“House-Sorotage”-a strange Moscow skyscraper of the time of the USSR
The house built in 1978 on Begovaya Street was called differently-either a “house-Osmihm”, then a “hut on chicken legs”, then the “house of aviators”. Most of the apartments in it were given to employees of the aviation plant.
An unusual Moscow house stands on forty massive supports. For what reason it was built in this way, and what does today’s residents think of a strange house?
Unusual houses in Moscow
Houses on the “legs” in Europe was designed by the most famous architect Le Corbusier. He set the fashion that Soviet constructivists picked up enthusiastically. Unusual buildings that appeared in large cities of the country symbolized the era of the “bright future”, creative flight, unlimited possibilities of man. One of these houses – Narkomfin on Novinsky Boulevard in Moscow – was designed by Soviet architects Ignatius Milinis and Moses Ginzburg. Later, in the “panel” era, several more houses on the “legs” were built. But the most striking representative of this unusual direction was the house on the Begovoy, built according to the project of Andrei Meerson.
The monumental building, like the round houses of Moscow, was initially conceived for the guests of the Olympics-80, but at the end of the construction plans changed, and the apartments left Soviet aviators.
House in the style of “brutalism”
The house is ultra-modern at that time, due to the number of supports immediately nicknamed the “centipede”, built qualitatively and rationally. Both the new settlers of the end of the seventies and the current tenants consider the layout in it very convenient. Delight people and high ceilings 2.8 meters.
Architect Andrei Meerson raised the house to four floors, and not by 1-2, as they did before. Therefore, outwardly, the 13-story “center-legged” seems quite harmonious: such a number of floors would look ridiculous on the “legs”. The supports themselves with pronounced faces are narrow at the base and expand closer to the top, which visually makes them weightless, “fragile”. At the same time, the house is very stable – monolithic, with reinforced concrete “legs”.
Many architects still admire the building, considering it extremely interesting from an architectural point of view. Imitation of masonry, three -section facade, “accurate”, angular supports give the house a deliberately rough “appearance”. This style among architects is often called “brutalism”. Three unusual towers emphasize this idea, inside of which stairwells are placed. Narrow windows go along the towers that cause association with medieval locks and loopholes.
Why was a house built on “legs” in Moscow
Explanations for such a strange architectural solution of several. Firstly, the first floors have never been popular in residential buildings, and the architects, knowing this, simply “crossed” them from the project thus.
In addition, according to the plan, a high -rise building on the supports should have been erected near the Khimki reservoir at the water stadium. To ensure unhindered access to Soviet citizens to the reservoir, and such a project was conceived. Then the construction was transferred to a run, but did not change the drawings.
The second version-prediction, on the contrary, suggests that the “House of Aviators” was immediately planned to be erected on Begovaya Street, next to the gasped Leningradka. The supports were intended so that the inhabitants of the lower floors did not breathe exhausts, and the air circulates freely.
Another version hints at the difficult policy of the time of that time: they say, in this way, the architect on the instructions of “ONE” demonstrated to foreign guests of the Olympiad-80 technical equipment, the modern approach and morale of the Soviet Union.
Be that as it may, the house on Begovaya continues to surprise guests of the capital and cause violent discussions in the architectural environment.
See also: Horizontal skyscrapers in Russia are one of the longest in the world