Why the idea of communal houses, or the absurd fantasies of Soviet architects, did not take root in the USSR

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

A hundred years ago, when, after the abolition of private property, Soviet workers moved from barracks to mansions and tenement houses confiscated from the "bourgeoisie", everyday communes began to appear in the young Soviet country. The architects received an order for completely new projects for the country - residential buildings with public reading rooms, canteens, kindergartens and communal kitchens. The role of separate premises where a young Soviet family can retire has faded into the background. It is clear that this idea turned out to be so absurd that it never caught on.

What the architects suggested

Among the "advanced" projects of public communal houses were high-rise buildings with courtyards-halls, and three-story sectional residential buildings with combined buildings or adjacent public service premises. It was assumed that Soviet citizens would not be distracted by everyday life (washing, cooking, and so on) and their private life would be as open to the public as possible.

The famous architect Konstantin Melnikov, for example, came up with the idea of residential buildings for young Soviet families, designed in the form of extended semi-detached houses with two-level apartments. Public premises (canteen, kindergarten, household institutions), according to Melnikov's project, were located in a single building, which is connected by a passage with dormitory buildings for couples and single ones.

Alas, architectural thought ran ahead of reality, and in practice, public service premises also had to be populated by families, because there was not enough residential square meters for all the proletarians. And rooms and apartments - "odnushki", originally intended for single, often settled in large families. More and more children were born, the houses became more and more cramped. All these inconveniences made communal houses not as comfortable as the Soviet authorities had originally promised, and drew criticism from citizens.

One of the unfortunate examples of communal houses is a building in St. Petersburg (then - Leningrad), which the townspeople nicknamed "Tear of Socialism".

Gradually, housing fees were introduced in the USSR, housing cooperatives appeared, providing for a variety of types of apartments - and multi-room (for large families), and two-room (for small), and "odnushki" (for young couples and single people). However, the premises of public and communal purposes still did not lose their relevance, such as, for example, the building of the cooperative "Dukstroy" (architect - Fufaev), built in the late 1920s in Moscow in Moscow.

And despite the fact that in Moscow, Leningrad and other large cities, architects began to gradually move to more economical sectional houses, each section of which included four two-room or two three-room apartments, due to the shortage of living space, the "room-by-room" settlement of apartments continued.

Urban and suburban low-rise residential complexes and villages looked much more comfortable against this background. However, some town house-communes also turned out to be more or less successful.

House-commune in Donskoy

The student house, built in the late 1920s on Donskoy Lane in Moscow and designed on the principle of a commune, was designed for two thousand tenants. According to the idea of the architect Nikolayev, it consisted of three buildings. The sleeping room (eight-story building) consisted of rooms with an area of six "frames" each, designed for two. The second building was a sports block, and the third building housed a dining room for half a thousand eaters, a reading room with a book depository, classrooms, and a nursery.

This type of commune house has proven to be quite successful and has been in operation for many years.

House of "transitional type"

The residential building, designed by architects Ginzburg, Milinis and engineer Prokhorov, was built in Moscow, on Novinsky Boulevard, also in the late 1920s.

The project included a six-story residential building, from which, through the second floor, it was possible to go to a four-story public block (canteen and kindergarten). This option became, in fact, a transitional type, because rooms for single residents, and small-sized apartments, which would now be called studios, and full-fledged apartments for large families were conceived here.

The living quarters in the building are conceived as two-level, with windows facing both sides, which implies through ventilation.

The situation has reached the point of absurdity

When designing communal houses, it sometimes reached the point of absurdity. A striking example of this is the commune house, invented in 1929 by architects Barshch and Vladimirov. The project consisted of three buildings: the first - for adults, the second - for schoolchildren, and in the third, as the "progressive" architects assumed, kids were supposed to live. It was assumed that all these three groups would communicate only in special rooms for meetings between children and their parents. Thus, the very idea of a family had to disappear.

Practice has shown the entire inconsistency of the socialization of living spaces. As a result, in 1930, the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) even issued a decree "On work on the reconstruction of everyday life." It harshly criticized the idea of communal houses and the understatement of the role of the family, as well as the formalism itself in the implementation of the idea of socializing everyday life. At the same time, the document noted that the construction of workers' settlements should continue and, at the same time, be accompanied by accompanying works on improvement and public services for residents.