Since 1986, Alexei Ginzburg, while still in the workshop of his father Vladimir Ginzburg, began to work on a project for the restoration of the house. But only in 2016 he was able to start detailed field studies. The restoration began in March 2017. By now, the house, the communal building and the laundry that is part of the ensemble have been restored. The house has sold out studio apartments; The tenants of the communal building and the laundry building have not yet been identified. There is still a complete reconstruction of the vertical layout of the site itself with the renewal of historical ties that existed on the territory of the complex: from the side of the laundry in the project "Ginsburg Architects" there is a ramp to connect to the park, from the territory of the house - two stairs to the park.
Atlantis from architecture
Perhaps none of the architectural monuments has become overgrown with myths like the house with the people's commissar's apartment on the roof. Already at its birth, the project was surrounded by special attention of contemporaries - it was chosen for itself by the cultural and political elite. Here lived not only the artist Deineka, the People's Commissar of Finance of the RSFSR Milyutin and the architect Ginzburg himself, but also the doctor Semashko, and the writer Antonov-Ovseenko, and many members of the government.
One of the main myths is that the People's Commissariat of Finance is a communal house, but this does not at all correspond to its true status. Alexey Ginzburg does not get tired of repeating that in fact this is a communal building, that is, it has nothing to do with communal apartments and hostels, rather it is about related utilities. Its predecessor can be considered a pre-revolutionary apartment building, for example, the Nirnsee House, built in 1912, in which the architect himself lives. It was housing with its own infrastructure, such as a home kitchen, cabaret, cinema and other amenities appropriate in the so-called "bachelor's house." The Nirnzee House has a lot in common with American hotel-type houses and is modern in its own way, but Narkomfin has stepped much further, practically to the current format of housing, fundamentally developing a social program, expressed in a special approach to organizing public spaces and household infrastructure - laundry, dining room, kindergarten. Everything was set up to give the inhabitants of the house the opportunity to live here a harmonious and comfortable family life.
In terms of the full implementation of a new approach to life and the needs of people of its era, the People's Commissariat of Finance was one of a kind. It occupies a key place in the history of the Soviet avant-garde, like the Melnikov House, which represents a fundamentally different typology of housing. Both had a tremendous influence on the entire subsequent architecture of the 20th century: on the one hand, the architect's private house with an unusual way of life for his family, which he himself invented, on the other, a multi-apartment communal building. At the same time, the "classic" communal house with its "marching" order, expressed in the extreme socialization of simple vital functions - was vividly embodied in the project of the architect Nikolayev on Ordzhonikidze Street, but turned out to be unviable and after the war was converted by the author himself into a student hostel. The spectacular, but caricatured project expressed the absurdity of the ideological extremes with which Moisey Ginzburg polemicized in his book "Dwelling".
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zooming Housing: Five Years of Experience on the Housing Problem. M. Ya. Ginzburg. 1934 g.
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zooming Living cell type "K" after the end of the restoration. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
Alexey Ginzburg, Ginsburg Architects
The People's Commissariat for Finance has had a tremendous impact on world architecture, especially in terms of housing, American, European, due to its social determinism. I used to call it that for myself at one time - a socially oriented apartment building. By the end of the 1920s, the ideas of Moses Ginzburg reached Europe and after the war - when a huge part of the housing stock was destroyed, and socialist governments came to power in many countries - fell on fertile ground. The Narkomfin was inherited by both Corbusier's "residential units" and the residential architecture of the period of the new brutalism of the 1960s and 70s. But in Soviet Russia, after the dissolution of creative platforms in the 1930s, the principles of the communal house did not take root - they were "incomprehensible" to proletarian art, and they soon abandoned experiments with organizing a new way of life altogether.
The building of the People's Commissariat for Finance was divided into communal apartments, although Moisey Ginzburg tried to make this impossible by planning rooms with 2.3-meter ceilings combined with a height of 3.75 and 4.6 meters. Then they built up pillars - "legs", adding living space. The system of public infrastructure also gradually degraded, although the kindergarten, canteen and laundry were still functioning for some time. Despite all attempts to make the house an ordinary Soviet communal apartment, it still looked strange. Nobody understood what was in it. And how his systems functioned in the house - apparently, too. This is probably why no one has tried to repair them since their construction.
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zooming View of the eastern facade of the residential building from the side of the US Embassy before restoration. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming View of the eastern facade of the residential building from the side of the US Embassy after restoration. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
Architectural archeology
Alexei Ginzburg uses the term "architectural archeology" to describe a fascinating study of the house, which accompanied a long period of preparatory work, field surveys and the study of sources; the main one is the book of Moses Ginzburg "Dwelling", which describes in detail many architectural nodes and details of the project. He notes that it was especially important that in addition to revealing the details, the restorers managed to carry out full-scale measurements of valuable elements, literally disassembling them in parts, and fix the percentage of preservation and the percentage of replenishment. These include common areas, the cells themselves, a unique system of hidden communications, light pits, ventilation shafts of an open terrace, a stained-glass window of a communal building, flower boxes, a sliding window system and many other elements of construction and decoration.
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zooming 1/9 Interior of the corridor. Refurbished sliding window system and refurbished cast iron batteries. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming 2/9 Original door handle. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming 3/9 Reconstructed doorknob. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming 4/9 Sample of window fittings (clamping element) original. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming 5/9 Sample of window fittings (clamping element) recreated. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming 6/9 The entrance door of the north staircase is recreated according to the original drawings. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming 7/9 Corridor interior, 1930s Photo courtesy of Ginsburg Architects
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zooming 8/9 Light pits: recreated fragment. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming 9/9 Light pits: saved fragment. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
In this sense, the Ginsburg Architects project is a conservation project, that is, it preserves and protects absolutely all the original elements of the building - both those that are under protection and those that are not yet included there. Probes and exhibits give an idea of where the distinction between the genuine and the new is. It was this approach that ultimately made it possible to preserve the maximum of the original texture, which you can touch with your hands if you wish, instead of replacing worn-out parts with "similar" remakes. It was possible, for example, to restore such details as fixed in the security project, such as concrete slabs of operated roofs - it was laid on a metal reinforcing frame with pebble filling, ventilation shafts and ventilation chambers, one of which, as you know, was remade by Milyutin for his apartment, a parapet and railings for balconies, as well as pergolas of the residential and communal buildings, which are part of the solarium and terrace in the original project.
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zooming 1/5 Fragment of the restored ventilation shaft on the operating roof. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming 2/5 Layout of tiles on the exploited roof and balcony of the second floor. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming 3/5 Preserved historical paving tiles of the exploited roof. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming 4/5 Arrangement of ventilation shafts on the operated roof. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming 5/5 Rebuilt parapet on the operated roof. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
The original layout of the communal building was also restored - it had to be seriously cleaned of superstructures and extensions and restored to its historical appearance.
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zooming Stained glass window of the communal building after restoration. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming Stained glass window of the communal building before restoration. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
Today you can see the solid volume of the case with a stained glass wall and mezzanines, which can be seen from anywhere in the interior and from the street.
Modern in every sense
Alexey Ginzburg has been working on the house since the 1980s, but he has already received a detailed idea of how it works during the restoration work. Much was discovered for the first time and shocked with its novelty. Construction technologies for their time were undoubtedly revolutionary.
As we already
wrote that the engineer Sergei Prokhorov is considered the co-author of the house - it was he who developed the technological part of the project. What is fundamentally innovative about it? First, the three-layer facade, which was a kind of "cake". The wall blocks did not have insulation, and the structure of the outer wall masonry itself consisted of multi-slot blocks with voids and filling with slag between a bentonite stone of the "Krestyanin" type and a half of such a stone and, thus, was a warm structure. In some places, “Kamyshit” insulation was used as an insulating layer - a material made of compressed straw or reed stalks - but only for the elements of the reinforced concrete frame facing the facade and the roof of the transition from the house to the communal building.
Engineer Prokhorov also designed a unique system of hidden communications. Her idea was that the interroom partitions and precast-monolithic ceilings were composed of hollow blocks with two voids - bentonite stones of the engineer Prokhorov's system. All communications were laid inside vertical channels formed in the walls. The preservation of the original system during the current restoration made the process much more complicated, but for the Ginsburg Architects project it was of fundamental importance. The communications were eventually replaced and laid along the same routes as at the time of construction.
It must be said that in the reproduction of authentic technologies, Alexey Ginzburg never departed from the "original source" in his project. So, in the process of restoration, the industrial method of construction was also reproduced, which involved the production of building elements right on the site. This applies to both porous cinder blocks - "stones" - analogues of Prokhorov's wall blocks, and concrete frames for ordinary windows of the eastern facade, stained-glass windows of the northern staircase and glazing of the elevator shaft, as well as light pits.
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zooming Reconstruction of the Prokhorov blocks at the construction site using the original technology. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming Masonry arrangement of external walls from "peasant" blocks. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) © Ginsburg Architects
Experiments with materials
The experiments of Moisei Ginzburg and Sergei Prokhorov with building materials are not limited to bentonite blocks and reeds. In fact, the construction site of the Narkomfin has become a real experimental laboratory for working with new textures. So, the floors in residential cells and on stairs were poured from xylolite - an artificial stone made from sawdust, which is also called warm concrete. Nice to the touch and, as we would say today, ergonomic, xylolite has also been used for many tactile surfaces of the house, such as handrails for fences. In the process of restoration in the apartments, the steps of the stairs made of xylene were restored; wood, mainly oak, sawdust was also used as a filler in the coating. At the same time, in common areas, the flooring has not been restored, but recreated: quartz sand was used as a filler, but the technology for its manufacture on a magnesian binder is original.
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zooming Reconstructed covering of the corridors and steps of the northern staircase, made on magnesian binder according to the original technology. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming Reconstructed covering of the corridors and steps of the northern staircase, made on magnesian binder according to the original technology. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
The interior walls were originally made of fibreboard. To recreate them, restorers have selected material that would make it possible to make partitions of small-sized apartments without distorting the geometry of the historical space. Now they are made of 60 mm thick UTONG aerated concrete blocks. The total thickness of partitions made of fiberboard and aerated concrete with finishing turned out to be the same - 80 mm.
The finishing accent in the interior was the wiring - in the MOPs it was made in an open way, the routes were laid in accordance with the preserved archival photographs. Restoration architects have tried to recreate the historical environment of the house after the installation of brass elements: surface-mounted junction boxes, exposed wiring and replicas of historic lamps with a brass base.
340 probes
As you know, for organizing the interior space of a house and solving problems such as the perception of interiors of small-sized apartments or the ease of orientation inside public spaces, Moisei Ginzburg, with the participation of Ginerk Scheper and Erich Borchert, developed color schemes and implemented color techniques, which today we would call color navigation … It included color solutions for stairwell ceilings, corridors, adjoining doors to F-type apartments. More sophisticated studies on the effects of color on humans during long-term stays have been carried out with cell coloration. Moses Ginzburg described the results of the experiments on the study of color in detail in the chapter "Space, light and color" in the book "Dwelling".
In the course of the restoration work, we carried out technological research, having performed a total of 340 probes to determine the original author's paints of various surfaces of interiors and facades, as well as all architectural elements and details. As a result of the analysis of the results of field studies, color maps were compiled for all surfaces of the Narkomfin house. So, as a result of the restoration work, the historical concept of the color scheme in the interiors of common areas was completely recreated: on the stairs, in the corridors, in the lobby and in the northern entrance, as well as in 15 cells of the following type: type "F" - sq. 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 38, type "K" - apt. 5, 18, "2F" - apt. 46, type "P", Milyutin's apartment - apt. 49, in the premises of the former hostel - apt. 50/52.
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zooming 1/5 Uncovering of paint layers on the column in cell P. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming 2/5 Color scheme of cell No. 5 (type K). Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" Courtesy of Ginsburg Architects
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zooming 3/5 Eastern wall in the premises of the 3rd floor of the communal building: work on determining the time of application and the composition of the paint layers. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage site "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo Ginzburg Architects
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zooming 4/5 The restored color scheme of the interiors of the third floor of the communal building. The new paint elements are distinguished by a lighter tone. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming 5/5 Fragment of the eastern façade: a recreated color scheme of the façade walls and columns. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
The best-preserved fragments of the author's decoration were cleared and preserved in the interiors in the form of probes, which are located in the communal building, on the stairs of the residential building and cell "P".
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zooming The restored color scheme of the stair junctions. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
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zooming The restored color scheme of the stair junctions. Restoration and adaptation of the cultural heritage object "Building of the Narkomfin House" (2017-2020) Photo by Yuri Palmin / © Ginsburg Architects
Life in a monument
Life within the walls of the monument, of course, imposes certain protective obligations on the owners regarding the operation of residential premises. Now, according to the rules of the Department of Cultural Heritage, the owners of the house must sign an act of technical condition, fixing their obligations in relation to the monument. On the other hand, Ginsburg Architects, in cooperation with the developer, League of Rights, managed to implement a system in the process of adjusting the monument, when apartments were bought with final finishing, equipment, in some places taking into account even the small wishes of the tenants who had already bought apartments at that time., as the location of the sockets, so that in the future they do not have a desire to change something. According to Aleksey Ginzburg, such economic levers can be no less effective than legal levers.
Meanwhile, the very fact of the completion of a landmark project, the restoration of which lasted more than thirty years, could become an encouraging precedent for dozens of other avant-garde monuments, the restoration of which has been postponed, and even more so - recognized as "impossible" - for a number of reasons. For workers' settlements, for example, the main reason is the too low density of housing that is maintained.
Aleksey Ginzburg, however, is sure that even the issues of project profitability can be solved without destroying the historical environment, as happened, for example, with the constructivist quarter Pogodinskaya or Rusakovka. The social determinism that characterizes avant-garde designs is in fact completely modern and scales across the board in today's living environment planning. Houses built at the dawn of the industrial era still fit the lifestyle of a “modern” person and, if properly maintained, embody very understandable and healthy principles of a comfortable environment. Many of them are now postulated as the standards of modern housing and are indicators of the quality and "advancement" of design solutions.
