The starting point of the excursion route was a symbolic place for the south-west - the famous 8th quarter of Novye Cheryomushki, from which, in the late 1950s, in fact, the development of this district by experimental complexes of residential and public architecture began. In the next two decades, it was the southwest that became the platform for the introduction of innovative, albeit typical, series of panel and block residential buildings with an accompanying typical infrastructure. Along with this, there were also unique public buildings, educational and research institutes, cultural institutions, where new principles were tested in the organization of various life processes.
The most ordinary-looking courtyard near the Akademicheskaya metro station, built on all sides with blackened panel and block houses, turned out to be an incubator of new standard series - here they are all presented at once. For example, the first house of the expanded clay-panel series, uncharacteristically 4-storey, with a geometric pattern at the cornice, concrete window frames, widened window openings and rusted brackets for boxes with flowers - vertical landscaping was supposed. These houses then disappeared from the series. In the same courtyard there are pioneers of 9-12-storey block buildings, next to it is a representative of an experimental series of 5-storey brick buildings. A curious detail of the interior layout here was the screens that separated the kitchen from the dining room.
A pond, a dilapidated fountain in the center of the courtyard, decorative screens - trellises and cross-shaped lanterns, remnants of the former "garden city" remind of the once large-scale and beautiful plan with careful landscaping, which in the 1960s came here to admire.
While walking to the bus, we passed an amazingly preserved corner of Soviet culture - next to the Raketa cinema, which, by the way, together with the neighboring department store is part of the typical infrastructure of the same time, was crowded with a flea market. If it were not for the modern panel giants on the other side of the street, on the site of the 10th quarter of New Cheryomushki, one would think that nothing has changed in this area since the 1960s.
The most impressive object of the excursion could be called the unique house of teachers, interns and graduate students of Moscow State University on Shvernik Street (N. Osterman, A. Petrushkova, I. Kanaeva, etc.). It amazes with its size, sharp, dynamic composition and, of course, extremely daring design, reviving the principles of the communal houses of the 1920s in the 1970s. The author of this project, N. Osterman, conceived not to build a dormitory, but a dwelling house, organizing life itself according to a strictly verified scheme with the socialization of everyday life. Two 16-storey buildings-books with apartments for single and small-family (812 apartments of different types) are turned towards each other at angles, opening their "wings" in different planes. In the center, they are united by a public block, where the canteen still functions. There is also a wellness building with an outdoor pool. Students walked back and forth behind the glazed openings of the gallery of the public block, played tennis, and in general, despite the fact that there has been no renovation here since the moment of construction, the building looks alive. By the way, if we talk about the layout of apartments, then, of course, there were no extreme conditions of the 1920s, there are bathrooms in them, even special built-in furniture was developed, although instead of a kitchen, a kitchen niche familiar to us from the 1920s.
When the complex was erected by 1971, it was decided to give it to graduate students as a hotel-hostel, the idea of a house-commune, in general, failed - it now seemed too strained and hardly realizable.
One of the leading architects of that time, whose name appeared more than once in the story of our guide Denis Romodin, was Yakov Belopolsky, who left quite a lot of interesting buildings on his own, however, he also actively participated in the development of standard series. A large ensemble was conceived by Belopolsky at the intersection of Profsoyuznaya Street. and Nakhimovsky prospect. It is here, if you pay attention to the buildings of Profsoyuznaya, that the border of two eras lies in the residential buildings of the area, the strict perimeter of the 1950s is replaced by a freer one.
The ensemble consisted of three buildings: INION (Institute for Scientific Information in Social Sciences), the Central Scientific Medical Library and the CEMI building (Central Economics and Mathematics Institute). In the cubic building of INION (Ya. B. Belopolsky, E. P. Vulykh, L. V. Misozhnikov) with a characteristic "accordion" at the base of the 1970s, the main illumination occurs through the upper skylights, which, meanwhile, first appeared in the libraries of Alvaaro Aalto, incl. in the famous Vyborg library. There is another curious detail here - the arrangement of the reservoir next to the building, with a pedestrian bridge over it. The reservoir, unfortunately, has been abandoned for many years, but in general, this is one of Belopolsky's favorite techniques, which appears, for example, in the circus building.
The CEMI building (in the design of which Belopolsky did not participate; this famous project was made by L. Pavlov, G. Dembovskaya, I. Yadrov) is divided into two halves, one part is given to machines (computers), the other - to people (design workshops). It is interesting that the project of this research institute has its own "mathematical meaning" - it is based on a module - a decorative panel depicting a Mobius strip on the facade, the size of which is equal to one millionth of the earth's radius.
The excursionists were lucky to get into the interiors of the Palace of Pioneers on Vorobyovy Gory. Much has been written and said about this amazing ensemble, and it is also known abroad. But the palace originally planned here by the project of I. Zholtovsky is probably not familiar to anyone. The neoclassical architect oriented a huge ceremonial composition of two wings with a courdoner to Kosygin Street so that the building could be viewed from the bank of the Moskva River.
But nevertheless, a more modern project of young architects - F. Novikov, I. Pokrovsky, V. Yegerev, who, by the way, participated in the experimental development of Zelenograd, was accepted for implementation. In their project, the palace moved inland, where a stunning landscape ensemble was deployed, which collected the best that had been invented by that time in the planning of such institutions. It includes many buildings and platforms, but there are two main ones: one in the form of a "comb" - five buildings are perpendicular to the long body, the other is a free-standing concert hall.
We got inside the long building and went through it all through, remembering the long-forgotten feelings of childhood - circles there are actively working on Sundays, children run and shout, the palace lives on. Moreover, he lives in the same interiors as half a century ago, little has changed here. We passed a chain of light and varied spaces, reminiscent of the interiors of the ZIL Palace of Culture, conceived by the Vesnins, with their free layouts, spacious halls, multi-level rooms. Authentic details are immediately recognizable - these are thin columns of galleries, ceramic inserts on the staircase, special glazing - all "the same" from the 1960s.
The Palace of Pioneers, meanwhile, was part of a larger plan to create an "island of childhood and youth" opposite the territory of Moscow State University, which was soon supplemented by Natalia Sats's theater and circus. The latter was originally also designed by Zholtovsky in his own spirit - it was a gigantic heavy rotunda. We know a completely different image of this building - the architects Efim Vulykh and Yakov Belopolsky took the scheme of a traditional tent as the basis for the new circus, "hanging" a tent made of metal structures over glass walls. The inner walls are lined with a mirror, which again emphasizes the ephemerality of the border with the outer space. In contrast to the light building of the circus, a complex of office premises with a small arena was made, which the authors hid in a heavy stylobate, revealing it with wild granite.
For the experimental series of the 1960s-70s, our bus went to the unique area of Troparevo-Nikulino, from which in those years they made a kind of platform for testing new principles of organizing the living environment. The houses here are arranged in picturesque groups, and they are all different - half-open books, shamrocks, prisms. Here, not far from the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the famous Olympic Village (E. Stamo) was rebuilt. For athletes who came from all over the world, they offered all the most advanced - block houses had an improved layout, imported built-in furniture, kitchen sets with dishwashers. All this then went to the tenants.
The planning center of the Troparevo district was supposed to be a complex of educational buildings - MGIMO, the agricultural academy and the academy of social sciences. The Agricultural Academy is the last project of Yakov Belopolsky in 1989, a crystal-shaped building, which, unfortunately, has turned into one of the perestroika long-term construction projects. The fate of the complex of the Academy of Social Sciences, designed by Mikhail Posokhin, was different. Nowadays, it is occupied by the presidential administration, so that the building is maintained in perfect condition. The Academy includes three towers of student hotels facing Akademik Anokhin Street, and a block of educational facilities cut through with cozy courtyards with glass staircases. Our guide Denis Romodin has been inside, and his impression is that the atmosphere of the 1970s has been preserved there, with lacquered floors and red carpets.
Another unique area is located in the neighboring southern district - Severnoye Chertanovo, conceived as an independent city within the city (M. Posokhin, L. Dyubek, A. Shapiro, Yu. Ivanov, etc.). Here, even the numbering of houses does not go along the streets, but as a whole - the district, house number and building. This is another attempt to create an exemplary environment with landscaped courtyards, where there is not a single car - everything is in garages, houses with comfortable and unusual layouts. The first such house with built-in furniture, Czech plumbing fixtures, a pneumatic Swedish garbage chute and a regulated heating system seemed to the authorities too bourgeois. The rest of the houses were made simpler, typical. Although the pneumatic garbage chutes remained in the projects - there, according to the recollections of residents, soon, instead of neat bags, they began to throw anything they wanted - both New Year trees, and even small TVs. The buildings resemble ordinary block buildings, but have unexpected solid glazing of the lower floors, where there are spaces for strollers and skis, as well as non-standard hexagonal canopies above the entrances.
Everything that was shown on this wonderful excursion is our recent past, which has already entered the textbooks on architecture, but has not yet managed to enter our consciousness as any valuable objects. Awareness of this value comes only when you move away from the everyday gaze and consider all this at the level of an architectural concept, as a field of an experiment that has not been fully realized. This architecture, which we are used to talking about pejoratively, undoubtedly had great potential, and there was a place in it for both bold daring and solutions already found in organizing the living environment of a fundamentally new quality.
