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The quirks of Soviet architecture: donut house, “glass” and “sausage”
Against the background of the faceless quarters of the Khrushchev buildings, these buildings look like aliens from space.
The inhuman boxes of residential buildings became the personification of the era of Khrushchev’s rule and the reason for numerous anecdotes. This architectural dullness was skillfully played in the comedy by Eldar Ryazanov “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!” It was really easy to get lost in residential areas built up with Khrushchevs.
But in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev times, the design institutes of the USSR also created projects that looked strange and even crazy. They amazed the imagination of not only Soviet citizens, but also foreigners, and were also popular with directors.
“Centipede” in Moscow
And also – “house of aviators”, “octopus house” or “house on legs”. A 13-storey 299-apartment panel residential building with an original layout in the style of brutalism appeared in Moscow on Begovaya Street in the mid-70s. The main feature of the building designed by the architect Andrey Meerson is 40 reinforced concrete support legs.
In fact, the first experiments with the construction of houses “on legs” in the USSR began in the 30s. Take, for example, the famous “House of Narkomfin” or “commune house” on Ordzhonikidze in Moscow. But never before have multi-storey buildings been raised so high above the ground – the first residential floor in the “aviator’s house” begins at the level of the standard fourth. And thanks to 20 pairs of supports, the building was compared to a centipede. The overlapping panels also enhance the insect-like appearance to create a scale effect. Well, the rounded towers, in which there are fire escapes, give the building a resemblance to a medieval fortress.
Initially, they wanted to build the house on the bank of the Khimki reservoir as a hotel for the participants of the 80 Olympics. But in the end, the project was implemented closer to the entrance to the capital, near Leningradsky Prospekt, and was populated by employees of the Znamya Truda aviation plant.
House on “chicken legs” in St. Petersburg
Four 22-storey giants of an unusual design on Novosmolenskaya Embankment in St. Petersburg are the product of the creative work of a group of architects headed by Vitaly Sokhin. In fact, this quiet green residential area of the city was conceived as a kind of cultural center: the mouth of the Smolenka River was then deepened, the banks were widened and “dressed” in granite, ”and a huge park“ Window to Europe ”was planned to be built on the territory. And in order not to block this very window with “skyscrapers”, it was decided to put them on high concrete supports with a powerful central “pillar” in the center of the building. It was also a great flood safety net.
The implementation began only in the late 80s, so only the houses themselves saw the light of the original project. And they have become a real symbol of the area.
“Bagel” in Moscow
There are only two of them, and both are located in Moscow. The idea of a round house resembling a donut was born from a simple “what if …”. Architect Yevgeny Stamo and engineer Alexander Markelov thought: why not build a house, taking advantage of the margin of error in joining panels of 6 degrees.
The ring at 13 Nezhinskaya, in the west of Moscow, turned out to be impressive: 9 floors, 26 entrances, the inner diameter of the courtyard is 155 meters! And it was a whole city within a city – with shops, pharmacies, a laundry, an atelier, a savings bank on the ground floor. And how impressive the house looked from a bird’s eye view!
A few years later, a similar house appeared nearby in the Ramenki area (it can be seen in the film “Courier”) – on Dovzhenko Street.
But the idea to build an Olympic village in the form of five Olympic rings was eventually abandoned. The maintenance of bulky “bagels” turned out to be too expensive, which in fact remained ordinary Soviet panels with all the inconveniences ensuing from this. But the houses fell in love with Soviet directors: here, in addition to “Courier”, they filmed “Tragedy in the style of rock”, and one of the houses “lit up” in Vladimir Menshov’s Oscar-winning film “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears”: it is his windows glowing at night that are shown in the final shots …
Another product of the experiments of Soviet architects in the field of modernism. The project was developed back in 1975 by specialists from the 5th workshop of the LenNIIproekt under the leadership of David Goldgor. In total, eight similar towers were built in Leningrad, all of them on the outskirts, since the “cylindrical building” was intended to create “a sense of spatial diversity so necessary for new districts.”
These buildings got their name due to their original cylindrical shape. They are also popularly called “Baikonur”: in Leningrad in the 70s and 80s, they joked that these houses were not actually houses at all, but disguised missile silos. But the name “matryoshka” – because of the three cylinders inserted into each other (an elevator shaft with utility and technical rooms, a ring of a corridor, an apartment) – did not take root.
Jokes as a joke, but living in such “glasses” is extremely inconvenient. Since they were originally designed as dormitories, there were no kitchens in the apartments, and the residents had to independently equip a place for cooking on the living space. There were no right angles in the apartments either, which made the ergonomics of the space noticeably lame. On the other hand, panoramic windows are a real lifesaver for a city in which there are only a couple of dozen sunny days per year.
Water tower in Narva
There are not many historical buildings left in a small Estonian town on the border with Russia – the town was seriously damaged during the Great Patriotic War. That is why literally every medieval house here is treated kindly by the attention of tourists. But only this building was seen by all, without exception, people who at least once entered (or entered, crossing the border on foot) into Narva from the Ivangorod side.
The building, built in 1969, immediately became a landmark of the town. First, it was the first building with an elevator. Local kids (and sometimes adults) went inside to ride this miracle of technology. Secondly, the eyes of passers-by were attracted by a strange structure on the roof of the building. According to the idea of the author of the project, architect Henno Sepmann, the twelve-storey building was supposed to function as a water tower. And the strange structure, which was erected on the roof, was a water reservoir. However, they did not dare to operate the building in this capacity: due to constructivist features, a fully filled tank could lead to the destruction of the building.
“Sausage” in St. Petersburg
For its time, this piece of Soviet constructivism on Babushkina Street in Leningrad was quite modernist and innovative. In his 1929 project, the architect Grigory Simonov used elements that were more inherent in German architecture of those years, for example, a combination of open brick and plaster, as well as continuous vertical glazing of staircases. The Haufeisen quarter in Berlin, the long central building of which the German architect Bruno Taut made in the shape of a horseshoe, was even mentioned by Simonov in his works. And the wide gateways, divided into two passages, are already the signature style of Simonov himself.
There is a legend among the residents that the building, originally built for the workers of the Vienna plant, was supposed to become a part of the Hammer and Sickle architectural composition, but the hammer was never added. Whether it is true or not, the house from the moment of its construction to the present day is better known as the sausage house. It really resembles a real “bundle” in shape, just very large. By the way, for a long time the house was considered the longest in Leningrad – more than 300 meters, 25 entrances.
“Romashka” in Chisinau
It was the most ambitious architectural project in the capital of the Moldavian SSR. The building is elongated in shape, with a futuristic “flying saucer” on the roof and apartments located in a circle (as in the Leningrad “glass” towers). Architect Oleg Vronsky, who was very impressed with the Marina City residential complex in Chicago, worked on the project. The house “behind the eye” is called “corn”, but more poetically minded citizens see a chamomile in it (in the section of an apartment they are arranged in a circle, like petals).
According to one version, it was supposed to be a hotel with a revolving restaurant on the top floor. According to the other, a sanatorium-preventorium for employees of the Ministry of Construction with an observation deck at the top. The result was a dormitory, which after the collapse of the USSR received the status of a residential building. Now the building is in such a state of disrepair that French journalists recognized it as the ugliest in the world a couple of years ago.
“Snake” in St. Petersburg
At first glance, this is a simple Soviet-built “ship” type panel on the very outskirts of St. Petersburg, on Pionerstroy Street. But there is also something unusual in the building. The curved line of the building repeats either the trenches dug during the Great Patriotic War, or bends around the reservoirs formed by the Sosnovka River. The total length of the house exceeds 700 meters – the building stretches from Peterhof highway to Veteranov Avenue and today holds the palm in the “Longest House in St. Petersburg” nomination.
There are also a lot of nicknames at the house. But among the locals, it is known as the “Wall of China” or “snake house”. By the way, a snake with a predatory open mouth is clearly readable if you look at the house from a bird’s eye view (or from the roofs of neighboring houses). Architects – Evgeny Poltoratsky and Naum Matusevich in the mid-70s undertook a super task: to prove that even using the means of typical building, it is possible to achieve artistic expressiveness. The authors of the project took as a basis four types of already existing block sections (straight, angular, rotary and so-called trefoils) and partially connected them together. And it was a real breakthrough in panel construction. In fact, there is not one, but five buildings at once, each of which also has a different height.