Aviation House on Begovaya Street ( also known as “Centipede House”, “Octopus House”, “Leg House” ) is a 13-storey 299-apartment panel house of the original layout in the style of brutalism . It was built in 1978 by the project of architect Andrei Meyerson as a hotel for the upcoming Olympics-80 , but was occupied by workers at the Znamya Truda aircraft factory. The main feature of the building is 40 reinforced concrete supports - “legs” that raise the first floor to the level of the fourth [1] .
| House | |
| Residential building on Begovaya street | |
|---|---|
 Aviators House, 2014 | |
| A country |  Russia |
| City | Moscow , Begovaya street , 34 |
| Type of building | House |
| Architectural style | Brutalism (textured lost after the repair of the facade) |
| Project Author | A. D. Meerson , E. V. Podolskaya, M. S. Mostovoi, G. Klimenko |
| Builder | Yu. Dykhovichny , B. Lyakhovsky, D. Morozov |
| First mention | |
| Building | 1973 - 1978 |
| Famous inhabitants | Honored Workers of the Moscow Engineering Plant "Banner of Labor" |
| Status | Populated |
Content
History
The idea of “houses on legs” dates back to the architectural fashion of the 1920s : they were designed by Le Corbusier (“ Residential Unit ” in Marseille , the Central Union building on Myasnitskaya Street ), and Soviet constructivists ( Narcomfin’s house on Novinsky Boulevard , Communal House on the street Ordzhonikidze ) [2] . Such decisions were dictated both by the need to protect from cold, moisture and penetration of outsiders, and aesthetic considerations: high supports created the illusion of hovering, flying above the ground [1] [3] . The next wave of buildings on high supports occurred in the era of panel housing in the second half of the 1960s ( Smolensky Boulevard , 6-8, Prospekt Mira , 110, Prospekt Mira, 184, building 2) [4] .
The construction of the "house on the legs" according to the project of the architect Andrei Meyerson began in 1973 [1] . Initially, it was planned to build it on the shore of the Khimki reservoir near the Vodny Stadion metro station for a hotel. So the idea arose to place the house on reinforced concrete supports: this would allow revitalizing the space near the reservoir without disturbing the natural air circulation . However, subsequently, the city authorities decided to move the building to the territory of one of the main entrances to Moscow - to Begovaya Street, near Leningradsky Prospekt [2] . This place before the start of construction can be seen in the movie of Rolan Bykov “ Seven Nannies ”, released in 1962 [5] .
According to the plan, the height of the house was to be 16 floors, but then their number was reduced to 13 plus two technical floors and supports, commensurate with the level of four floors [6] . Despite the change of place, they decided to build the house on poles: according to the popular version, this was done to create a “draft effect” so that the exhaust gases from heavy traffic on Leningradsky Prospekt did not accumulate in the rooms. Construction was completed in 1978: it was the first residential building in the USSR with the use of reinforced concrete [5] . They decided to abandon the hotel’s idea for technical reasons, and the workers at the Znamya Truda aircraft factory got the apartment in the new house - hence the name Aviators House [7] .
For 2018, the building is used as an ordinary residential building [8] . Due to the originality of the architectural solution, the “house on legs” attracts the attention of filmmakers: in particular, it can be seen in the films “ Night Watch ” and “Put Out the Light” [6] [9] .
Architecture
The Aviators House consists of 13 residential and two technical floors (the lower is under the supports, the upper is between the last residential floor and the roof). The length of the building is 130 meters, the facade is divided into three wide sections [5] .
Forty reinforced concrete “foot” supports (20 pairs each) in the lower part of the house taper down so much that two people can grasp them in the lower part. Because of this, an illusion of the instability of the building is created, although in fact the supports and the base of the house are made of monolithic reinforced concrete. The base has a trapezoidal shape and is attached to 20 bars located directly above the "legs" [10] . Residents of the house use the free space under the supports for parking cars [5] .
Residential floors are assembled from wall panels. During the period when construction was underway, the possibilities for architectural solutions were limited by uniform standards for prefabricated building products. Meyerson used serial panels and lapped them one on top of the other. As a result, the “house on legs” visually expands upward, and its decoration looks like a scale or tile [1] . The illusion of “muscle playing”, characteristic of the architecture of brutalism, echoes the aesthetics of the Moscow art underground of the 1970s [11] .
On the facade of the house there are three entrances. They are carried outside the main building and are connected to it through flights of stairs and elevator shafts . Entrance windows resemble loopholes in shape and retain the elements of the original wooden formwork . Stairwells communicate with the floors using external non-smoke transitions. Evacuation stairs enclosed in oval concrete shafts are connected to the elevator halls through an open passage [5] .
The roof of the house is soft, flat, equipped with an internal drainage system. At the same time, there are no protective-catching grids on it, which is why loggos have to be cleaned of snow and ice in the winter [5] .
Specifications
- Total area of the house - 18 544 m²
- Living area - 9966 m²
- Facade area - 13 470/5478 m²
- Ceiling height - from 2.8 m
- The number of apartments is 299 [12] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Masha Shatalina. “I live in the Aviators House on Begovaya” . TheVillage (October 5, 2017). Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ 1 2 Evgeny Kostogorov. Moscow "centipedes" . MOSLENT. Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ Alexey Petukhov. 10 Moscow buildings associated with Le Corbusier . Big City (September 26, 2012). Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ Centipedes, snails and octopuses: where and why in Moscow they built houses on their legs . The site of the Begovoy district (April 11, 2013). Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 House of Aviators . Places.Moscow. Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ 1 2 Centipede House on Begovaya Street, 34 . Sights of Moscow. Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ House on legs on Begovaya . Walks in Moscow. Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ Stepan Chaushian. 8 legendary Moscow houses where you can buy an apartment . Arguments and Facts (November 23, 2015). Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ House- “centipede” . KudaGo. Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ The house with its feet on the Runner: he will run away and look . Complex urban planning policy and the construction of the city of Moscow. Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
- ↑ Ikonnikov, 2002 .
- ↑ Begovaya street, house 34 . En creed. Date of treatment May 22, 2018.
Literature
- Ikonnikov A.V. XX century architecture. Utopia and reality. . - M .: Progress Tradition, 2002. - T. 2. - 672 p. - ISBN 5-89826-130-3 .