Architects and patrons

Narkomfin is the result of a rich collaboration between architects, patron and engineers. Moisei Ginzburg was the acknowledged leader of the Constructivist movement, and Ignaty Milinis was one of his pupils. Ginzburg was from a middle-class background and was partly educated abroad, in France and Italy. There he mastered the classical canons, which he then broke down in his work as a Constructivist. Ginzburg was not ideologically motivated to serve the Communist state, but like many other architects of the time, he was attracted by the momentous task of rebuilding that faced his country after the revolution and civil war.

Because of the lack of building materials at that time many architects, including Ginzburg dedicated much of their time to teaching in institutions like VKhUTEMAS (the Higher Artistic Studios) that became hot houses of innovation and creativity. This means that the ideas of the Constructivists were disseminated widely even though the period of actual construction of their projects was short. Their teaching and magazines like Sovremennaya Architektura, edited by Ginzburg, have ensured that the theoretical ideas of Constructivism were well developed and continue to have a strong influence on contemporary architecture today.

Ginzburg successfully, if reluctantly moved back towards classicism in the 1930s when it became required to do so, and planned the southern coast of the Crimea. His books, «Rhythm in Architecture» (1923), «Style and Epoch» (1924), and «Housing» (1934) and are all important architectural theory books.

Less is known about the life of Ignaty Milinis, Ginzburg’s co-architect on Narkomfin. Milinis was Ginzburg’s pupil at VKhUTEIN, where he learnt the ideas of Constructivism. He and Ginzburg had a fertile working relationship and it is considered that Milinis, as co-author, made as much input as his teacher into the Narkomfin project. They went on to work on the House of Parliament in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan together.

The engineer Sergei Prokhorov also played an important role in the construction of Narkomfin. He monitored the buildings and developed experimental construction methods. On the basis of the experience of his colleagues from the Bauhaus he created several new materials (wood cement flooring, fibrolit, and “torfoleum” peatboard of compressed peat) and organised the production of furnace clinker blocks on the building site itself.

Narkomfin would never have been built if it was not for the patronage of the Soviet Union’s first Commissar for Finance, Nikolai Milyutin. A dedicated Communist, Milyutin was involved in revolutionary activity from a young age in his hometown of St Petersburg. He also trained as an architect, although due to his ministerial duties didn’t manage to complete his diploma until 1941, the year before his death. As a government official, Milyutin’s interest in social services in the early years of the revolution led him to develop his ideas about housing. His book Sotsgorod, (The Socialist Town) (1930) was a manifesto of his ideas on how to house the labourer in the newly industrialised Soviet State. It was here that he developed his ideas about linear cities to be built in parallel zones. Sotsgorod quickly entered the literature of town planning as an important text and was translated into several languages.

From all the architectural groups working in the twenties and early thirties, Milyutin’s ideas were most closely reflected in the Constructivists. He and Ginzburg made friends and it was this friendship and a common belief that beauty is born from form correctly serving function, that led to the commission to design a house for the workers of the Finance Commissariat. Because of Milyutin’s faith in the project he ensured that even at this time of building material shortages, optimum conditions were put in place for Narkomfin. Ginzburg made an advantage out of the shortages and experimented with materials, created on site. Milyutin was so pleased with the project, in which his workers would live together, infecting each other with their devotion to Communism, that he asked Ginzburg if a small apartment penthouse could be created for him on the roof. Although this was the cause of an argument, Ginzburg agreed. Milyutin, who held important posts in the Soviet government until his death, always defended the ideas of the Constructivists, even when it was risky to do so. Thanks to his involvement, Narkomfin is more than a construction project, it is imbued with the politics of the young Soviet State and as such a vitally important piece of world history.

Clementine Cecil