How an extravagant centipede skyscraper appeared in Moscow, and what the new settlers thought of it

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

You can joke that residential houses "on legs" appeared in Russia in the era of Baba Yaga. But seriously, such buildings first gained popularity in the 20-30s of the last century. One of the most interesting such architectural projects is the Moscow high-rise building on Begovaya Street. The people called this house "House-centipede". However, whatever they call him …

Why suddenly in an ordinary big city buildings on high massive pillars began to appear? Are these just weird quirks of architects?

One of the reasons for the appearance of these residential buildings is the unpopularity of the first floor among potential residents - as you know, in many ways, it is inconvenient. Perhaps these could be the first, experimental swallows of the never-realized idea for the massive construction of such houses. The second reason, of course, was the need for creative freedom and the desire to give the building the image of something flying, which well reflected the era of changes in the young Soviet country and the mood of the builders of a bright future.

In Europe, houses "on legs" were designed by the great architect Le Corbusier, and in the USSR - by young constructivist architects. For example, in Moscow, the idea of architects Ginzburg and Milinis, with the participation of engineer Prokhorov, was embodied in the form of the Narkomfin house on Novinsky Boulevard, and later, in the era of post-war panel houses, several more interesting buildings "on legs" were built.

However, the project of the architect Andrei Meerson, which came to life in 1978 on Begovaya Street, surpassed its Soviet predecessors in all respects. The building is very unusual, monumental and, for those times, modern.

This interesting building has forty supports, so its most common nickname - "House-centipede" - is quite justified. Also, this house at different times was called "House-octopus" and "Hut on chicken legs."

Initially, it was planned to populate the guests of the "Olympics-80" in the miracle building and thereby amaze them with the grandeur of Soviet and Moscow architectural thought. Perhaps that is why the building is built with high quality, the ceilings in it are high (2, 8 m), all rooms are rationally designed. However, in the end, most of the apartments in the new residential building were allocated to the workers of the aviation plant, which is why the "centipede" Muscovites immediately dubbed the "House of Aviators" as well. By the way, most of the new settlers found the layout of the apartments very comfortable.

Working on the creation of the project, Meerson decided to raise the building not by one or two floors, but by four at once, thanks to which the house turned out to be harmonious and proportional in appearance. The building has 13 floors (and initially it was supposed to be even more) and with short "legs" the effect would be completely different.

There are two more versions of creating such high pillars of the house. According to one, since it was originally planned to build a high-rise building in the area of the Water Stadium near the Khimki reservoir, it was necessary to leave space under the long building for free passage of people to the reservoir. According to the second version, the long "legs" appeared in the project precisely due to the fact that it was decided to build the building on Begovaya, not far from the busy Leningradka, and its installation on supports allowed free passage of air flows, preventing the accumulation of exhaust gases at the lower floors.

No less interesting is the fact that the "legs" of the house have clear angles and edges and expand upward, which creates a deceptive feeling of their fragility. In fact, the building is unusually stable.

The "legs" of the house are cast from reinforced concrete, the building itself is also monolithic, and its appearance is simply amazing: to some it seems strange or even ugly, while other architectural critics consider the project incredibly interesting and even aesthetically attractive.

A three-section facade, "seams", imitation of stone masonry … Architects call such a rough, uncouth style "brutalism". And this is very original, given the initial idea of the airiness and "flightiness" of the high-rise building.

Three towers add originality (inside each there is a staircase of the entrance) with narrow windows, somewhat reminiscent of the medieval towers of some military fortification or even a castle.

As you know, in the late 1970s, the foreign policy situation was tense, and, perhaps, on the eve of the Olympics, the Soviet architect wanted to hint to prospective foreign guests about the combat power and inaccessibility of a great power? However, this is only one of the versions.

By the way, not far from the House of Aviators, there is another historical building that personifies a different architectural era and embodies a completely different idea: Openwork house on Leningradka.