Sakhalin Island, Kholmsk, Pervomayskaya street, 1
The team of authors (Sakhalingrazhdanproekt): architects Yevgeny Levitsky, Vladimir Marchenko, L. Astapenko, Khan San Zun, engineers Valentina Mezhennaya, I Che Eun.
Design: 1976-1977
Construction: 1978-1980
Construction volume: 12 600 m3
Area: 2 600 m2
280 seats
On the site of the modern city there was a large Ainu settlement - Mauka (Maoka, Entrumgomo, Tunai), where a Russian military post was founded in 1870. As a result of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Muaka went to Japan, in subsequent years it became a notable port, industrial and commercial center. In 1945 the city passed to the USSR, receiving its modern name in 1946. In Soviet times, Kholmsk continued to develop, new enterprises appeared, in 1973 a ferry crossing with the mainland was opened; houses and infrastructure were being built for the growing population.
In the early 1970s, the linear structure of Kholmsk exhausted its resource, and new microdistricts were formed on mountain terraces, which must be reached along steep serpentines. So, in 1976, at an altitude of two hundred meters above sea level, the construction of the IV microdistrict for 14 thousand inhabitants began. It has become in many ways advanced: it was here, in spite of the active relief, that one of the first nine-story houses in the whole of Sakhalin appeared, as well as the first monolithic twelve-story towers. A small variety of storeys was compensated for by the richest relief: with its help they achieved the silhouette expressiveness of buildings, organized pedestrian and car traffic; artificial terraces served as natural fences, and the nearby ravines housed two-level garages and vegetable stores. As a single experiment, a terraced residential building was built here.
However, the most interesting object of the new microdistrict was the kindergarten.
“The building is designed in the plan in the form of two parallel blocks connected by glazed staircases-passages, forming an inner courtyard covered with a glazed dome in the form of a tower. Specific climatic conditions led to the placement of walking and gymnastic areas in the winter garden. At the level of the second floor, the winter garden is surrounded by a gallery on three sides, which allows organizing the exit of the group [rooms] of this level into the garden space. An old concrete silo on site has been converted into a summer playroom."
"Architecture of the USSR" No. 5 (1985)
In the second phase, it was planned to build a swimming pool, connecting it with the main building by a ground crossing, but, as often happens, these plans were not implemented. Nevertheless, a kindergarten with a glass dome was built, and under this dome palm trees and ficuses still grow, hibiscus blooms, and lemon bears fruit.
The chief architect of the kindergarten, Evgeny Yakovlevich Levitsky, came to Sakhalin in 1965 and already in 1969 headed a team of 60 people as part of Sakhalingrazhdanproekt. These specialists worked together with him on projects for Kholmsk, which became a real testing ground for architectural experiments of the Sakhalin people of the sixties. Thanks to the peculiarities of the relief and the desire of the designers to use all the possibilities for the realization of bold ideas, the city acquired a unique architectural appearance that emphasized the existing natural context.
In 1979, the leadership of Sakhalingrazhdanproekt changed, which made it more difficult to implement atypical projects. Levitsky changed his place of work for the Sakhalin department of DalmorNIIproekt, also located in Kholmsk, and was able to realize his other ideas in the city. You can read more about Evgeny Levitsky
here.
