Moses Ginzburg was an architect and thinker. He turned the design process into a search for approaches to unlocking the possibilities of a particular typology, and then described the results of research in books. The most famous, and perhaps the best example of such a genre is the book "Housing" (Moscow, 1934), which summarizes the work of the section of the Construction Committee of the RSFSR in the field of typology of housing for modern society: comfortable for a person, contributing to the development of personality and at the same time optimal in the sense of use of space.
But "Dwelling" is not the only book by M. Ya. Ginzburg in a genre where an architect, while publishing a real project, shares his thoughts and best practices in the field of a certain typology. Another example was the publication of the project of the NKTP sanatorium - the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry - a powerful ministry that controlled forty percent of the country's budget in the 1930s. The book is also interesting because the design, and even more so the publication, falls on the 1930s, when during the period of the so-called post-constructivism, that is, the government's turn to historicism and the classics, one of the leading masters of the architectural avant-garde, Moses Ginzburg, made certain and inevitable concessions preferences of the leadership, remains true to the principles of modernism.
Recently Ginzburg architects released a facsimile reprint of the book by M. Ya. Ginzburg "Architecture of the NKTP sanatorium in Kislovodsk", first appeared in 1940. The publication accurately repeats the format, design and cover of the original book. The facsimile can be purchased at Ozon, Books.ru, Alib.ru stores.
Below we publish an excerpt from the book devoted to the problems of designing a sanatorium, with a detailed description of the landscape and relief of the territory.
You can flip through the same passage here:
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zooming 1/6 M. Ya. Ginzburg. The architecture of the NKTP sanatorium in Kislovodsk. Reissue. M., 2019 Courtesy of Ginzburg architects
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zooming 2/6 M. Ya. Ginzburg. The architecture of the NKTP sanatorium in Kislovodsk. Reissue. M., 2019 Courtesy of Ginzburg architects
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zooming 3/6 M. Ya. Ginzburg. The architecture of the NKTP sanatorium in Kislovodsk. Reissue. M., 2019 Courtesy of Ginzburg architects
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zooming 4/6 M. Ya. Ginzburg. The architecture of the NKTP sanatorium in Kislovodsk. Reissue. M., 2019 Courtesy of Ginzburg architects
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zooming 5/6 M. Ya. Ginzburg. The architecture of the NKTP sanatorium in Kislovodsk. Reissue. M., 2019 Courtesy of Ginzburg architects
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zooming 6/6 M. Ya. Ginzburg. The architecture of the NKTP sanatorium in Kislovodsk. Reissue. M., 2019 Courtesy of Ginzburg architects
Architectural problems
Landscape and relief of the territory
Deep oblong ravines and valleys alternate with hills. The beams are protected, often landscaped: here you can find spruce, pine, fruit trees. The green slopes of the hills either gently descend into the gully, or abruptly break off over the gully with rocky yellow-red steeps, revealing the geomorphological backbone of Kislovodsk.
When you stand in a gully, only the nearest hills are visible. As you go up the hill, the horizon expands, revealing the natural structure of the edge with amazing clarity. Behind the first chain of hills, a second grows, behind the second - a third, sometimes a fourth. In the distance, there are two snow-white peaks of Elbrus.
For a long time man began to settle in gullies and valleys. Small houses, vegetable gardens and orchards took up sheltered hiding places.
October created a new developer, erecting grandiose and monumental structures in Kislovodsk: palaces of workers' health - sanatoriums and rest homes.
In most cases, however, the new developer followed the beaten path, filling the girders and valleys with sanatorium buildings. If building beams with small houses made sense, building new sanatoriums below is rarely successful.
The girder and the valley become cluttered, the adjacent hills lose their scale and pattern, the buildings themselves look awkward and, finally, the rear facades of the structures are close to the hills or rocks, forming poorly ventilated, damp corridors unsuitable for use (sanatorium of the State Bank, All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and etc.).
For the construction of the sanatorium NKTP was chosen, directly by the deceased Comrade. Sergo Ordzhonikidze, a beautiful plot in Rebrova Balka. This site, in addition, has even larger spaces at the top, above the beam opposite the "Temple of Air". The upper section was completely bare. The lower one had beautiful vegetation. That is why, as well as influenced by local traditions, we started designing a sanatorium in the lower section.
However, the very first option convinced us that such a decision was wrong. A layout of the building was made on the relief, and all the negative aspects of this option were clearly revealed. Several of the following options with a mixed building of the top and bottom were also unsatisfactory, since they did not completely eliminate the defects of the lower building.
Finally, we moved on to the complete development of the upper deck. This option seemed to us at first very risky, as we were worried about the lack of greenery on this site and the abundance of winds. However, this decision turned out to be more correct. The winds were softened; even managed to create several southern sites, completely protected from the wind. Greening the upper plateau in the coming years will further change its climate.
Ultimately, it was this option that ensured the conquest of the landscape, sun, air, and expanses of the landscape for the sanatorium.
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Spatial composition tasks
The main elements of the spatial composition of the sanatorium are three buildings: two regime buildings (No. 1 and No. 2) and a medical building. The entire composition at first glance should be perceived as an easily readable diagram, the complexity of which gradually reveals itself upon close examination. In connection with the functional structure of the plant, an optical symmetry was outlined as a compositional scheme, balanced in the basic dimensions of the silhouette and the most general principles and completely different in the dismemberment and elements of the structures themselves.
Of course, only the treatment body could be adopted as the axis of the composition. Due to the importance of its functional purpose, its architectural structure was also determined. The medical building in the general plan of a conventional sanatorium occupies a more modest place.
In our project, he plays a special role, since all types of modern treatment are concentrated in it, placing him among the most advanced Soviet and European medical institutions.
Two silhouettes balancing this axis are two regime buildings: No. 1 and No. 2. Building No. 1 consists of single and double rooms, building No. 2 consists of two-room apartments. In order to balance building No. 2 with a general silhouette, in building No. 1 the double rooms are pushed forward. Thus, the basis of the composition is formed by: in the center - the medical building, from the west - double rooms of the regime building No. 1 and from the east the regime building No. 2.
The entire expanded composition has a general direction towards the southern horizon to the most interesting landscape part of Kislovodsk.
Both regime buildings form, as it were, two wings outstretched towards the southern horizon, covering the entire panorama of the mountains with Elbrus in the center.
Thus, without exception, all living rooms of both buildings have a southern orientation, and a complete landscape composition fits into the window of each of them. The most important point that has decisive artistic significance in the composition of each room is precisely this window frame with the landscape.
All decoration and decoration of the room are subject to this basic factor and receive meaning only as details that complement it.
Finally, an important role in the overall spatial composition was played by taking into account the relief of the Georgievsky plateau, on which the sanatorium was built.
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The plateau, due to its structure, forms a softer fold among two steep rocks, falling down to the lower park part of the territory. This fold, of course, was taken as the axis of the entire composition, where the medical building was placed and the main staircase unfolds, connecting the upper part of the territory with the lower one. The staircase is located in an amphitheater that naturally fits the relief of this fold. Thus, both sides of the steep cliffs and the upper part of the plateau with the lower one join together. However, this solution could not get a complete sequence, because the very axis of this naturally formed composition not only does not have a continuation in the lower park, but even turns out to be drawn at a random angle to the axis of the magnificent alley of old shady fir trees.
We have not been able to completely overcome the contradictions that exist between these compositional axes of natural landscapes, upper and lower. The continuation of the main staircase in the lower part of the park is no longer deployed along the main axis of the amphitheater, but along one of the auxiliary ascents of the semicircular niche. This gives the impression of a completely natural and compositionally understandable logical deployment of the entire theme from above and on the staircase itself. Below and in the alley of the lower park, the building remains unfinished. A number of additional measures are needed to mitigate the most acute corners of this most difficult compositional problem.
Determining the perimeter of the building in relation to the cliff line was also extremely difficult. Was it necessary to move the buildings to the very cliff or move them deeper? And if you need to push back, then how to determine - how much? Only after a series of spot checks in nature was it possible to find the answer. It would be inadmissible to move buildings to the very edge of the cliff.
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stimo. If the height of the neighboring rocks were noticeably higher than the height of the structures, this would be the most effective and equally favorable technique for revealing the mutual scales of the rock and the buildings themselves. In this case, with a small absolute height of the rocks, their striking scale is achieved by various fracture lines and the very texture of the rocks.
One had only to push the facades of the five-story buildings tightly over the edge of these rocks, as their scale would be immediately destroyed, crushed - and, moreover, without any gain in the scale of the building itself. Having moved the structures a little further, and precisely to such a depth that hides the base of the structure from below, that is, pushing it into the next spatial plane and at the same time revealing it sufficiently, we come to the most correct solution. The rocks not only fully retain their scale and picturesqueness, but also benefit from these qualities in contrast to the architecture, which is only in the second spatial plan.
In the same way, the scale of the structures increases thanks to this technique.
And finally, the sanatorium is enriched with new areas that appear between the facades of buildings and cliffs. These sites are protected from the winds and are illuminated by the southern sun.
They are enclosed between the strict lines of buildings and the soft folds of the Caucasian ridge, where the geometric forms of architecture and the plastic forms of nature, contrasting, most fully reveal and deepen their opposite properties.
These southern platforms in front of the main buildings of the sanatorium, together with the amphitheater of stairs that continue them, represent the most attractive resting place for patients.
Completely different natural conditions in the northern part of the Georgievsky plateau.
The slope itself, unlike the southern one, is not so steep and rocky. It descends much more gently and gently into the Budennovskaya gully. A different landscape is revealed from the north side. Instead of many plans unfolding from the south, here only mountains fill the horizon with their laconic and austere silhouette.
Therefore, other building principles are adopted here, in accordance with the nature of small two-storey buildings for economic purposes.
The entire composition of the northern side is built on the principle of free balance, organized on one axis of symmetry between two identical buildings of the administrative building. The silhouette of the mountains fits into the gap between them on the north side, on the south - the axis of the entrance to the main building, a parterre with a pool and a fountain. The rest of the outbuildings are located in a terrace-like manner (the roof of the garage, for example, is a courtyard area for the preparation and laundry). The ensemble ends with a retaining wall running along the entire northern slope.
Approaching Budennovka and getting to the foot of the northern slope, the viewer perceives the gentle front of the mountain and the terraced composition of structures as a whole. The latter finish, crown the slope, fitting into its silhouette. At different bends of the road, at different angles, this composition becomes more distinct, already dominating the mountainside. The entrance to the site between the buildings of the administrative building, the landscape of mountains and fountains should reinforce the impression of the unity of the composition.
But the strongest visual impressions are ahead. After the visitor completes the usual registration procedures and finally gets into his room, the southern landscape and the sun-drenched panorama of the Caucasus Mountains are revealed to him, as a surprise. Only then does he get to know the environment in which he will have to spend his vacation.
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