Mass Residential Construction (entry)

Categories / Architecture/Urban Planning
MASS RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION. Started from the middle of the 1920s with the erection of apartment blocks. The first ones were erected in 1925-27, on Traktornaya Street (in 1927, 140,000 sq. metres of apartment houses were introduced). Living space for each person was strongly regulated at the time (nine square metres per person, according to government standards from the 1970s-80s), as municipal authorities were interested in the maximum reduction of the cost of building apartment blocs for the majority of the population. In the 1920s-30s, this was achieved by the availability of labour and the use of low quality building materials. Constructivist aesthetics determined the appearance of various apartment blocs, including those of Serafimovsky and Ushakovsky beyond the Narva Gate; Palevsky at the Trinity Field in the Nevsky District; Baburinsky and Bateninsky on the Vyborgskaya Side; and Krestovsky in the Primorsky District. The rates for living in apartment blocs were lowered during the second half of the 1930s, when improved planning was also introduced for the buildings. In total, during the second half of the 1920s - 1930s, about 5 million square metres of residential housing was erected in Leningrad. A steep per-capacity increase took place within the residential blocs during industrialization in the middle of the 1950s. From 1956-1960, more than 6 million square metres (from 1951-1955, 2.5 million) of residential housing was introduced. The first multi-entrance large-scale building in Leningrad was built in 102 days in 1955 at 10 Polyarnikov Street (architect A.V. Vasilyev, engineer Z.V. Kaplunov). The first four House Building Centres (HBCs) were introduced in 1959 (later, they appeared in Moscow and other cities). These standard five-story buildings (Khrushchev slum) were marked by high-quality construction and a bare appearance, and to a certain extent they relieved the city's housing crisis. During the end of 1960s, projects were developed according to an "improved" housing model, using dry, mortar-less construction, (9-story multi-section houses, series no. 1LG-6 06; bloc-sections, series no. 1LG-600). In 1974, the first building 137 bloc-section series, designed at the Obukhovsky Centre for Residential Buildings (the 16th workshop of the Lenproject Institute under the supervision of I.N. Kuskov) was assembled on Belgradskaya Street in Kupchino. Throughout the 1970s-80s, this series enabled the creation of residential districts made up of buildings with a variety of heights and capacities. Along with dry mortarless construction dominating the "dormitory districts", a number of typical projects were also built, with brick buildings from 12 to 16 stories. Most trade and shopping centres, children's and educational institutions, and cinema halls erected in new districts were built this way. From in the 1960s, the main growing mass-residential districts were Kupchino, Avtovo, Dachnoe, Ulyanka (in the south of the city), and Grazhdanka, Polyustrovo, and Okhta (in the north). In the 1970s-80s, mass residential construction continued, reaching Uritsk and Sosnovaya Polyana on the west; the right bank of the Neva River; north of the Murinsky Stream; the west section of Vasilievsky Island, and Dekabristov Island (the St. Petersburg Sea Facade); and, on the southwest, the districts of Shuvalovo - Ozerki, and Rzhevka - Porokhovye. From the 1990s, the Primorsky District was actively built up. By the end of the 1980s, 2 million square metres of housing blocs were introduced annually. In 1990, St. Petersburg's residential area made up 90 million square metres (on average 16.7 square metres per person). At the end of 1990s, mass residential building stopped in the city.

References: Лисовский В. Г. Ленинград: Р-ны новостроек. Л., 1983.

Y. M. Piryutko. Kaplunov Zinovy V.
Kuskov Ilya Nikolaevich
Vasilyev Alexander Viktorovich
Traktornaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Лисовский В. Г. Ленинград: Р-ны новостроек. Л., 1983 Integrated House-Building Factory
1955
1959
1974