| Title |
On the Social Role of Architecture through the Soviet Communal House in the 1930s |
| Keywords |
Narkomfin Communal House ; Moisei Ginzburg ; Kommunalka ; Soviet ; Communal House ; Social Role ; Evaluation ; 1930s |
| Abstract |
The purpose of this study is to examine the social role of architecture through the Soviet Communal House in the 1930s. Among the Soviet communal house, the representative Dom-Kommuna building (Narkomfin Communal House) designed by a constructivist architect Moisei Ginzburg (1892-1946) and commonly used Kommunalka (Communal House) are essential. These cases were planned as a social condenser to change from pre-bourgeoisie, capitalistic way of life to socialistic way through physical space of architecture. Planners' common belief that architectural space and their intention can control human activities, even cognition is strongly affected to the realization of socialistic concept of communal house. And this belief is still affecting on the cognitive background of contemporary architects' belief that architectural job is formation of a specific form of life. But, as a result of this study, we found that planners' intention to make socialistic life had failed because there in no actual co-relation between planners' intention in building and the conventional way of human life. Moreover, it is impossible to change human life by merely architecture, regardless of planners' self-consciousness in architecture. |