecture in 1933. The building itself is now in poor condition, and although the roof was repaired in 2000 by the World Monuments Fund in conjunction with American Express and the Moscow Committee for Monuments Protection, it still needs much renovation to restore it to its former glory. Questions have been raised, however, over renovation for the project, with some arguing that any serious renovation to the structure would destroy the building’s authenticity as a Soviet piece.

9. WEDDING PALACE, TBILISI

Photo courtesy of Frederic Chaubin and Socialism Expo

Sometimes known as the Palace of Ceremonies, this flamboyant structure started out life as a multi-faith wedding chapel, designed by Victor Djorbanadze and completed in 1984. It was inspired by Le Corbusier’s modernist church at Ronchamp, itself a work that incorporates thick, curved walls that intimate a relationship between the structure and the surrounding landscape. This structure is, however, far more intricate, with shell-like patterns weaving around spiral columns and towers to create an organic-looking structure. Djorbanadze dedicated the left-hand spiral block as ‘male’, where the groom’s party assembles, and the right-hand spiral as ‘female’ (seen here as the foremost tower with six asymmetrical circular windows), where the bride enters. The pair would then meet in front of the altar for the ceremony, before passing past the ‘Fountain of Life’ and exiting under the central bell tower. The whole structure is said to be based upon the female reproductive system, with the new couple being ‘reborn’ together.

In 2001 the Georgian millionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili purchased the Wedding Palace and turned it into his personal residence. Sadly, Patarkatsishvili died in 2008, and it is not known what will happen to the building in his absence.

10. MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY MAIN BUILDING

Photo courtesy of Frederic Chaubin

We could have picked something obviously off-the-wall for our final building, but Moscow State University has a fine example of Stalinist architecture that demands a closer look. From its gloriously over-the-top baroque influences to its record-breaking reign as the tallest educational building in the world, it is an immensely impressive structure – which is precisely what it was designed to be. Stalin had his heart set on building skyscrapers in Moscow from 1941, but the Second World War meant that his plans had to be abandoned until peacetime. From 1947, Stalin set about commissioning a series of eight skyscrapers, saying: ‘We won the war … foreigners will come to Moscow, walk around, and there’s no skyscrapers. If they compare Moscow to capitalist cities, it’s a moral blow to us’. One of the projects never got beyond the design stage, but seven others, including the Moscow State University, were commissioned and built, earning the nickname Seven Sisters. Deceptively tall, the MSU contains 36 storeys and was the tallest building in Europe until 1990, housing 33km of corridor. Even the star at the very top of the complex, looking so tiny in the above photo, actually weighs 12 tons and contains a small room and viewing platform.

The construction of the Main Building took place from 1949 to 1953, involving a workforce of up to 14,290 workers working day and night, some Gulag labourers, which were overseen by Lavrenty Baria, Stalin’s right-hand man. The choice of site on the Sparrow Hills was a strange one – declared by Ivan the Terrible in the 17^th century to be too windy to build on, the original architect (Boris Iofan) tried to justify placing his design right on the edge of the hill in a potential landslide area, and was promptly fired from the project. The replacement architect, Lev Rudnev, set the building back 800 metres as part of his redesign, and was awarded the Stalin’s Prize in 1949 for his work on the project. The exterior is beautifully gothic, with barometers, thermometers, Soviet crests, carved wheat sheaves, statues and clocks that are 9 metres in diameter adding to the overall sense of grandeur. The interior houses a concert hall, a theatre, a museum, various administrative services, a library, a swimming pool, a post office, a laundry, a police station, a hairdresser’s salon, several canteens, bank offices, cafeterias and even a bomb shelter  – perhaps necessary in the run-up to the Cold War and Stalin’s increasing paranoia. The foyer is rumoured to be the most beautiful, but heavily guarded even today, meaning that few are able to see the green marble lobby, decorated with bronze statues of Soviet thinkers and scientists.

The London Skyline Series will be back as normal next week.

As a country, Russia is best known for its golden domes, baroque influences and highly colourful, complex decorations. Beneath this, however, hides an interesting period of architecture that is perhaps not so studied – the legacy of the Soviet Union.

Mentioning the Soviet Union usually evokes images of grey concrete boxes and inner-city squalor in most Western minds, but Russia has more to offer than its Krushchyovka prefabricated structures lurking in downtown Moscow. The Soviet Union produced some striking – and sometimes bizarre – structures, ranging from stark student accommodation to futuristic office space to opulent skyscrapers. We run through our ten most interesting examples in two parts – Part One takes us through the first five, from Space Cities to communal sparseness.

1. TBILISI ROADS MINISTRY BUILDING

Photo courtesy of Donovan Driver

If you want to start with a bang, this building is definitely the way to go. Designed in the 1970s by George Chakhava, who was both the lead architect and the client for the project, the building pioneered the ‘Space City’ method, whereby the building uses as little ground as possible, instead extending up into the air and allowing the landscape to flourish around the building. The concept was conceived from forest structures, where the trunks of trees have a relatively small footprint, but a large crown. As can clearly be seen in the above photo, nature has been encouraged to exist harmoniously alongside the building, showing an element of eco-awareness rare for the time it was built.

Amidst all the greenery, however, the architecture itself relies on fairfaced concrete and sharp geometrics – a space age look that combines aspect of Brutalism and Structuralism. Resembling a game of Jenga, the Tbilisi Roads Ministry Building has five horizontal parts, each with two storeys, resting on three cores, and resides on a steep hill next to the Kura River. As a result, the highest core is 18 storeys tall and the building can be accessed from either end. The building is considered an antithesis of American skyscrapers with its division of horizontal work spaces and vertical cores that contain the building’s stairs and lifts, effectively reinforcing the divide between East and West in a simple act of architecture. Now the property of the Bank of Georgia and currently subject to renovation, the structure was made into a National Monument in 2007.

2.  COMMUNAL HOUSE OF THE TEXTILE INSTITUTE

Photos courtesy of NVO

Also known as Nikolaev’s House, after the architect that designed it, the Communal House of the Textile Industry is a remarkable example of collectivism and design. Completed in 1931, it is both a work of architecture and politics, and has a truly remarkable history.

The brainchild of Ivan Nikolaev, a young architect given the task of designing student accommodation for three campuses, the concept for Nikolaev’s House was born out of limitation. Imposed on the build was a maximum cost and volume of the project, with each student entitled to 50m³ of living space.  Should the architect choose to incorporate any communal space into the design, such as study areas or common rooms, the space had to be taken out of each student’s quota. As a result, Nikolaev divided the building strictly into communal areas and living space, creating an H-shaped structure that featured a public services block (with a cafe, storage areas and showers) as the connection between an eight storey dormitory and a three storey study block. Each dormitory room was for sleeping space only, with student possessions – including textbooks and clothes – stored in lockers within the public services block. Nikolaev’s original design had dorm rooms of only two metres square and 3.2 metres tall, with no windows but connected onto corridors with exterior walls, and an elaborate ventilation system installed to provide fresh air. This proved a little too radical for the university, and the rooms were expanded to 2.7m by 2.3 metres, with each having a window of its own. Still, the windows were very narrow – only 90cm high – and ran the full length of the building. Within the public services block, as the photo above shows, there was also a series of ramps forming a triangular walkway leading upstairs, much like the famous Guggenheim Museum’s spiral ramp.

The real functionality of Nikolaev’s project comes into its own when it is paired with the architect’s recommendations for the typical student day. Each student was to rise at the wake-up call and proceed to the exercise areas (either to communal gym or the exercise yard) to perform the morning’s exercises. At this point, all sleeping quarters would be locked until evening time. After exercise, students would shower and get dressed in the public services block and eat breakfast. Following this, they would follow their scheduled university day, either at lectures or studying in the common areas provided. Nikolaev even suggested using the ventilation system to sedate students at night so that they uniformly fell asleep, declaring ‘do not rule out the feasibility of sleepening additives’. Fortunately for the students, this last measure was never implemented, although in the initial years of opening the vigorously structured routine was maintained. Unfortunately, the Communal House at present is fairly dilapidated, with parts being used for office space and the accommodation block itself gutted and abandoned. Work to restore the building is underway, with plans to renovated it into modern campus accommodation.

3. THE DERZHPROM

Photo courtesy of Shmuliko

Situated in Kharkiv, in the Ukraine, the Derzhprom (translated as ‘State Industry Building’ or ‘Palace of Industry’) was constructed in the 1920s, but has been hailed as one of the major architectural achievements of the 1920s and was the tallest structure in Europe for a brief time. Designed by architects S. Serafimov, S. Kravets and M. Felger, its use of individual concrete interlocking towers and suspended overhead walkways has produced an impressive yet imposing piece of Constructivist architecture that looks far more modern than its 80-something years.

The construction of the Derzhprom was remarkable, with the 5,000 workers involved on the project working in three shifts. Services and offices for the site were located in a purpose-built wooden one-storey office nearby to ensure efficient management of the build. As a result, the Derzhprom took only three years to complete – quite a feat considering that when the build began, the construction work was done by hand using shovels, wheelbarrows, picks and sledgehammers. By completion in 1929, 80% of the work had been mechanised. Impressively, seven of the twelve original lifts installed in 1928 still work today.

Currently, the building has been split for several uses, and one of the towers is occupied by a Ukrainian television centre. A TV relay tower has been installed on the roof.

4. POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OF MINSK

Photo courtesy of Wizardist

Somewhat resembling a giant ski slope or an ocean liner, this impressive University building is located in Minsk in Belarus. Designed by I. Yesman and V. Anakin in 1983, its novel design certainly earns it a place on this top ten, with commenters describing it as resembling ‘some mighty passenger ferry breaking through a frozen Belarussian river’. The overhanging right hand end of the structure may appear to be purely decorative but in fact contains a series of lecture halls. Now the architectural building for the Belarus National Technical University, the building seems perfectly suited for inspiring students to push their designs beyond the norm.

5. HOUSE OF SOVIETS, KALININGRAD

Photos courtesy of Vladimir Sedach and Maarten Dirkse

Sometimes the most interesting buildings are not necessarily the most beautiful. The history of Kaliningrad’s House of Soviets is a fascinating look at Soviet politics and propaganda – and the pitfalls of terrible architecture. A. A. Gill, the famous columnist, once termed it ‘the most stratospherically ghastly building ever conceived’, and it has previously been described as ‘the ugliest building on Russian soil’.

Kaliningrad was originally a German (Prussian) city prior to World War II. Following heavy fighting, the city was taken by Russian forces in 1945, and has remained Russian ever since, although it stands isolated from the Russian mainland between Poland and Lithuania. The site that the House of Soviets stands on originally played host to part of the Königsberg Castle, a beautiful 13^th century Gothic Castle that was damaged by bombing in the Second World War. The Soviet authorities decided not to restore the Castle, deeming it to be a symbol of fascism, and instead tore it down in 1960s, building the House of Soviets on top of the filled-in moat.

It was intended to be the central administration building for the new, revitalised Kaliningrad, but unfortunately funding was cut to the redevelopment of Kaliningrad and the House of Soviets was never finished, earning it the nickname ‘Dug-in Robot’ amongst locals. During 2005, a visit from the then-President Vladimir Putin prompted a revamp of the exterior, with a light blue makeover and the installation of windows. However, the interior is still unfinished and is unusable, and there are plans to demolish the structure to make way for a reproduction of the original Castle.

Join us next week for the remaining five wonders of Soviet Union architecture – from the beautiful to the bizarre.