Video: Factory-kitchen in Samara: Soviet utopia and a masterpiece of architectural thought
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
After the revolution, the architects of the young Soviet country often ventured into bold experiments. After all, the new ideology and the course towards collectivism demanded new architectural solutions. And if the concept of "home-communes" (no-frills buildings with common areas) is still on the buzz, then such an experiment as "factory-kitchen" is not so widely known. Meanwhile, in Samara, one of these unique objects is still preserved - a building in the shape of a hammer and sickle and built for the "happy life of Soviet women workers."
Kitchen factories are a bold idea and, for those times, relevant. This project was supposed to both facilitate the work of a Soviet woman, relieving her of working at home in the kitchen, and at the same time provide her with adequate nutrition. And these both tasks, in turn, led to an even more important goal for the Soviet state - to increase the efficiency and productivity of each worker of a factory or plant.
A unique building in the spirit of Soviet constructivism, erected in the 1930s in Samara, was invented by a young but already experienced Soviet architect, the architect of the "People's Nutrition" partnership, Ekaterina Maksimova. The woman-innovator opposed the "philistinism" in architecture and at the same time possessed a practical mindset, which was reflected in all her projects.
The Samara kitchen factory with a daily capacity of 9 thousand meals, intended for the Maslennikov factory, is a masterpiece of Soviet architecture. If you look at it from a height, it has the shape of two main Soviet symbols - a sickle and a hammer. This architectural idea, as you know, was very popular in the Soviet years.
Inside the "hammer" the architect placed a kitchen, and inside the "sickle" - a wardrobe and dining rooms (for adults and children). In the "hammer handle" there was a shop, a post office and other institutions necessary for the Soviet people, and on the second floor there were technical rooms.
The workers had to go from the industrial part of the building to the "sickle" through glazed corridors decorated with stained-glass windows, which were supported by concrete columns. The project even included a summer terrace for outdoor dining.
Alas, in its original form this unique building existed for a little more than ten years: in 1944 the architect I. Thessalonikidi gave the building a more classical look, however the reason was reasonable - to reduce the heat loss of the structure. Stained-glass glazing was replaced by simple windows, three large staircases appeared, and a rustic stone was made in the lower part of the building parallel to the ground level. And the vast niche of the main entrance, located under the overhanging second floor, was built up, and it became part of the warm outline of the building. Signs of constructivism, the spirit of a bold avant-garde and the dynamism that Maksimova so sought to convey, became almost invisible.
In the 1980s, annexes appeared at the grandiose building, but it was still in demand both as a dining room and as a cookery. In the 1990s, the unique building completely ceased to fulfill the functions for which it was originally conceived. A sauna, all kinds of companies, shops, a bar and a nightclub were opened in it, and then the building was turned into a shopping center. The outside was covered with siding, and the roof was covered with blue paint.
At the beginning of the 2000s, they wanted to demolish the building in order to build a high-rise building in its place, but local residents and journalists achieved the cancellation of this decision.
Three years ago, this building housed the Middle Volga branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art, and a year earlier in Moscow, modern architects presented a project for the restoration of this unique masterpiece of Soviet architecture. The inappropriate white siding was dismantled. It is planned to turn the building into a cultural complex with a library, rooms for creative activities and holding forums and other cultural and educational events.
The authors of the project promise to preserve the historical look of the "kitchen factory" - the one that Maksimova once conceived, but at the same time to make the building more modern.
Another monument of the Soviet architectural era - house "Tear of Socialism" in St. Petersburg, built on the principle of a commune.
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