Publisher: OGIZ (Union of State Publishers)
Author: Beliiakov, N. D., Kardashev, V. P. (Valerian Pavlovich), Olsuf'eva, A.
Artist:
Materials:
Subjects:
- 1Soviet Construction In contrast to the general title “Human Housing” for preceding page, this page contains four concrete examples of Soviet housing.
- 2Industrial Building (Home) in Kharkiv
- 3The Publisher of the Newspaper "Pravda" will build such a building (home)
- 4Communal Trade Union Club on Moscow’s Lesnaya Street
- 5New Home (Building) on Leningrad Highway
- 6Derzhprom (Ukrainian) or Gosprom (Russian) is a prominent example of constructivist architecture in Kharkov which was a relatively small city at the time; it was built alongside the university and became a major landmark of the city along with the Freedom Square upon which it is located. Completed in 1928 after only 3 years of construction by architects S.S. Serafimov, S.M. Kravets and M.D. Felger, it was the largest building in the world by volume upon completion and one of the tallest in Europe. The use of hanging concrete walkways was technically impressive and difficult to achieve at the time. Its current street address is Svobody Square, 5 Kharkiv Kharkivs'ka oblast Ukraine, 61000. Link to more information: https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6249/ http://kharkivobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/streets-kharkiv.info_.jpg
- 7
This building is a concept for the actual headquarters of Pravda (newspaper) publication in Moscow. The tower for airship docking was never constructed and the actual structure is only eight stories tall; remnants of the high-reaching ambitions are in the original constructivist blueprint. The building was constructed between 1931 and 1937 by Panteleimon Golosov and remained a shining example of the period’s architecture until a fire in 2006 severely damaged all but its bottom three stories. Its original blueprints, which were likely the inspiration for this image, were replaced by a more classical approach to emphasise proportionality among the three constituent blocks of the building’s design and give us the building we find today. The two wings of the building were realized as depicted in these original plans, with the tower shrunk down to match their height. Its modern street address is Ulitsa Pravdy, 24 Moskva Russia 127137.
See also: https://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/03/10/panteleimon-golosov-leningradskaia-pravda-building-in-moscow/
- 8The airship's appearance, bearing the name of Pravda, reflects themes of flight we see in the early Soviet Union, which had yet to see the full development of commercial aviation. Other books of the time thus turned their futurist ambitions to the newly-burgeoning field of inflated airships, including other children’s books, like The Unusual Story About The Invention of an Air Ballon By the Great Scientist Montgolfier, About a Silk Skirt and the Hot Brazier and The Song of the Dirigible.
- 9
The Zuev Workers' Club is an iconic Constructivist building designed by Ilya Golosov and completed in 1929. It is recognizable as a especially expressive example of constructivist architecture and would likely have been easily recognizable to an adult reading this book. The image included in the children's book was drawn from a photograph, complete with powerlines in front of the building. The status as a workers' club is important, as the new Soviet state sought to glorify its newly-forged proletarian base via monumental buildings. Its current street address is Lesnaya Ulitsa,18, Moskva, Russia, 125047.
See also:
https://www.mimoa.eu/projects/Russia/Moscow/Zuev%20Workers%27%20Club/
- 10This new apartment housing, also in the constructivist style, is located at a key site in Moscow's urban expansion and redesign: Leningrad Shosse. Shosses (highways) in general tend to be found outside the historically urban center of large Russian cities though today they are comfortably within city limits. This urban expansion set the stage for Soviet urbanisation and the commitment to new housing and industrial production for the transforming state. Such communal housing was common until Khrushchyovkas (low-rise, prefabricated housing built during the Khrushchev period) were built in the 1950s as the next wave of housing as a low-cost expansion to the urban agglomeration that resulted from the first housing boom in the 30s.