Houses of Soviets (entry)

Categories / Architecture/Architectural Monuments/Public Buildings and Edifices
HOUSES OF SOVIETS. A new type of social (administrative) buildings, designed by Soviet architects to house local (district) government organs, including the executive committee of the district council (and services subjected to it), and sometimes for local post office departments, bank, or other institutions. In the first half of the 1930s, the Kirovsky District Council (18 Stachek Avenue; 1930-35, architect N.A. Trotsky) and the Moskovsky District Council (129 Moskovsky Avenue; 1930-1935, architects I.I. Fomin, V.G. Daugul, B.M. Serebrovsky) were housed in buildings designed in the Constructivist style, which were erected despite the face that their decoration suffered from the "enrichment" of Classical details. Both buildings utilised the contrast between high elongated forms and solid ribbon windows. The architecture of the Nevsky District Council building (163 Obukhovskoy Oborony Avenue; 1939-40, architects E.A. Levinson, I.I. Fomin) was marked by details in the Academic style, which is also features a ribbon building structure, not unlike the later Kalininsky District Council building (1 Lenina Square; 1955, architects N.V. Baranov, N.G. Ageeva, G.I. Ivanov). The All-Municipal House of Soviets building is actively opposed to having any sort of "background" (1936-1941, architect Trotsky among others), and is positioned on an island on Moskovskaya Square. Though it was not used for its original purpose, it has had significant architectural significance for the entire district. Council buildings were built on the city's outskirts; in central districts, old buildings were utilised for administrative needs. In the 1970s-80s, buildings for the Zhdanovsky, Krasnoselsky, Pushkinsky, and Frunzensky district councils were erected together with the mass residential houses. Examples of reconstruction and enlarging of administrative buildings in the city's older parts is interesting to note, particularly on the Petrogradskaya and Leninskaya parts. Since 1991, as a general rule, district council buildings have housed newly elected organs of city administration.

References: Микишатьев М. Н. Дома Советов: образные решения // ЛП. 1986. № 11. С. 16-18.

M. N. Mikishatiev. Ageeva Nadezhda Georgievna
Baranov Nikolay Varfolomeevich
Daugul Valerian Georgievich
Fomin Igor Ivanovich
Ivanov Georgy Ivanovich
Levinson Evgeny Adolfovich
Serebrovsky Boris Mikhailovich
Trotsky Noy Abramovich
Lenina Square/Saint Petersburg, city, house 1
Moskovskaya Square/Saint Petersburg, city
Moskovsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 129
Obukhovskoy Oborony Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 163
Stachek Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 18
Микишатьев М. Н. Дома Советов: образные решения // Ленингр. панорама., 1986 1936