November 4, 1955: Architectural excesses were banned in the USSR
The USSR adopted the decree "On the Elimination of Excesses in Design and Construction." It ended the Stalinist Empire style and paved the way for mass construction projects, including the Khrushchev-era buildings.
In the works of many architects and design organizations, the externally ostentatious side of architecture has become widespread, replete with great excesses, which does not correspond to the line of the party and government
(from Resolution No. 1871)
Stalin's Empire style, with its columns, stucco, towers, and arches, required enormous financial expenditures and did nothing to resolve the acute housing crisis.
Unjustified tower superstructures, numerous decorative colonnades and porticos and other architectural excesses borrowed from the past have become a widespread phenomenon in the construction of residential and public buildings, as a result of which in recent years a lot of public funds have been overspent on housing construction, which could have been used to build millions of square meters of living space for workers.
Simplicity instead of embellishment
Simplicity, austerity of form, and cost-effective solutions—these were the three pillars that were supposed to underlie Soviet construction. Expensive finishing materials and decorative elements were banned, and the word "ornamentation" became a dirty word.
Buildings that were begun according to Stalin's opulent designs and completed after 1955 were called "stripped-off" buildings. The lower floors might be decorated with massive granite or columns, while the upper floors were left bare, made of simple gray or red brick. The finished decor was cobbled together as they went along.
Construction has sometimes been completed years or even decades later. The main building of the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute, begun in 1952, was completed in a truncated form—minus the upper floors and the tower and spire, which were added only in 2003.
Changes also affected the metro system: station designs were simplified and platform lengths were shortened.
The USSR Academy of Architecture was abolished. Chief architects of major cities and heads of leading studios were removed from their posts.
"For excesses in design," the project authors were stripped of their previously awarded Stalin prizes—including those for the Leningradskaya Hotel and the design for the MGB Workers' House on Zemlyanoy Val.
A significant portion of residential and civil buildings and a large portion of industrial buildings are still built according to individual designs, which is one of the main reasons that gives rise to excesses
Standard projects instead of individual ones
Complex and expensive architectural projects have been replaced by standardized development.
In 1954, the volume of construction using standard designs in Moscow accounted for only 18% of the total housing and cultural and public utility construction. In Leningrad, only 14 of the 353 residential buildings under construction were built using standard designs. In Kharkov, Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh, Gorky, Tbilisi, and other cities, construction of 4-5-story residential buildings is carried out primarily using custom designs.
Less than a year later, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted the resolution "On the Development of Housing Construction in the USSR," which launched the mass construction of standard houses.
Khrushchev-era buildings and grey residential areas
In 1956, a new agency was created in the USSR—the Academy of Construction and Architecture. Through its efforts, the first "Khrushchev-era" apartment building appeared in Moscow in 1957. Rooms in these new buildings became smaller, ceilings dropped to 2,5 meters, and elevators and garbage chutes disappeared from five-story buildings.
Stucco facades were also abandoned. Cities were filled with gray panel blocks and sand-lime bricks. They grew not upwards, but outwards—at the expense of endless residential areas.
No other country in the world has such a pace and scale of housing construction.
However, the "people's" panel houses, which seemed like the ultimate dream for many, were never able to surpass their predecessors in terms of comfort.
Both the government and the population will prefer apartments in Stalin-era buildings to Khrushchev-era ones.
(Leonid Parfenov, "The Other Day")
