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20MASS SOCIAL HOUSING IN THE USSR IN THE 1930-1950S Samoilov K.I.1, Mukasheva M.M.2
1Samoilov Konstantin Ivanovich - Doctor of Architecture, Professor; KAZAKH NATIONAL RESEARCH TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY NAMED AFTER K.I. SATPAYEV;
2Mukasheva Madina Malikkyzy - doctoral Student, KAZAKH NATIONAL RESEARCH TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY NAMED AFTER K.I. SATPAYEV,
Assistant Professor, DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE, KAZAKH LEADING ACADEMY OF ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION, ALMATY, REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN
Abstract: the article examines the emergence and formation of mass social housing in the USSR in the 1930-50s. As well as the main problems of the formation of social housing, the concepts of living comfort, social and commercial accessibility of housing are given.
Keywords: social housing, history of architecture, affordable housing, mass housing, standard housing.
UDC 721 (574)
The beginning of the 20th century as a whole was for Russian society a time of rather rapid movement along the path of modernization, the transition from traditional to modern society [1].
The first attempts to build mass housing for workers in the USSR were made back in the 1920s. The first working village in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (now Ivanovo), built up with timber-framed half-timbered houses, was one of the first examples of mass industrial construction in the USSR [2]. During the Stalinist period, there was an almost complete abandonment of individual dwellings, housing built for workers usually consisted of barracks and dormitories for room-by-family settlements, often these cheap houses were built using standard solutions. Many of them were temporary and lacked the necessary amenities [3].
In May 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On work on the restructuring of everyday life", which emphasized the importance of forming a new socialist way of life and revealed the mistakes made in this area [4].
New social conditions and the forms of solving the housing problem determined by them created favorable conditions for the development of a typical rational economical apartment.
During the years of the first five-year plan, extensive housing construction for workers began in the country. Separate houses were built in densely built-up areas of cities, new quarters were created on the site of the former squalid outskirts, new residential complexes, new industrial cities. The whole country turned into a construction site, and along with huge capital investments in industry, mass housing construction was of paramount importance.
The main types of mass residential construction in the years of the first five-year plan were three - five-storey sectional houses, the development, planning and construction of which was the main focus. Numerous types of sections were created, taking into account local climatic conditions, the distribution of living space and the possibilities of engineering equipment.
Simultaneously with the development of large-block stone construction, with an orientation towards a gradual increase in the number of storeys of residential buildings, developments continued in the field of low-rise wooden housing construction from standard prefabricated elements. Projects of various types of residential buildings were developed from local materials, experimental construction was carried out.
New types of dwellings, new volumetric-spatial solutions of the house, options for combining residential and communal premises, spatial types of residential units, rational layout and equipment of an apartment, new types of single-family, block, sectional and single-section houses, large-scale and mobile housing, etc. were developed. This led to the fact that Soviet architecture, already during its formation, actively influenced the development of modern dwelling in other countries.
In the development and implementation of the housing policy of the USSR, already in the 1930s, it achieved noticeable success, having outstripped many industrially developed countries of the West in some aspects of social protection. In those years, 70% of apartments were occupied by rooms, and only about 30% by families [5]. Communal resettlement was already a worthy and significant way out of the difficult housing crisis of the tsarist era with its massive poverty of the working people and the unsanitary living conditions of most of not only the rural, but also the urban population of the country.
But by the beginning of the 50s the contradiction between the needs of the country, its population for housing and handicraft (in most cases) methods of its design and construction became obvious. The victorious people in the Great Patriotic War, having fully begun to realize their strength and capabilities, now waited for an improvement in their material life. As society developed, social requirements for housing steadily increased, which was reflected in the volume of construction, as well as in the quality of residential buildings. General social requirements for dwellings expressed the need for dwelling to match the achieved level of socio-economic development of the country, the way of life and everyday life of the Soviet people. Housing of typical buildings of the twenties was dilapidated, communal resettlement still remained a social problem, the housing crisis became associated with mass communal resettlement
A truly revolutionary event in the architectural life of the capital after the war was the construction of high-rise buildings, which marked a new stage in the development of Soviet architecture in general and the capital in particular.
The high-rise construction of Moscow meant a great victory for Soviet science and construction technology, it was an excellent school, prepared significant personnel for new, technically complex construction projects. The construction of high-rise buildings required working on a different scale. The erection of high-rise buildings in Moscow was to become a testing ground for a number of industrial construction methods, many of which were developed during the war. Naturally, they were supposed to be "broadcast" for the construction of ordinary buildings
In addition to high-rise buildings in Moscow, of course, ordinary, ordinary buildings were also carried out. It was she who solved the problem of mass housing, the problem of renovating old and improving new districts of the capital. "Stalinist" houses were examples of victorious architecture, representing the power and grandeur of the land of the Soviets. Apartments in such houses were intended for one family settlement and were equipped with all types of modern amenities. The "Stalinist" houses were built as a material project for a new and better life. At the same time, the ever-increasing cost of construction came into sharp contradiction with the tasks facing the country - to return to 25 million Soviet people the shelter they had lost during the war.
The most important, unresolved as of the beginning of the fifties, was the question of the typification of large-panel houses. There was no consensus on what exactly should be typified and standardized in large-panel construction: whether the individual elements that make up the house, or the houses themselves that form the series. Nevertheless, we must pay tribute to the architects: they continued to persistently work on the problems of industrialization and typification of construction. It was this work that made it possible, in the mid-50s, to make a quick breakthrough in solving the housing problem. If in European countries and the United States, the solution to the problems of increasing the comfort of living and providing housing was carried out as a process of suburbanization - the development of low-rise construction, then this option was not considered here [9].
The leadership that replaced JV Stalin raised the question of the need to end the shortage of housing as soon as possible [6]. The task was set to build residential buildings by the "flow" method - quickly, cheaply and a lot. Special government decrees were adopted on the comprehensive development of the house-building industry.
The All-Union Conference of Builders, held in December 1954, marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of Soviet architecture and, in particular, the architecture of mass housing, a turning point in the development of housing construction, which sharply changed its focus [7].
The architecture of that time was dominated by the style of functionalism, which came from Europe and soon passed on to the United States [8].
At the turn of the 50-60s, grand plans were made. The desire to give each family a separate apartment acquires the status of a national policy. The architects were given the task of relocating people from communal apartments to separate apartments. The principle "family - apartment" was approved, scientific substantiation, and in the second half of the 50s and broad practical implementation. It was in this sequence - the housing project of the state, the service of this project by social sciences and its implementation - that the housing policy changed in the 1950s - 60s.
References
1. Samoylov K.I., Mukasheva M.M. Features of housing for workers in the XIX century in Russia // Nauka i obrazovaniye segodnya. Ivanovo: Problemy nauki, 2019.
2. Snitko A.V. Rabochiye poselki istoricheskikh promyshlennykh gorodov Tsentra Rossii // Zhilishchnoye stroitel'stvo, 2007. № 12.
3. Zadorin D. Massovoye domostroyeniye v SSSR v 1950-1980-ye: istoriya v postanovleniyakh // Massovoye domostroyeniye v Rossii: istoriya, kritika, perspektivy. M., 2016.
4. Arkhitektura SSSR. 1917—1932. Arkhitektura zhilykh zdaniy (S.O. Khan-Magomedov). 93 s.
5. Zhilishchnoye stroitel'stvo v SSSR (Nauchnyye osnovy, sovremennoye sostoyaniye i blizhayshiye zadachi). Pod obshch. red. Rubanenko B.R. M., 1976. S. 12.
6. Pod red. Sarab'yanova D.V. Istoriya russkogo i sovetskogo iskusstva / M.: Vysshaya shkola, 1979. 375 s.
