Video: A symbol of audacity in Soviet architecture and a mute witness to repression: the Trefoil House in Moscow
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
In a young Soviet country, the 1930s for urban planning were marked by bold experiments. Houses of unusual configuration have become one of the forms of manifestation of extraordinary architectural ideas. A striking example of this is the trefoil house located in the Moscow Sivtsev Vrazhek lane. Interesting, unusual and, alas, notorious for the number of repressed and executed residents …
The building was erected in 1932 (according to other sources - in 1930), so formally it can be called a Stalinist building, although this house is very different from its "Empire" counterparts. The author of the project is the architect Nikolai Ladovsky. Among his later projects are the ground lobby of the Krasnye Vorota metro station and the platform hall of the Lubyanka (formerly Dzerzhinskaya).
By the way, the architect Ladovsky is a unique figure. In the Soviet years, he was considered the leader of rationalism and, as a teacher, was remembered for reforming the system of architectural education in the Soviet Union. His methodology was based on two principles - the design of buildings should not begin from plan to form, but, on the contrary, from composition to projection (from abstract to particular) and the use of layouts. The training of future architects is still based on the methodology proposed once by Nikolai Ladovsky.
The trefoil house, located at the corner of Sivtsev Vrazhek and Starokonyushenny Lane, consists of three buildings, which in the complex (if you look at the building from above) resemble a flower. And if you look at the architectural plan of the building, you can see the outlines of the letter "Ж"
Open spaces-courtyards remain between the 7-8-storey protruding parts, which looks cozy and picturesque. Corner windows with balconies became a very unusual solution for the beginning of the last century.
The first residents of this prestigious building with high ceilings, thick walls, wide window sills and massive doors were party workers, high officials, prominent scientists and other titled personalities. For example, the famous Soviet economist and political scientist Yevgeny Varga and the director Alexander Kaidanovsky lived here.
It is also believed that it was in this house that Mikhail Matusovsky wrote the legendary song "Moscow Nights" - at least, the memorial plaque on the wall says about this.
However, there were many repressed among the residents. For example, in this house they arrested together with his wife and subsequently shot the famous Soviet writer Vladimir Zazubrin. Among those killed on false denunciations were the head of the post traffic sector of the People's Commissariat of Communications Stepan Perepyolkin (he was sentenced to death as a "member of a counter-revolutionary terrorist organization"), and former head of the Far Eastern Regional Executive Committee in Moscow, Natan Mer, who held a high post in the State Arbitration of the RSFSR.
It has been established that during the years of Stalin's repressions about two dozen residents were arrested here.
Now in this house lives an absolutely motley audience - both ordinary Muscovites (there are still not settled communal apartments), and media characters, and just moneybags. But, fortunately, there are no antisocial elements, as the tenants themselves assure.
The unique trefoil house is deservedly recognized as a cultural heritage site, so it is not threatened with demolition yet.
Designed by the architect Melnikov looked no less shocking by Soviet standards. Hive house.
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