Name
The village of “Chervonyi Zhovten” (Red October)
Years of construction
1920s
Address
streets of New Life, Gulak-Artemovsky, Sochinskay, Progress.
How the idea of low-rise housing was considered impractical for Kharkiv
The 1920s were a time of searching for a new face of the industrial city, not only in the USSR but all over the world. The ideas of urbanism and de-urbanism, garden city, linear city, and other movements were widely discussed in professional circles. The authorities of Kharkiv, one of three the most important cities of the USSR, took an active part in these discussions. In the early 1920s, the proletariat had to feel like a winner. An important issue for the workers of Kharkiv factories was the improvement of living conditions. Given that the workers migrated mostly from the countryside, the most desirable housing for them was a low-rise estate. Besides, small-scale farming allowed people to survive when the plants didn't work or had not many full-time jobs. In the early and mid-1920s, the land on the outskirts of Kharkiv and around the factories was given for individual construction. City authorities monitored the progress of such construction. But the first years have shown that workers' illiteracy made the individual construction hard for them. So the construction of workers' settlements and distribution of houses in order of priority, was considered to be a better idea. The first workers' settlements were built by Kharkiv architect V. Trotsenko. Cottages with features of the Ukrainian folk style were built in the heart of the Petins'ko-Zavodsky district. Despite the name, the houses were given primarily to invited foreign specialists. The settlements on the outskirts of the city were quite another matter. The most famous such village was called Chervonyi Zhovten (Red October). Its cottages were designed for mass construction by former Kharkiv architect Arkadiy Langman, who moved from Kharkiv to Moscow in 1922. He was born in the family of a local builder, studied in Vienna, and then confirmed his diploma at the leading university of the Russian Empire - in the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineering. From 1913 he worked in the land administration of Kharkiv and had a private practice. The cottages he designed for settlements had the features of simplified European Art Nouveau, which was very popular in the 1910s, but special attention to the structure brought this project closer to the constructivist movement. These were prefabricated wooden houses (possibly panel type). The ideological meaning of the project was significant. Let's look at the toponymy of this area. The conquest of the proletariat is evidenced by the name of the district itself - Red October. The names of the streets reflected the ideas of that time as well. Hygiene was an important issue of that time - large cities had to deal with water supply, centralized sewerage, sanitation of urban markets and slaughterhouses, so as not to have epidemics. On the other hand, citizens also needed premises for individual hygiene: private bathrooms were an unaffordable luxury, and toilets with a latrine or connected to the city sewer were a necessity. The project of the Red October settlement provided engineering networks, so new houses became part of the city. But this project was the last low-rise settlement on the outskirts of the city. The price of the utilities was so high that city authorities had to move to high-rise construction only. Olga Shvydenko
The village of “Chervonyi Zhovten” / Residential area
Bogomolov V., Sidorov P. / 1920s / streets of New Life, Gulak-Artemovsky, Sochinskay, Progress.
Residential area /Constructivism, Influence of Ukrainian folk architecture
No status / Unaltered condition
Romanticism of Industrial Revolution
Influence of classical art
Constructivism
Art Deco
Influence of Ukrainian folk architecture
Influence of European Modern architecture
1. А. М-ский. Архитектурная жизнь Харькова // Современная архитектура. – 1926. - №1. –С.21-22.
2. Шкодовский Ю.М., Лаврентьев И.Н., Лейбфрейд А.Ю., Полякова Ю.Ю. Харьков вчера, сегодня, завтра. – Х.: Фолио, 2004. – С. 43.
3. Лангман, Аркадий Яковлевич // Википедия. – Режим доступа: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Лангман Аркадий Яковлевич