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THE SINKING OF THE SOCIAL CONDENSER
NARKOMFIN DOM-KOMMUNA Moisei Ginzburg, Ignaty Milinis Novinsky bulevar 25, korpus B. (Moscow. Russia) 1928-1930-1932 55°45’25.43”N / 37°34’52.34”E
In the early years of the new Soviet Socialist State, there were large migrations from country to cities in search of better living standards, which worsened the housing crisis brought about by the industrial revolution. This emergency situation led to the forced occupation of traditional dwellings which were shared by several families, with collective use of the services, bathrooms and kitchens. To remedy this important shortage it was necessary to adopt a subsistence economy to save on production resources. The young State opted for a new social order based on a reformulation of the traditional family and on planning and building new housing types, with an emphasis on communal uses and on the socialization of household tasks. The Communist Party’s ambitious house-building programme gave architects and urban planners the opportunity to create new solutions for this new future. In response to this problem, OSA, the Association of Contemporary Architects,1 which Moisei Ginzburg belonged to, developed several housing proposals with social club, kitchen, gymnasium, library, kindergarten and roof gardens as shared services and with private cells, as basic as possible, as the only financially viable solution. In 1928, STROIKOM, the Building Committee of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic), commissioned M. Ginzburg, M. Barshch, V. Vladimirov, A. Pasternak and Sum-Sik to create standardized types for the new collective housing. In a later phase, Ginzburg based his projects for the experimental dwelling types on this theoretical study. Of all the projects carried out, only six experimental blocks were actually built. The most significant was the Narkomfin building which was to become an icon for defenders of Modern architecture. 1. In this story when the term Contemporary appears in Russian acronyms it should be taken to mean Modern.
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To what extent can we go on condensing the housing model and which elements should be removed when doing so? MOISEI GINZBURG, 1929.2
2. Moisei Ginzburg. “El problema de la estandarización de la vivienda en la URSS, 1929”. Escritos 1923-1930. El Croquis Editorial, 2007. P. 372.
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