Constructivism / Modernism

Printing plant of the party publishing house and the newspaper "Pravda".

One of the most significant monuments of constructivism and the main building of the architect Panteleimon Golosov. The building was erected on Pravdy Street overlooking the Leningradskoye Highway in 1930-1935. In Soviet times, it housed the newspaper "Pravda", "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Soviet Russia", "Rural Life".

The building consists of two buildings: an eight-story editorial and publishing building and a lowered printing building perpendicular to it. The long main facade of the editorial building with horizontal ribbons of windows, interrupted by vertical rows of balconies and blank walls on the sides, overlooks Pravdy Street. The central part with solid glazing, brought forward slightly, is located above the entrance with powerful columns, a stylobate and a horizontal slab in the form of an ellipsoid. The buildings form two courtyards. The laconic and expressive appearance of the building is close to the style of the great French architect Le Corbusier, who admired the construction of P.A. Golosova.

The premises of the editorial office were decorated with marble and wood paneling. Furniture and lighting fixtures were made in the constructivist style without the participation of the author. In 2006, the building was badly damaged by fire and was taken out of service.

House on legs

The idea of “houses on legs” dates back to the architectural fashion of the 1920s: they were designed by Le Corbusier (Unité d'habitation in Marseille, the Central Union building on Myasnitskaya Street) and Soviet constructivists (Narcomfin’s house on Novinsky Boulevard, Communal House on Ordzhonikidze street). The construction of the “house on the legs”, designed by architect Andrei Meyerson, began in 1973. Initially, it was planned to build it on the shore of the Khimki reservoir near the Vodny Stadion metro station for a hotel. However, subsequently, the city authorities decided to move the building to the territory of one of the main entrances to Moscow - to Begovaya Street.

Like the Marseille prototype, its supports and trapezoidal bottom are cast from monolithic reinforced concrete. This method, rarely allowed in Soviet construction, allows you to make sculptural forms, and Meyerson took advantage of this opportunity - faceted trapezoidal legs are very expressive. But even higher ductility does not weaken. Unlike the earlier Moscow counterparts, which are not very different from ordinary multi-dwelling houses, the house on Begovaya seems to be covered with a shell: the panels of its walls are joined not in one plane, but overlap, so that the edge of the upper one covers the lower one. Architects explained this by the desire to avoid getting wet and blowing interpanel seams. In panel construction, this is indeed a frequent misfortune, and in this case the risk was aggravated by the fact that the construction was carried out in an economic way, that is, with the help of the workers of factory Znamya Truda, for whose workers the house was intended.

House of Music

In terms of creativity, this building has no equal in Moscow. It was conceived as the House of Music, which had never existed before. The authors began with the utmost lapidarity, a kind of "building with a secret", "music box". Inside, everything sounds and sings, but outside there are blank walls, because neither the museum nor the concert hall need windows. However, the lower level of the building is hospitable entirely glazed and soars and is open on legs. This image, dating back to the Doge's Palace (deaf top, transparent bottom), was very popular with Soviet cultural institutions. And he was especially loved by the masters of Stalin's tempering, to whom belonged also Joseph Loveiko, who throughout his life carried the loyalty of the heavy monumentality: this is the Sovetskaya hotel, and the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at 6 Ogareva, and the Yerevan cinema. But the museum did not start building for a long time: in the mid-70s, the construction of cultural structures was frozen. Meanwhile, the asceticism of the 60s began to seem dry and insufficient, but the enthusiasm for the "synthesis of arts" began and the authors decided to "enrich" the building with the help of monumental art, introducing stained glass, sculpture and metal relief into the composition. These visual accents already exist in the first version of the building. In the 60s, the project looks like a solid brutalist volume, and all these elements are united by a spectacular geometric pattern drawn on the marble chips of the facade. But gradually the drawing becomes more and more faded, and each of the elements begins to claim the role of the first violin.

In the 2000s, the legs of the facade were dressed in metal, and the space between them was compacted and taken into the terrible frames of double-glazed windows.
In 2010, a project for a complete reconstruction of the building was made in the workshop "Sergey Kiselev and Partners". “When we were told that we can clean the facade, writes one of its authors, Vladimir Labutin, I decided to respect the work of my predecessors. We decided to transfer the drawing that is on today's facade to a glass screen, where there is a very expressive Suprematism.

The club named after S.M. Zuev

According to the results of the competition, the club named after S.M. Zuev was realized in 1927-1929 by the architect I.A. Golosov, who, along with the architect K.S. Melnikov, the Utility Workers' Union ordered the design of the building.

Elegant and expressive, it became one of the "star" buildings of the architectural avant-garde, becoming the most famous building of the architect I.A. Golosov, a monument to the master's formative concept.

The club is located on the red line of Lesnaya Street, occupying a corner position on a disproportionately long stretch.

The composition of the club is based on the intersection of the vertical glass cylinder of the staircase and the horizontal parallelepiped of the upper floor. The center of the composition - the cylinder - is oriented towards the intersection. The main facade faces Lesnaya Street, and the side facade is 10 meters from the tram park, a stone's throw from potential club visitors. Therefore, his canteen served the workers of the park, having an independent exit to the street.

The rectangular space of the club houses an auditorium for 850 seats, a small hall and a large group of club rooms. The flat roof functioned as a solarium, over which a canvas ceiling was stretched, or a sports and dance floor.

Despite the alterations of the 1940s (the auditorium with daylight was turned into a theater) and major renovations in 1978-1980 before the Olympic Games (a rafter structure and a pitched metal roof were erected instead of a flat roof, there were also changes in the decoration of the interiors), the image has been preserved and the stylistic features of the 1920s club.

Krasnopresnensky District Council building

Built in 1928 - 1929 designed by architects A. Golubev and N. Shcherbakov and is one of the first buildings of city district councils in the USSR. The building is the result of the search for a new form of representative building in the new Soviet state.

The building is brick-built and has three floors. The internal layout has a corridor system with offices located on both sides of the corridor. The architectural feature is the presence of elements protruding from the plane of the main facade, as well as attics imitating a flat roof. A forward-facing portico with a simplified shape accentuates the main entrance. The architectural completeness of the building is given by the contrasting of blank walls and window openings from strongly protruding blocks of stairs, which are emphasized by vertical windows.

The first house of the Russian railway building cooperative partnership

1928

A small four-storey house with a symmetrical facade. Its brick side and courtyard walls are devoid of decor, as in pre-revolutionary tenement houses. The main facade is plastered and decorated with two glazed bay windows with a relief inscription over the passage arch: "The first house of R.Zh.S.K.T-va", executed in a typical "chopped" font of the 1920s. Small balconies on thick concrete consoles protrude from bay windows with high attics concealing a pitched roof. A metal parapet between bay windows along the entire length of the main facade gives the impression that the building has a flat roof terrace.

Maryinsky Mostorg (MSPO Krasnaya Presnya Department Store)

Architect: K. Yakovlev
1927-1928

Such shops were built in every district of Moscow, each according to an individual project. The corner building has a layout characteristic of this type - large display windows, a "front" corner three-flight staircase and trading rooms along two external facades. Until the 1940s, the store had smooth walls, emphasizing the smooth curvature of the facade and the "intangibility" of the glazing. Above the entrance was the name in large cut-off type. Later, the building was re-plastered, window frames and cornice were added, but the overall composition of the facades was preserved.

Garage "Intourist"

1933-1936
Architect: Melnikov K.S.

The development of the garage project was entrusted to the Architectural and Design Workshop of the Moscow City Council No. 7, headed by KS Melnikov. It was a typical constructivist industrial building with flat, richly glazed facades. Already at the last stage, KS Melnikov himself joined the design.

“I almost never touched the technological essence <...>,” - recalled Konstantin Melnikov in 1965, - “leaving this, as well as the development of working drawings, to my very executive associate architect V.I. »The main facade of the Intourist garage, like most of Melnikov's other buildings, was conceived as a single figurative composition of various geometric shapes that take the form of a circle, trapezoid and rectangle. The facade of the garage was interpreted by the architect as a screen, in the center of which (in a round "showcase") cars continuously flicker along the inner spiral ramp. The diagonal used by Melnikov in most of his projects, in the Intourist garage project, takes on the role of the compositional dominant of the facade: starting from the bottom of a huge round window, it cuts through the entire main facade, skirting the building on the left and drawing an infinity sign on it.

"The tourist's path is depicted as infinity," wrote Melnikov, "starting from the sweep of the curve and directing it at a rapid pace upward into space." In the upper part of the main facade of the building, the logo of Intourist was to be located. From the left corner of the main facade, according to Melnikov's project, the main entrance to the building was to be located, crowned with a balcony with a sculptural composition. The completed part of the project with an elastic curl of a stained-glass window on the facade, divided vertically by double thin pilasters, is clearly cut off from its acute-angled beginning, from where the wide edge of the second triangle begins in the project, which vanishes under the lower boundary of the circle. Attached to the left at the beginning of the 60s, a faceless volume turned the implemented fragment of Melnikov's plan into a facade decoration with a hidden meaning, which only enhances the aesthetic dignity.

MIIT club and hostel

The building was designed by architects S. Gerolsky and L. Velikovsky, executed in the avant-garde style. The project was proposed in the 1920s, but construction proceeded intermittently and was completed in the mid-1930s, and the design and interior underwent some changes influenced by changes in architectural fashion.

The exterior is made in a restrained and laconic style; a glazed facade is effectively open into the alley. The glazed foyer and the corner of the building are outlined, made in the form of a cylinder cut into a parallelepiped.

Svoboda Factory Club

The club building on Vyatskaya Street in Moscow, built in 1929 according to the project of Konstantin Melnikov for workers of the State soap and cosmetic factory “Svoboda” of the TEZhE Trust No. 4 of the Union of Chemists.

The architectural idea of Svoboda Factory Club, submitted by K. S. Melnikov to the Union of Chemists, turned out to be the opposite of the three clubs previously designed for this union:
“... if in those previous mechanical forms of architecture consisted in the integration of rooms,” K. Melnikov wrote in 1965, “in the Palace on Vyatka Street, the auditorium was designed with an elongated elliptical cross section of the cistern, which was cut in half by the lowering wall into “cinema” and “theater” with the whole complexly equipped stage. "

Of all the completed buildings of K. Melnikov, the project of Svoboda Factory Club underwent the greatest changes during the construction. According to the initial project, a swimming pool was provided under the floor of the club’s auditorium, which it was decided not to build during construction, since there was no water supply and sewage in this section of Vyatskaya Street. The entrances to the Club were designed as four ramps leading directly to the second floor: two of them are located on the side of Vyatskaya street and two on the side of the park. Symmetrical ramps on both sides of the building was designed not only for the entrance to the club, but also for passing through the auditorium of mass processions and demonstrations. In addition, entrances leading to the club lobby were designed under the ramps. During the construction, the ramps were replaced by stairs, and from the side of the park it was decided not to build them at all. The active use of Melnikov in the project of Svoboda Factory Club and a number of other buildings of external stairs is explained by his desire to reduce the volume of internal auxiliary rooms: fire safety standards of those years required for internal stairs very large cubic capacity, but it did not extend to the size of the exterior. Failure to build a pool and ramps entailed a change in the structural and spatial order.

The Novo-Sukharevsky market

The Novo-Sukharevsky market (also the “Novosukharevsky market”) is the Moscow food and industrial market that existed in 1925-1930 in the area between the modern Bolshoi Sukharevsky Lane, Trubnaya Street and Sadovaya-Sukharevskaya Street. It was also known as New Sukharevka.

The market was built according to the project of the Soviet architect Konstantin Melnikov.

In the center of the converging beams in 1924-1926, the office building (committee) of the Novo-Sukharevsky market was built, which in addition to the market administration also housed a tavern. The brick office of the Novo-Sukharevsky market was the only building on the territory of the market that was not built of wood. The plastered and lime-painted facades of the office had a different solution, which was due to the peculiar creative style of the architect, noticeable in most of his buildings. The building consisted of several volumes, the main part of which was three-story. An open terrace was arranged on the roof of the building, where a staircase from the third floor led.

Narkomlegprom

The Centrosoyuz building (also known as Narkomlegprom (People's Commissariat of Light Industry) Building, CSB Building) is an office building on Myasnitskaya Street in Moscow. Built in 1928-1936 in an international style designed by the French architect Le Corbusier with the participation of Pierre Jeanneret and Nicholas Collie. The facades of the building are simultaneously facing two parallel streets - Myasnitskaya and Akademika Sakharova Avenue. At various times, the building housed various administrative institutions; since 1991, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and the Federal Financial Monitoring Service have been located in it. An object of cultural heritage of the peoples of Russia of regional significance.

The building of the Central Union is the first example of the joint work of Soviet and European architects in the spirit of an international style that has come into vogue everywhere since the early 1950s. “The huge glazed walls of the house give him a cold, monotonous and inhospitable character. It seems that behind these walls people should work hard, automatically, sadly, gloomily. This is Americanism, alien to us and unacceptable in Soviet conditions.
Schedule Sergey Kozhin »
The building is a vivid example of Le Corbusier’s creative style “The Five Starting Points of Modern Architecture”, which in the process of work he added “the principle of free circulation of people and air”. The building became one of the first large office complexes in Europe, the features of which are a huge area of facade glazing, open pillars, supporting blocks of offices, free spaces on the ground floor, horizontal roof. Attracting attention, the wall cladding of the house is made of pink Artik tuff.

According to its layout, the House of the Central Union is similar to the building of the Ministry of Health and Education in Rio de Janeiro, designed by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer with the participation of Le Corbusier. Other Similar Works by Le Corbusier - Swiss Pavilion (Fr.) in Paris and the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Both buildings are large glazed rectangles.

The building of the printing house and the editorial board of the Izvestia Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee newspaper

The building of the printing house and the editorial board of the Izvestia Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee newspaper was built in 1925-1927 according to a project drawn up by architect Grigory Barkhin with the participation of architect Ivan Zvezdin and engineer Arthur Loleit. It was built on Strastnaya Square, next to the Strastnoy Monastery, on the site of an 18th-century house that previously belonged to Maria Ivanovna Rimsky-Korsakova.

In 1975, on the site of the demolished “Famusov’s house”, a new building was added to the building (5, Pushkinskaya Square) according to the modernist project of the team of architects under the direction of Yuri Sheverdyaev (architects V. Kilpe, A. Maslov, V. Utkin, engineers V. Markovich , V. Pernes, B. Saffron). In 1979, Sytin’s office building in front of the new building was moved to the side of Nastasinsky Lane (1904, architect A. E. Erichson, with the participation of V. G. Shukhov), which was also included in the Izvestia building complex.

The building consists of 2 buildings connected by a staircase. The land allotted for construction was small, but it was required to put the entire Izvestia team in one building, so the initial project involved the construction of a 12-story tower above the staircase. He had to refuse it in 1926, when the ban on the construction of buildings above 7 floors within the Garden Ring came into force.

The facade of the building is formed by a frame underlined by architectural elements: vertical and horizontal ceilings create a clear grid with square openings of the printing house windows occupying the lower levels. On the upper floor are editorial offices with large round windows-portholes. The dynamics of the facade are given by asymmetrically located balconies and a square clock at the end of the building. Brick walls are plastered with imitation of concrete, a new material for the 1920s. Finishing work was carried out by Italian masters who had previously worked on the building of the Museum of Fine Arts, using technologies tested at the museum building, for example, adding granite chips to plaster.

House-commune "Isotherm"

House-commune "Isotherm" - a seven-story building in the style of constructivism, located in the Meshchansky district of Moscow. It was built in the 1930s according to the project of the architect Nikolai Collie for the Isotherm Housing and Building Cooperative Partnership (ZSKT Isotherm). House-commune "Isotherm" is made in the style of constructivism and differs meager decor, as well as the unusual use of free space. The main building is built along Rozhdestvenka, from the side of the lane at an acute angle, the second wing adjoins it. The slanted corner of the structure is emphasized by a bay window, which is the compositional center of the ensemble. It hangs over the first floor without additional supports. The wide windows of this part of the building repeat the geometry of the house, which visually facilitates the supporting structure. The building on the side of the alley is interesting for the layout of balconies. They highlight the far corner of the facade and are connected by a support that breaks off at the bottom. According to art critics, the lack of additional supports for the bay window and balconies is due to the use of particularly durable materials new for that time, which is typical for the constructivism style. The rhythm of the windows emphasizes the horizontal direction of movement. Only stairwells are equipped with vertical strip lighting.

Mossovet residential building

1930
architect S. Kozlov

Office building of Transstroy Trust

The six-story office building was built in 1929-1932 according to the project of architects I. Komarov, N. Godunov and engineer V. Rimsky-Korsakov.
The asymmetric building is indented from the red line of the street, one of the walls of the lobby has a round window, the roof of the lobby is a roof-terrace.

House number 19/6 on Bolshoy Kozikhinsky

House number 19/6 on Bolshoy Kozikhinsky lane, built in the style of constructivism in 1933.
During the Great Terror, six people were taken away from this house to be shot.

Assay Administration

Assay Administration (1897, architect NI Kakorin, building architect JS Burgardt), the restructuring, the 20-ies. XX century in the style of constructivism.

All-Union Planning Academy (APA) named after VM Molotov at the State Planning Committee of the USSR.

Built in 1937 by architect D. V. Razov.

House of the Union of Builders (Builders' Club)

1929, architect I.I.Fyodorov

The building is designed in the style of constructivism, being its typical example. The house is designed from several volumes, contrasting with each other in shape and mass, as if cutting into each other of a three-story cylinder and a two-story parallelepiped. The architectural feature of the building is the alternation of relatively large windows with an open plane of plastered walls, which gives the architectural solution a dynamic.

Currently, the building has been partially reconstructed, as a result of which its exterior has also changed. In particular, part of the windows and the entrance to the semicircular volume were laid, the visor was cut off above it, and an additional floor was built up.

Dom Novogo Byta (The House of New Life)

The building, which has been occupied by the House of Graduate Student and Trainee since 1971, was conceived as a social and architectural experiment to create mass housing for the country of victorious communism, without taking into account the constraints of the current moment in time.
Initially, it was called the House of New Life and was designed by a group of architects led by Nathan Osterman, the author of the experimental 9th quarter of New Cheryomushki, for singles and young families. This is an early example of participatory architecture, in which selected prospective tenants directly proposed infrastructure and internal organization options. In parallel with the architects, sociological scientists worked, studying the influence of the organization of the living environment on the formation of personality and the idea of a Soviet person at the end of the 1960s about the desired housing.

The House of New Life was supposed to become a multifunctional residential complex with a variety of public spaces and a system of consumer services that relieved residents of the burdensome household, freeing up time for sports, hobbies and self-education. Osterman's project rethought the experience of Soviet communal houses of the 1920s and Le Corbusier's ideas of residential construction, and, according to the architect himself, was intended to help a person overcome the loneliness, loss and alienation of life in a modern big city. The house of the new way of life was not a serial project, and relatively little attention was paid to the cost and maintenance of such housing.

Osterman's utopian project was never realized. In 1969, the architect died at the age of 53, and the program of the House of New Life was simplified and reduced. Upon completion of the construction, the house was transferred to Moscow State University as a hostel and a hotel for young teachers, graduate students and interns. The new building was supposed to unload the dormitories in the Student House in the main building of Moscow State University. Under the jurisdiction of the Moscow State University, the building gradually deteriorated, in particular, in the 2000s, the cinema hall and the swimming pool were closed due to an emergency condition.

The building of bathhouse in the Rogozhsko-Simonovsky District.

The building occupies an area of 10 thousand square meters and resembles an airplane in plan: according to legend, this is the Ilya Muromets airplane designed in the 1910s. The entrance was decorated with a large inscription "bathhouse was built with the funds of the loan from the Moscow City Council. 1928-1930", facing the AMO factory workshops and is located in the" tail "of the building, which is why many considered the opposite facade, which faces the axis of the residential area for workers, as the main one. This facade with a rounded top, which continued the shape of the pool floors, was flanked by semi-cylindrical high "towers", inside which were located stairs. The upper tiers of the towers were occupied by water reservoirs, which ensured a good pressure of water in the pipes.

The Palace of Culture of the Proletarsky District

It was built as the Palace of Culture of the Proletarsky District according to the project of the famous architects-constructivists, brothers L. A. and A. A. Vesnin, who won the competition, in 1930-1937.

The construction of the palace began in 1931. In 1933, the small theater was completed, and in 1937, the adjacent club building. Only a part of the project has been completed: a T-shaped club section with a small auditorium for 1200 seats. The detached building of the large auditorium was not built.. In keeping with the principles of constructivism, the building is distinguished by a strictly logical volumetric-spatial composition: a successful relationship has been found and a convenient relationship between the entertainment and club rooms has been ensured. The auditorium, facing the street with its lateral facade, is connected with a suite of rooms for study in circles. The suite rests against the winter garden, at the end of it, along the winter garden, two more wings extend; at the end of the right is a buffet (now a library is in its place), at the end of the left is a rehearsal room. A conference hall was located directly above the winter garden, and even higher - an observatory, the dome of which rises above the flat roof of the building. When creating the project, the authors relied on the well-known five principles of Le Corbusier: the use of pillars-pillars instead of wall arrays, free planning, free design of the facade, elongated windows, flat roof. The volumes of the club are emphatically geometric and represent elongated parallelepipeds, into which the risalits of staircases and cylinders of balconies are embedded. The style of constructivism affected not only the functional expediency of the plan, but also the composition of the facades: from the outside, the hall is surrounded by a semicircle of a two-tiered foyer, the curvilinear outlines of which dominate the external appearance of the building.

Bakery number 9 named after the XVII Party Congress

1934

The enterprise was launched in 1934 under the name Bread Plant No. 9 named after the XVII Party Congress in honor of the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) that took place on the eve of the XVII Congress. The plant became the fourth in a row among Moscow bakery plants that used the ring baking technology developed by engineer Georgy Marsakov, the embodiment of which is reflected in the characteristic cylindrical shape of the body. Breeder Peter Lisitsyn, who visited the United States in 1930 to study the experience of modern bakeries and mills, took part in the design of the plant.
The main production building with a six-storey cylindrical core and striped glazing was built in 1933, the total area of the building's premises is 10 thousand square meters. During the construction, reinforced concrete structures with vertical bearing racks and horizontal beams diverging in radial axes were used, utilities were laid along the central axis of the body cylinder. The building is considered an architectural monument of industrial constructivism.

Gosplan garage

1936

Designed by architect Konstantin Melnikov in collaboration with V.I.Kurochkin

The last of the completed buildings by Konstantin Melnikov. It was built in 1936 for the vehicles of the USSR State Planning Committee. As for the garage of Intourist, built two years earlier, the working drawings of the building were made by the Architectural and Design Workshop of the Moscow City Council No. 7, headed by the architect V. I. Kurochkin. Unlike the garage on Novoryazanskaya Street and the Bakhmetyevsky garage, which were completely completed by Konstantin Melnikov, he designed only the architectural design of the facades for the Gosplan garage.

The building is designed in the style of the Soviet avant-garde. Melnikov's architecture of the 1930s is characterized by large forms, volumes, plasticity and straight lines, which is reflected in the appearance of the State Planning Committee's garage. It combines three constructive shapes: rectangle, triangle and circle. The street facade of the main one-story building is filled with a round window with a massive frame and vertical lines. To the right of it, a tall factory chimney was installed (but not preserved), compositionally bringing together all the elements of the building. On the four-storey building, which was occupied by the administration and workshops, volumetric fluted columns are cut vertically. The windows on the courtyard facade, made in the form of rectangles, are inclined, repeating the direction of the stairs inside the building. The general view of the garage resembles a car: a round window with a low roof forms the headlight and an elongated wing, and the vertical white lines of the facade form the radiator grill.

Konstantin Melnikov wrote about the Gosplan garage:
"One "eye", shifted from the center to the high volume of the administrative building with a narrow cut of the pipe - and I found the connection of the "formalistic" approach with the very essence of the world of beauty."

Factory-kitchen (Bolshevsk labor commune)

early 1930s
Architects: Langman Arkady Yakovlevich, Cherikover Lazar Zinovievich

Shopping center (Bolshevskaya labor commune)

1928-1930
Architects: Langman Arkady Yakovlevich, Cherikover Lazar Zinovievich

Shopping center in the early 1930s was one of the largest centers of this kind near Moscow. Initially, it also housed a cafe, a post office, hairdressers and a library donated to the commune by Maxim Gorky.

Dormitory (Bolshevsk Labor Commune)

1928 - early 1930s
Architects: Langman Arkady Yakovlevich, Cherikover Lazar Zinovievich

The kitchen factory was built for the workers of the Moscow gun factory number 8.

1930-1931
Architect: with the participation of P.I.Klishev

Hospital complex (Bolshevskaya labor commune)

1928-1932
Architects: Langman Arkady Yakovlevich, Cherikover Lazar Zinovievich

Grocery store

One of the first brick buildings in the village of Kalininsky, where the first grocery store in the city of Korolev was located.
Built in 1915
In 1936-1937 the architect P.I.Klishev partially expanded the store building.

Stavropolye sanatorium complex (Corn)

On July 24, 1970, SMU No. 3 of Glavsochispetsstroy began construction of the Stavropolye sanatorium complex in the Mamayka microdistrict.
In 1966, a land plot was allocated in Sochi for the construction of a sanatorium in the bed of the Psakhe River. In 1968, by decision of the Stavropol Regional Council, the directorate of the interkolkhoz sanatorium complex was created. Shareholders of the construction were 162 collective farms and 22 state farms of the Stavropol Territory. Several buildings were under construction, including a 24-storey dormitory with 541 beds. Designed the health resort TsNIIEP LKZ I K in the city of Moscow (architectural workshop of V.A.Strogov, chief architect of the project T.A. Sotskaya, chief engineer M.Kh. Tsinman). The sanatorium "Stavropolye" was designed for 1100 places. The sanatorium complex includes two dormitory buildings: a 24-storey main building in the shape of "corn" and a 3-storey "Primorsky"; medical 2-storey building and a private beach. The main building is located 400 meters from the sea, "Primorsky" - 50 meters. In 1974, the Stavropolye sanatorium received its first guests - agricultural workers from different regions of the country.

Sochi bus station

"Light" building of the Sochi bus station with an undulating roof
1966
Architect Vyacheslav Morozov

Nizhny Novgorod Polytechnic University

Nizhny Novgorod Polytechnic University continues the history of Warsaw University, opened in 1898. On July 6, 1916, it was decided to transfer the institute to Nizhny Novgorod. The new building of the Gorky Industrial Institute was built according to the project of architects D.N. Chechulin and I.F. Neumann. The architects created a vivid example of constructivist architecture, using simple geometric shapes, wide "recumbent" windows. The main facade is decorated with pilaster columns and sculptural images of students. The main entrance of the building, overlooking Minin Street, is decorated with a large wide staircase and 4 white columns.
In 1950, the university was renamed the Gorky Polytechnic Institute, and in 1990 - the Nizhny Novgorod Polytechnic Institute. Now the full name sounds like this: Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University named after R.E. Alekseeva.
The building of the first building of the Polytechnic University is a monument of regional significance.

Residential building

1929

The architect is unknown, but at the same time the building resembles the work of A. A. Yakovlev (senior) State Shipping House on Zvezdinka

Four-storey residential building. 15 apartments (from 1 to 5 rooms).

House of Communication

1935

Architects: Grinzberg M., Michurin Yermingeld Mitrofanovich

The decision to build the House of Communications on the First of May Square was made in 1932, but construction began only in 1935. The House of Communications was built in the post-constructivist style and commissioned in 1936 and at that time was one of the largest buildings in the city.

The complex layout of the building is due to its functional purpose. Sorting correspondence required a large hall located in the northeastern part of the building.

The facade is decorated with a bas-relief from the everyday life of the city's residents and an inscription

House of Soviets

Built in 1929-1931.

Became the second House of Soviets in the country.

Architect Alexander Grinberg

The House of Soviets is located on the territory of the Kremlin. Now the building houses the administration of Nizhny Novgorod and the City Council.

To free the site for the construction of a new administrative building, the Savior Cathedral was dismantled in 1929.

The basis of the house is intersecting straight lines, a kind of axis of the building, typical of constructivism. In the center of the composition is a half-cylinder, although it does not divide the structure into equal parts, so the building is asymmetrical. If you look at the building from a bird's eye view, it resembles an airplane.

In 2005, the building was restored: now it has its original appearance, except for the color. During the construction, the facades were painted in a light gray color, imitating the most fashionable material of that time - reinforced concrete, and during restoration the shade was changed to dark gray. The interiors of the House of Soviets have practically not survived, except for the stairs.

House-commune "Cultural Revolution"

Built in 1929-1932.

Architect V. V. Medvedev

Consists of several residential buildings connected by pendant passages on the second and fifth floors, as well as dedicated communal blocks.

The project was based on the ideas of creating a new, partially socialized life, popular in the 1920s. It was assumed that the residents of the house would be largely relieved of the typical everyday difficulties. For this purpose, a number of common areas were put into operation: a dining room, showers, a library, a first-aid post, a hall for general meetings, etc. Any room could be accessed through special inter-building passages without going outside. For the first time in Nizhny Novgorod, a complex of buildings was equipped with two elevators.

It is currently used as a residential building.

The Nizhny Novgorod building is typologically unique in the size of the complex (in particular, it is the first six-storey building in the city), the variety of purpose and architectural form of the buildings included in it, as well as relatively good preservation. House-commune "Cultural Revolution" is a cultural heritage site of regional significance. Today it is the only residential building-commune in Nizhny Novgorod and one of the few similar buildings in Russia, which has largely retained its profile use.

House-commune of railway workers

Built from 1929 to 1934

The building is an example of constructivism in architecture and is distinguished by its rigor, geometrism, laconic forms and solid appearance. It has an original rounded shape, which is emphasized by tape glazing. The residents of Nizhny Novgorod called the house "iron" for its external resemblance.

House of Soviets

Built since 1970

Architect Lev Misozhnikov

The House of Soviets was supposed to be a 28-storey building, consisting of two high-rise rectangular towers, lined with relief panels and united in two levels by covered walkways. It was planned to improve the area in front of the building: to place fountains, flower beds and even an open-air concert hall on it. The building was supposed to house the administration of the Kaliningrad regional committee of the CPSU and the regional executive committee.

Construction began in 1970, but since the ground in this part of the city was not strong enough to erect such a tall building, there were problems with the building's statics. At the time of Perestroika, problems began with financing the project, it was necessary to abandon many delights, for example, to make significant changes to the project - instead of 28 to build 21 floors.

Construction was carried out by SMU-4 of the Kaliningradstroy association. The commissioning period was the 4th quarter of 1988.

In the second half of the 80s, when the building was 95% complete, construction work was suspended.

In 2020, on November 5, the Governor of the Kaliningrad Region Anton Alikhanov announced that the House of Soviets, with the exception of the foundation, will be dismantled in February-March 2021 (dismantling of the foundation will be considered later).

Regional Library / Prussian State Archives (Preußisches Staatsarchiv)

Years of construction 1929-1930

Architect: R. Libenthal.

The building was built in the Bauhaus architectural style, which was popular in the 30s in East Prussia. It was six stories high, connected by freight and passenger lifts. The northern part of the facade of the building was located on Hansaring Street (now Mira Avenue) and was glazed along the entire perimeter with large continuous window openings. The southern façade overlooked Orselnstraße (the building's courtyard) and was decorated with windows in the form of intermittent horizontal stripes. The western wing of the building is on Salzastraße (now Ushinsky Street), here was the main entrance to the archive with a beautiful spiral staircase leading to the upper floors. The eastern wing of the building was adjacent to the railway tunnel of the North Station. The building was based on a steel frame with reinforced concrete ceilings. The balustrades were made of solid monolithic concrete. The main staircase, visible from the panoramic window above the main entrance, was a reinforced concrete structure embedded in the outer wall. The steps and landings were covered with granite, and the walls and ceilings were covered with solid plaster.

House number 10 on Marina Raskova Street

Built in the early 1930s

According to experts, it was originally an elite housing. On each floor, presumably, there were two apartments, each with an area of about 200 meters. The top floor was occupied by one apartment.

New House of Radio

Built in 1930

Designed by Hanns Hopp
Architect Robert Liebenthal

A four-storey rectangular building on a basement. The northern part is five-storied, protruding beyond the line of the eastern facade.

East Prussian Radio broadcast from April 1, 1935 to April 7, 1945.

During the hostilities of the Second World War, the building of the East Prussian Radio was damaged, in the post-war years it was restored. Now the building houses the Atlantic branch of the Institute of Oceanology named after Petr Petrovich Shirshov of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Anatomical Institute of the University of Königsberg (Die Neue Anatomie Universität Königsberg)

Built in 1935

Architects: building advisor Friesen and architect G. Gerlach. Sculpture from shell rock by Professor E. Schmidt-Kestner.

The building was built in the Bauhaus architectural style, which was popular in the 1930s in East Prussia. The architectural solution provided for different heights of the building's constituent parts, resulting in a remarkable vertical composition.

The Anatomical Theater was located in a round turret, there was a spacious auditorium for 220 people, as well as a huge microscopy hall for 200 microscopes. In the rest of the premises, there were classrooms for the study and systematization of individual organs and tissues, photography and X-ray diagnostics, a library, auditoriums, preparation rooms, halls for microscopy, storage rooms for educational and scientific collections, a conservation department, a wardrobe with a room for bicycles, showers , boiler room and auxiliary rooms.

The main entrance to the educational building was decorated with a sculpture of a young nude man, made of gray shell rock, by the German sculptor Erich Schmidt-Kestner. After the war, the figure disappeared from the pedestal above the entrance, and its further fate is still unknown. In the 2000s, an exact copy of this sculpture was made, but for some unknown reason, it was never installed in its original place.

House of Officers of the Baltic Fleet / East Prussian Crafts School for Girls (Ostpreußische Mädchen-Gewerbeschule)

Built in 1930

Architects Hanns Hopp and Hermann Lucas

The Ostpreußische Mädchen-Gewerbeschule (East Prussian craft school for girls) was founded at the beginning of the 20th century on Kazernenstrasse (now Gagarina street). Quite quickly, there were so many students in it that a new building was required. By 1930, it was built by Hans Hopp and Hermann Lucas on Beethovenstrasse (now Kirov Street).
between Schubertstrasse and Beethovenstrasse (Tchaikovsky and Kirov), the architects built a building without decorative elements, consisting of two wings - right angles and a five-story tower at the head. It was not wooden frames that were inserted into the windows, but metal profiles, which added air to the school.
After the war, already in July 1945, harsh officers settled in this building instead of girls-artisans - since then the House of Officers of the Baltic Fleet has been located here.

Institute of Engineering and Technology of the IKBFU / Higher Trade School

Built in 1930

Architect Hans Malwitz

During the hostilities of World War II, the building of the Higher Trade School was practically not damaged; in the post-war years, a sports hall, training and production workshops and a swimming pool were added to it.

By order of the Ministry of the Pulp and Paper Industry of the USSR in 1946, the Kaliningrad Pulp and Paper Technical School was organized - the oldest educational institution in the region, which was located in the building of the Higher Trade School. In 1958, on its basis, after merging with the energy technical school, the Kaliningrad Polytechnic was created. In 1991, the Polytechnic was transformed into a Technical College. In 2012, the Technical College became a structural unit of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.

Kaliningrad Regional Clinical Hospital / Hospital of Mercy

Built in 1930

The complex of buildings opened in 1930. Before that, there were old hospital buildings of the 19th century, which were demolished in the early 1920s. Lovers of architecture note the harmonious geometry of the entrance lobby. Indeed, the courtyard, in which the bust of Academician Pavlov is now installed, is impressive.

In this medical institution, sisters of mercy from the Order of Deconis once worked, who studied at the special faculty of Albertina (University of Königsberg) and lived here, at the hospital. During the war, they helped both the German and Soviet wounded, and in 1948 they left Kaliningrad along with the rest of the former Konigsberg residents.

Business Center / Park Hotel

Built in 1929

Architect Hanns Hopp

The Park Hotel is a fashionable and ultra-modern hotel for its time, offering its guests luxurious rooms, underground parking, a magnificent view of the lake, a beer restaurant and walks in the nearby oak grove.

Currently, the building houses various institutions and organizations.

Pedagogical Institute

early 1930s

Palace of Pioneers

Built in the late 1920s like a kitchen factory, but in the 1930s the project has been changed.

The development of the interior design project for the building was entrusted to the design workshop No. 3 of the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry, headed by Professor M.Ya. Ginzburg. One of the architects who took part in the reconstruction of the Palace was Ivan Ilyich Leonidov.

In the opened Palace of Pioneers, about 50 different circles worked. On the ground floor there were circles: water transport, model aircraft, radio engineering. On the second floor: auditorium, dance and sports halls, games room, on the third floor: scientific rooms, literary, drama, art studio, library and reading room.

The members of the literary circle published a handwritten journal. A puppet theater worked. Art lovers, young technicians, designers, naturalists, athletes, Komsomol and pioneer activists found things to their liking. A huge creative work was carried out by the teaching staff headed by its director Ustinov Philip Alekseevich. The team consisted of about 20 teachers.

Cinema "Zvezda"

Opened in 1937

Architect V.P. Kalmykov

An architectural monument of late constructivism (post-constructivism). The building is shaped like binoculars; the main entrance is made in the form of a deep niche between two towers with vertical windows and columns in the upper part, the side facades are decorated with hexagonal columns. The design of the building bears a resemblance to another project by the same architect - the Rodina cinema in Moscow. Subsequently, similar architectural projects were implemented in Smolensk (cinema "October") and in Simferopol (cinema "Simferopol").

River Station

Built in 1938

Architects E. I. Gavrilova, P. P. Raisky, engineer I. M. Tigranov.

Built on the site of the destroyed Otroch monastery. It is a three-story building with a tower and a spire, symmetrical wings with arches and balconies, built in the style of Stalinist neoclassicism. Designed for the simultaneous reception of 550 passengers.

Unified Dispensary of the People's Commissariat for Health

Built in 1930-1939 years

Architects A.G. Afanasyev, M.P. Kostromitinov

The initial project was approved back in 1931, but it underwent multiple changes - construction began only in 1935. Despite the changes, the building has retained its original constructivist spirit: in plan it is a four-story building with two rounded wings. The facade in the walls between the windows is decorated with horizontal and vertical rods (an architectural element in the form of a horizontal belt), balconies act as an additional decorative element. The design changes brought to the building details of the nascent Stalinist style - a frieze with decorative consoles supporting the cornice, and an arcade on the ground floor of one of the semicircular wings of the building. Now the building houses the city hospital No. 5.

School of factory apprenticeship named after Comrade Stalin

Built in Early 1930s

The U-shaped building at the intersection of Tukaya and Salikha Saydashev streets consists of two volumes connected by a passage. The side wing has a semicircular facade. On the right, a rectangular vertical volume adjoins it, in which the entrance to the building is located, above it there is a window opening to its full height. Initially, the facade of the building was plastered, but now it is finished with ceramic tiles.

Furriers' House of Culture

Built in 1935-1937

Architects Gainutdinov I.G., Tikhonova D.I., Chernyadieva I.E

Built in the style of Constructivism / Functionalism (Modernism of the 1st wave), it is distinguished by external modesty, internal amenities and an interesting interior of auditoriums, where national ornament is widely used.

House of the press

Built in 1934-1935

Architects S.S. Pen, A.M. Gustov (architectural design and interiors)

An asymmetric structure, consisting of volumes of different heights, located along the streets of Bauman, Kavi Najmi and Profsoyuznaya. The main facade along Bauman Street has a three-part division: two four-storey volumes of different sizes along the edges from the central recessed volume, which at the level of the second floor has a transition gallery with loggias (under it there is a through passage). An open gallery with large round columns runs along the first floor of the side volumes. On the ground floor there is a continuous glass of shop windows of Tatizdat's shops (now the Nogai restaurant). The compositional axis of the main facade is a vertical, semicircular protrusion at the intersection of Bauman and Kavi Najmi streets. According to the architect's idea, from this point of view, the central part of the building should resemble an open book. The building on Profsoyuznaya Street has been completely rebuilt.

Apartment house

Built in 1930

Three-storey apartment building with two entrances. The façade is asymmetrical and, which is not typical for constructivism, richly decorated: the windows are highlighted with simple platbands, the entrances to the entrances are portals to the entire height of the building. On the second and third floors, there are balconies in a checkerboard pattern. Entrances to the entrances are on the sides of the house, the central axis is highlighted by an attic on the roof.

Kazan Institute of Chemical Technology

Built in 1934

Architect Guryev-Gurevich Georgy Samarevich

The first project of the building for the Kazan Polytechnic Institute was developed in 1929 by the Moscow architect Georgy Samarievich Gurevich-Guryev. But the administration of the institute did not like the project, so a new competition for revision was announced.
By that time, the Polytechnic Institute was transformed into the Kazan Chemical-Technological Institute. Ismagil Galeevich Gainutdinov (First Secretary of the Tatar Branch of the Union of Architects of the USSR) won the competition.
Ismagil Galeevich reworked Soviet constructivism into the Stalinist Empire style. The building was not rebuilt, but the colonnade was hung on the rotunda and the facade was furnished with decorative elements.

House

Built in 1933

Bath number 3

Date of construction early 1930s

Three-storey building at the intersection of Bolshaya Krasnaya and Lobachevsky streets. The corner wall is semicircular, on the side facades there are risalits, the windows of which are recessed into vertical niches. It seems that the building is decorated with a semblance of classic blades (a vertical flat ledge of the wall, which, unlike a pilaster, does not have a base and a capitals). Window openings on the third floor are smaller in size than the openings on the first and second floors.

Before the revolution, on the site of the building were the so-called Danilov Baths, built in the 1870s. They belonged to the merchant Mikhail Danilov. In the 1930s, the building took on a modern look. It is still used as a bath.

Residential building of employees of the NKVD of the Republic of Tatarstan

Date of construction 1932-1938

Architect Dmitry Fedorov

The house is teetering on the verge of late constructivism and the most generalized classics. The building was designed in the early 1930s, and then the classical style was not yet mandatory for Stalinist architecture. Experts were looking for a new image of a residential building. The search manifested itself in a very simple and logical composition of the building, as well as in its urban planning - the letter P with a ceremonial courtyard-courdoner. The appearance of the building was supposed to demonstrate a new, open socialist way of life, in which people have nothing to be ashamed of. Innovative in the building - these are large loggias, an extremely rare technique in Soviet architecture of those times.

Mergasovsky house

Built in 1928

Architects P.T. Speransky, S.V. Glagolev / D.M. Fedorov

In terms of the plan, the Mergasovsky house gravitates to structures made in the classical order system: the house is symmetrical, there is an increased central volume and a grand staircase from the side of Dzerzhinsky Street. The entrances are highlighted by vertical glazing risalits; long balconies are located at the corners of the building.

There is no consensus regarding the architect of the Mergas House. According to Sergei Sanachin, the building was built by Pyotr Speransky (among his works - the Trudovye Rezervy stadium, the building of the USSR Academy of Sciences branch on Lobachevsky, reconstruction of the Gostiny Dvor) according to the project of the Moscow architect-engineer Sergei Glagolev. In other sources, the author of the project is the chief architect of Kazan in 1936-1938, the creator of the stairs in the Lenin Garden and the House of Chekists on Karl Marx, Dmitry Fedorov.

At the moment, the building is recognized as being in disrepair, the residents are being moved to other apartments. According to the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan, the house is fully recognized as an object of cultural heritage of regional significance and is subject to restoration. However, the investor and the period for the restoration of the house have not been determined.

Checkpoint of the wagon train parts plant

Built in 1930s

Dormitory of the wagon train parts plant

Built in 1933

A four-storey building at the corner of Admiralteyskaya and Malo-Moskovskaya streets. The building has the shape of the letter L in the plan and is notable for the vertical cylindrical volume of the staircase. On the ground floor there is a through passage from the entrance to the courtyard of the house. Above the entrance there is a bas-relief image of a red star. Between the floors there is a brick belt that turns into arched balconies at the corner of the building. Currently, the building still houses the hostel.

Fire station of the wagon train parts plant

Built in 1933

It is a combination of two rectangular volumes - horizontal and vertical. The height of the fire tower is four floors; there are corner balconies at the level of the third and fourth floors. An additional decorative element of the tower is three round windows (one from the second to the fourth floor). The tower is located at the corner of the building, to the right of the main room - a garage for fire engines.

Construction on Clara Zetkin Street

Date of construction early 1930s

A two-story brick building adjacent to the chapel of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and the Seraphim of Sarov. In the plan, the building is a combination of two cubic volumes of different heights. The building is plastered, the main decorative element of the facade is rectangular and round windows on the facade overlooking Klara Tsetkin Street. Now it houses a transformer substation.

Factory-kitchen of the Vasileostrovsky district

Date of construction 1929-1931

Architect A. K. Barutchev, I. A. Gilmer, I. A. Meerzon, Ya. O. Rubanchik

One of the four kitchen factories built according to individual designs by a team of architects together with engineer A. G. Dzhorogov is located near a vast industrial zone in the southwestern part of Vasilyevsky Island. Like other buildings of the same purpose, it included a production and trading group of premises with a semi-finished products store and a canteen. The mechanized cooking process was designed to produce up to 35,000 meals a day.
The factory-kitchen was built using monolithic reinforced concrete structures. Two- and three-story buildings of simple geometric shapes surround a rectangular courtyard. The main buildings are closed by standing parallelepipeds of stairwells with the usual vertical glazing strips. wide windows lined up in horizontal rows, as usual, are separated by recessed columns. The popular motif of strip glazing is replaced here with strip belts of walls. The left ledge of the façade along Bolshoy Prospekt is especially effectively designed: the huge plane of the wall is asymmetrically cut through by a giant stained-glass window, which fills the main staircase with light. Against the background of a glass screen, a light cantilevered balcony floats freely in the air. The dominance of strict rectangular outlines is somewhat softened by a semicircle a high one-story ledge of the dining room, which was a characteristic accessory of factory kitchens.

Water tower of the Krasny Gvozdilshchik factory

Date of construction 1929-1931

Architect Ya. G. Chernikhov

A narrow high trunk (with a metal ladder inside) lifts up a water tank, the rounded protrusion of which rests on thin pillars. A sharp juxtaposition of swift verticals and a soaring cylindrical volume enhances the plastic expression and tense dynamics of the composition. From the ledge of the lower, wider part of the tower, long posts rise, supporting a round reservoir. A through spatial structure is formed, which clearly demonstrates the operation of the structure. Vertical stripes of glazing stretch along the narrow edge of the structure, and the cylinder, cut into a parallelepiped, is cut through with horizontal slit-like windows. It is indicative that the water tank is taken out and has the usual shape of a tank. And at the same time, it looks like a nail head, and the whole tower is like a giant nail, symbolizing the production profile of the Red Nailer.

Palace of Culture named after S. M. Kirov

Date of construction 1931-1937

Architect H. A. Trotsky, S. N. Kazak

In 1930, an all-Union competition for the designs of the Vasileostrovsky House of Culture was held, which was supposed to be the largest in the country. The project of N. A. Trotsky and S. N. Kazak (Kozak) received the first prize. As conceived by the authors, the building had a branched plan, the main building of the stepped shape was interrupted by vertical ledges, the low tower ended with the dome of the observatory. Large prismatic volumes, huge glass surfaces, ribbon windows, light round pillars of the supporting frame - all this expressed the formative principles of constructivism.
Then the architects made fundamental changes to the project. The large theater hall was separated into an independent part, separated from the club building. The composition still retained a constructivist character, but soon acquired the features of classicist monumentality. The transparent volumes and ribbons of windows were swallowed up by the rusticated arrays of walls and the array of pylons. The transitional phase in the development of Soviet architecture was clearly reflected in the dual style of the building. Greatness and power were called upon to embody the image of a proletarian palace.

Palace of Culture named after Lensoviet

Date of construction 1931-1938

Architect E. A. Levinson, V. O. Munts

The fundamental solution of the three-dimensional composition was based on the forced contrast of the horizontal body, stretched along the avenue for 200 meters, and a high, 46-meter rectangular tower, cut into its right (north) tore. This leading theme is close to N. A. Trotsky’s Kirovsky District Council, although here the vertical parallelepiped is not complicated by a jagged row of balconies. The tower was supposed to connect different parts of the Palace of Culture with a rod, acting as a dominant highways and surrounding open spaces. But it managed to build only half of the intended height, and the building remained decapitated.
In contrast to the stretched facade of the main building, the corner of the avenue and the adjacent square is formed by a group of volumes of different sizes at the foot of the tower. In a tense dynamic game of stepped masses, the deaf, windowless, oblique volume with a curved wall sets the tone, which covers a small hall (cinema hall) of a sector form. The complicated irregular structure rather than fixes, but rather disorganizes the corner of the block.
The long main façade with rows of pillars on the ground floor is torn in the middle by a gigantic glazed portal. To his left, the horizontal rows of windows almost merge into ribbons. Even further to the left (in the place of building No. 40 along the avenue) a sports area with a swimming pool was designed, accentuated on the facade by a huge deep depression that would echo the middle portal, but this wing was not implemented. The right side of the building is boldly opened up to a height of three floors by the stained-glass windows of the library premises. Hinged glass planes, behind which the load-bearing structures are hidden, capture the corner, forming a single large volume. Such a radical functionalist technique of volumetric glazing was inspired by the Bauhaus of W. Gropius, but in the final version, clean transparent surfaces were covered with a geometric web of bindings. A lonely, random balcony sounds like a piercing note, unexpectedly popping up onto a glass screen.

The first residential building of the Leningrad City Council

Date of construction 1931-1935

Architect E. A. Levinson, I. I. Fomin

The house on the bank of a quiet karpovka served as the dwelling of the Soviet elite. It was equipped with comfortable "improved type" apartments from three to six rooms, some on two levels. Children's institutions were located in the depths of the open gallery. The yard is fenced with a concrete lattice and connected by a walk-through loggia with a small garden. The house is raised to a platform-terrace to protect the lower floor from flooding. A multifaceted composition, perceived from different angles, is actively interconnected with the surrounding space.
This building is one of the best works of Yevgeny Levinson and Igor Fomin, an excellent example of late constructivism, endowed with increased plastic expressiveness and sophisticated drawing of forms. Here, the features of the final stage of the style, fanned by the spirit of expressionism and received the imprint of art deco, were clearly manifested. The dynamic play of volumes, the contrasts of curvilinear and rectangular parts, the opposition of the light lower gallery to the heavy upper array, the alternation of flat surfaces and deep vladins, hanging corners protruding like wedges and soaring external staircases, in all this there is a tendency towards deliberate formal sharpness. The sophistication of the design of all facades, including courtyards, corresponded to the elite status of the house.

Power station of the Krasnoye Znamya factory

Date of construction 1926-1930

Architect E. Mendelson

The power station of the Krasnoye Znamya factory is a kind of master's manifesto. In its architectural image, the techniques of functionalism and expressionism are organically merged, Mendelssohn's postulate “function plus dynamics” is convincingly embodied. This work, which at first did not generally accepted, became one of the key in the development of the Leningrad avant-garde. The influence of Mendelssohn's work largely predetermined the expressionistic coloring of constructivist schemes, the attraction to plastic curvilinear forms, characteristic of Leningrad architecture of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The factory made a particularly strong impression on N. A. Trotsky, who called it "a classic example of new architecture." The facility acquired the significance of one of the symbols of the period of Soviet industrialization. The image of the power station was even placed on the cover of a city guide in the 1930s

Moscow District Council

Date of construction 1931-1935

Architect I. I. Fomin, V. G. Daugul, B. M. Serebrovsky

A large building of the regional authorities was erected on Moskovsky Prospekt - the main thoroughfare of socialist Leningrad. The general scheme of the building - the main compact volume pushed to the flank and two mutually perpendicular buildings - was also used in a number of other public buildings of that time. The recessed space between the side parts has been turned into a courdoner, the level of which is elevated above the carriageway of the avenue. The device of the courier corresponded to the representative functions of the district council.
The original find of the authors is the solution of the dominant part of the building in the form of a massive giant cylinder. This majestic volume is displaced to the southern flank; a narrow high parallelepiped is cut into it in front. In the composition of the five-story cylinder, horizontal B and vertical elements are balanced. A line of pylons runs along the lower tier, two belts of windows above it are framed with platbands, and even higher, the chains of openings are broken with pillars. These details form a fractional relief surface, divided into small cells. The final round tiers of a smaller diameter are cut with ribbon windows that illuminate the interior space.
The parallelepiped pushed forward is distinguished by its enlarged scale. The vertical glazing of its end is dissected by balconies, from above raised cantilever. In several buildings of the Leningrad constructivism, the main cylindrical part is docked with a standing parallelepiped of the stairwell. However, here the staircase is not rendered into a rectangular ledge, as it would be logical to assume, but is enclosed inside a rounded volume, where it floats freely, not connected with a uniformly perforated wall and not revealed in any way outside.

House of Culture named after Ilyich

Date of construction 1929-1931

Architect N. F. Demkov

The club of the Union of Metalworkers, named after the patronymic of V. I. Lenin, was built by Nikolay Demkov, who was part of the circle of employees of Alexander Nikolsky. Demkov managed to create a crystal clear example of modernist architecture. It combines the techniques of functionalism and suprematism. The free zigzag plan of the building is divided into two zones: a theater area with an auditorium, a vestibule, and a foyer located closer to the avenue, and a club room with rooms for study groups, a dining room, small and gymnastic halls. The mobile-asymmetric structure is divided into volumes of different sizes in accordance with the differentiation of the premises according to their functions. The spatial development of the composition is directed towards the entrance, where it culminates. The building is most expressively perceived from the corner of the block, it is in this perspective that the dynamic interaction of its geometric shapes is best revealed.