Outliving Obsolescence: Longevity, Ideology, and Style in Soviet Mass Housing
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Schlecht, Elise E.
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Abstract
The Soviet concept of planned architectural obsolescence is elusive. In Soviet literature, it is little more than a footnote. In Western architectural literature, it is resoundingly absent. This paper aims to rectify this oversight, examining how the predetermination of building lifespans affected attitudes toward residential design and construction in Soviet Russia and in the lives of Soviet citizens. Of particular concern is the aesthetic implementation of ideology in the generational development of prefabricated micro-neighborhoods, or mikroraiony, the meanings attached to their planned destruction, and the ultimate significance of their endurance beyond the dates of their planned destruction. This work analyzes the technological development of Soviet prefabricated mikroraiony to elucidate the political underpinnings that simultaneously guided technological and design innovation and fueled ideological obsolescence of previous types. By presenting a series of case studies of the dynamics of post-Stalinist housing blocks and mikroraiony as codified in Stroitelnye normy i pravila [Building Codes and Regulations], longevity schedules, and material grades, this work establishes how the flexibility of the typology of Soviet prefabricated residential architecture facilitated the imposition of state ideology into public space. The planned destruction of material remnants of that ideology in favor of new vestiges of a more advanced socialism would have been the ultimate marker of socialist progress. Archival sources are further consulted to contrast these intentions with the reality of Soviet Russian mass housing and the tumultuous relationships between residents and their homes. The concept of the repair society is extended to the macroscopic level to explain the material-emotional considerations underlying the 2017 protests against the demolition of Soviet-era housing in Moscow. Despite the trauma associated with the mutually abrasive material environment that is Soviet prefabricated mass housing, the people have been unwilling to sacrifice their long-standing and often contentious relationships with “obsolete” buildings. As such relationships existed and continue to exist irrespective of typological advancement, this work interrogates the usefulness of the type/model paradigm in the differentiation of architecture and buildings. Ultimately, the frictional experiential relationship between user and structure is proposed as a more accurate determinant in the Soviet Russian case.
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2025-03
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