Soviet Union apartment blocks/housing

[falce e martello]

I personally love the simplistic style of the apartment buildings in the Soviet Union (google "soviet era apartments" as I can't post images) and I wanna know more about the housing in the USSR.

Do you know who were the architects who designed these buildings?
What was the housing system like in the Soviet Union? Were the houses free for the working class?
Can you tell me how the kommunalka worked?

Thanks in advance.

[The Idler]

possibly you've already done it, but maybe look through the references here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_apartment#References

[Red Commissar]

I don't know if there were any specific architects per say but most of these apartments were built inline with a broader urban planning objective. For the USSR's purposes these architects and engineers were tasked with designing apartments which could be built quickly and cheaply. So you had a lot built and people got housing in the cities, all part of the attempt to absorb the migrating populations from the countryside, part of the industrialization of the country. They weren't the most desirable, what probably didn't help with that was that many of these units were apparently seen more as a stop-gap measure and temporary, to be demolished later down the road for future plans for the city with more long-lasting structures.

Many of these countries still have these apartment buildings after all these years but needless to say they haven't been maintained very well with most of these complexes losing funding, sold off, or being repurposed as public assistance housing. I recall reading somewhere that South Yemen, which was a pro-Eastern Bloc state in the Middle-East, had built many small apartment complexes and other housing units that homelessness was almost non-existent in South Yemen, though most of those units are poorly maintained now since they unified with North Yemen into what we know as Yemen.

I was linked to this article about housing policy and design choices for housing in Georgia within the USSR, but it was similar across the whole of the Soviet Union.

http://archinect.com/blog/article/45919966/post-war-soviet-housing-in-georgia

Some of these are useful too, if at least for their references to point you in the right direction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning_in_communist_countries

edit: As for cost, that varied depending on the situation but housing was nominally a right guaranteed to soviet citizens. Depending on the case it could be free or with a small cost (as units were subsidized anyways), this is one of the major reasons behind nostalgia among older citizens in the former USSR since housing costs and availability were really rocked in many of those countries.

[Illegalitarian]

I hear that the Soviets had a very specific idea for urban sprawl and development locations for some sort of ideological reason. I'd like to know more on this.


I also hear that some of these houses were developed in really odd ways, too. Three, sometimes four families would share a living space, and apparently the apartments in question would have bathrooms right next to the kitchen, which made for.. um.. some rather awkward breakfasts

[Sir Comradical]

This is from a book I have and which I read as a kid.

It's one of those picture books that covers everyday life in Soviet cities.

http://s28.postimg.org/4dkm6i5hp/Soviet_house_1.jpg

http://s28.postimg.org/8chtpbu4t/Soviet_house_2.jpg

http://s28.postimg.org/n8brj6g5p/Soviet_house_3.jpg

http://s28.postimg.org/vydfxrn0t/Soviet_house_4.jpg

[consuming negativity]

I hate the flooring and the carpets.

I mean, they're better than what I've got now, but damn. Such clash.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I also hear that some of these houses were developed in really odd ways, too. Three, sometimes four families would share a living space, and apparently the apartments in question would have bathrooms right next to the kitchen, which made for.. um.. some rather awkward breakfasts

What you are thinking of are the communal flats with shared facilities, which were very common in the 1930's, and a lot of people continued to live in those for a long time, due to the severe housing shortage. Even flats that were not communal often had more than one generation of family living in them, for the same reason. (Until the 1950's there was very little new construction, and consequently, an enormous accumulated demand.)

https://pastvu.com/_p/a/k/8/r/k8r7d6h0pde5s0lou5.jpg

600 Series slab-type and point blocks nearing completion in South-western Leningrad (viewed in 1976).


I hate the flooring and the carpets.

I mean, they're better than what I've got now, but damn. Such clash.

I don't know what you are talking about. The flooring is fine. The walls and carpets are, well... very 60-70's. Reminds me of my grandmother's old home.

[Red Commissar]

I hear that the Soviets had a very specific idea for urban sprawl and development locations for some sort of ideological reason. I'd like to know more on this.


I also hear that some of these houses were developed in really odd ways, too. Three, sometimes four families would share a living space, and apparently the apartments in question would have bathrooms right next to the kitchen, which made for.. um.. some rather awkward breakfasts

Well, the link I posted looks into the influence of different ideological outlooks. The USSR at its birth and into a part of the 20s was influenced by all sorts of avant-garde ideologies and styles, in particular the idea of creating the new man of a socialist society. There was an idea, though one that later fell out of use, that promoting certain lifestyles and living arrangements would help create this new man.

An interesting case of that is the Narkomfin building they mention. It is a good example of the communal apartments the USSR experimented with early on.

http://architectuul.com/architecture/narkomfin-building


The Narkomfin Building is a block of flats in Moscow, designed by Moisei Ginzburg with Ignaty Milinis in 1928, and finished in 1932. Only two of four planned buildings were completed. The building is squeezed between old and new territories of the United States Embassy on 25, Novinsky Boulevard. A fine example of Constructivist architecture and avant-garde interior planning, it is presently in a dilapidated state; most units stand empty.

This apartment block, designed for workers at the Commissariat of Finance (shortened to Narkomfin) was an opportunity for Ginzburg to try out many of the theories advanced by Constructivist groups in the course of the 1920s on architectural form and communal living. The building is made from reinforced concrete and is set in a park. It originally consisted of a long block of apartments raised on pilotis (with a penthouse and roof garden), connected by an enclosed bridge to a smaller, glazed block of collective facilities.

By offering communal facilities such as kitchens, creches and laundry as part of the block, the tenants were encouraged into a more socialist and, by taking women out of their traditional roles, feminist way of life. The structure was thus to act as a 'social condenser' by including within it a library and gymnasium.

On the other hand, architects of 1920s had to face the social reality of an overcrowded city: any single-family apartment unit with more than one room would eventually be converted to a multi-family kommunalka. Apartments could retain the single-family status if, and only if, they were physically small and could not be partitioned to accommodate more than one family. Any single-level apartment could be partitioned. Thus the architects of the avant-garde like Ginzburg and Konstantin Melnikov designed such model units, relying on a vertical separation of bedroom (top level) and combined kitchen and living room (lower level).

Narkomfin currently has 54 units, none of them has a dedicated kitchen but many residents partitioned their apartments to set aside a tiny kitchen. There are five inhabited floors, but only two corridors on second and fourth level (an apartment split between third and second level connects to the second floor corridor, etc.).

As for the second part I think that's less of an ideological issue and probably one of the engineers optimizing the way space was utilized in a given room so that they'd have as much as possible on a given floor.

Its important to remember the USSR was constantly competing with the US over what sort of system provided the best "life" to people- both presenting their own versions of planned communities that would represent the future all their citizens would enjoy.

[Creative Destruction]

I hate the brutalist exteriors. They're incredibly ugly and oppressive to the senses.

[Illegalitarian]

I hate the brutalist exteriors. They're incredibly ugly and oppressive to the senses.

See, I used to think that too until I spent a little time in the former eastern bloc. While I was there somewhere along the way I started to see them as quaint and charming, practical and accommodating yet minimalist.

Which of course was a common trait among everything under the banner of socialist realism. The buildings were really cool though

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I hate the brutalist exteriors. They're incredibly ugly and oppressive to the senses.

Disliking brutalism doesn't just show a lack of taste, it's downright reactionary. "Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, to get it ready for the plough." Sentimental nonsense. Brutalism is functionality over small-town sensibilities, utility over arty wankery.

After the revolution we will tear down churches and Ma and Pa shops and put up brutalist high-rises everywhere.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It'll be just like "Dredd"

http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/a5/124c20d1ae11e1a00322000a1d0930/file/dredd_city-sc.jpg

[Creative Destruction]

Disliking brutalism doesn't just show a lack of taste, it's downright reactionary.

Good lord. Shut up. Your opinion is worthless.

[Creative Destruction]

See, I used to think that too until I spent a little time in the former eastern bloc. While I was there somewhere along the way I started to see them as quaint and charming, practical and accommodating yet minimalist.

Which of course was a common trait among everything under the banner of socialist realism. The buildings were really cool though

I don't mind minimalism or practicality. That's part of the reason I'm fond of Bauhaus. brutalism is something else, though. It's heavy, ugly. I've never been in a brutalist building that I've liked, or have seen one in pictures from Russia or the East Bloc that looked appealing.

[Hrafn]

As a student of cultural heritage and archaeology... I pray 870 never seizes power.

[theuproar]

I travel to Russia several times a year, and urban housing is largely similar to this day, so I imagine the design was (mostly) purely utilitarian. (How do we put a large number of people in a small space?)

It may not have that much of an ideological origin. Seems to me that housing is similar in many urban centers all over the world, although the aesthetic is certainly somewhat different over there... I traveled to Ufa with an older gentleman from Georgia, back in 2012, and he used the drab high-rise apartments as an example of Soviet design, when he told me that, "Ufa is like traveling back in time to the mid-century Soviet Union."

[Rafiq]

As a student of cultural heritage and archaeology... I pray 870 never seizes power.

Don't worry, seizing power is the last thing ideologues like him want or are capable of. Their existence is dependent on their insignificance, they parasitically rely on opposing everything.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Brutalist architecture is awesome.

[Homo Songun]

I hate the brutalist exteriors. They're incredibly ugly and oppressive to the senses.

These Soviet apartments aren't Brutalist. I think you are just equating the term Brutalism with the English word "brutal" because of an axiomatic Trot antipathy to anything to do with the USSR. The term actually derives from the French word for "raw" due to the trend's tendency to use unfinished concrete exteriors. Actually, (appropriately?) Brutalist architecture is most common in western Europe and the US, especially institutional architecture.

That said, of all the Soviet trends I like the "Socialist Realist" period of the 1930's. IIRC these block apartments appeared during Krushchev's time, who supposedly disliked the 1930's style.

[Rafiq]

That said, of all the Soviet trends I like the "Socialist Realist" period of the 1930's. IIRC these block apartments appeared during Krushchev's time, who supposedly disliked the 1930's style.

What about socialist realism during the 1930's is distinguishable, though? Are you referring to gothic influences?

[Creative Destruction]

These Soviet apartments aren't Brutalist.

The buildings share enough characteristics of Brutalism, where trying to nit pick a fight over whether it's strictly Brutalism is just that: useless nit picking.


I think you are just equating the term Brutalism with the English word "brutal" because of an axiomatic Trot antipathy to anything to do with the USSR.

That's not what I was equating with "Brutalism." And I'm not a Trot, so you can stick that presumptuous shit back up your ass.

[Illegalitarian]

I hear that in some parts of the very early Soviet Union (that is, when it was only the congress of soviets, existing as autonomous, "partyless" councils) before the Bolsheviks came to power (maybe during too idk), there was a rapid liberalization of the culture which lead to a period of free love and what have you, sort of as we saw in Spain after the revolution during the Civil War.

I wonder how much of this is true, and if so, if there's any legit propaganda out there.

[exeexe]

But but..
The architecture in Lord of the Rings??
http://www.mnn.com/sites/default/files/m_shire.jpg

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

These Soviet apartments aren't Brutalist. I think you are just equating the term Brutalism with the English word "brutal" because of an axiomatic Trot antipathy to anything to do with the USSR.

Heh, I'm the only Trotskyist who has posted in this thread and I don't think I can be fairly described as having an "axiomatic antipathy to anything to do with the USSR" - in fact I find brutalism (which, I think, includes much of sots-realism after the Stalinist Empire style had passed out of favour) to be quite appealing, and I honestly think people who have something against it are a bit boorish.


I hear that in some parts of the very early Soviet Union (that is, when it was only the congress of soviets, existing as autonomous, "partyless" councils) before the Bolsheviks came to power (maybe during too idk), there was a rapid liberalization of the culture which lead to a period of free love and what have you, sort of as we saw in Spain after the revolution during the Civil War.

What you term "the very early Soviet Union" never happened - parties had always been represented in the soviets, and since October the Bolsheviks were the most important party. The culture of the early RSFSR was fairly liberal for its day - there was, for example, a massive flowering of (male) homoerotic poetry - Bonch-Bruevich kept a collection if I'm not mistaken.

[Homo Songun]

Aesthetically, I don't care for Khrushchev/Brezhnev era apartment complexes, but I guess it is a bit unfair to compare it to either the Stalinist Gothic or the Constructivist styles that preceded it, insofar as the former styles tended towards the monumental, or "public" buildings. I guess the proper comparison would be apartment complexes of the 30s and 40s versus the 50s and 60s.


I'm not a Trot, so you can stick that presumptuous shit back up your ass.

Duly noted! (I didn't take into account the narcissism of small differences -- the guru of the "Marxist Humanist Initiative" was once Trotsky's secretary :lol:)

[Creative Destruction]

(I didn't take into account the narcissism of small differences -- the guru of the "Marxist Humanist Initiative" was once Trotsky's secretary :lol:)

And she had a major break with him, to the point where it would be ridiculous to account for her major disagreements as "small differences". it's kind of like saying Lenin had "small differences" with left communists.

[MonsterMan]

are they much different to the big council housing estates of the UK?