Narkomfin

Lonely Planet review

The model for Le Corbusier's Unité D'Habitation is set slightly back from the Garden Ring Road in central Moscow, wedged between the American embassy and Novinsky Passage shopping centre. Narkomfin, which has been on the World Monuments Fund Watch List since 2004, is an early experiment in semi-communal living, and a prototype for contemporary apartment blocks.

Narkomfin was designed and built between 1928 and 1930 by Moisei Ginzburg and Ignatii Milinis for members of the National Finance Ministry. There was room for 50 families in duplex apartments. Communal space was maximised and individual space was minimised: apartments had minute kitchens and people were encouraged to eat in the communal dining room in the neighbouring utilities block.

Narkomfin was built strictly on Corbusian principles: pillar supports, supporting frames, wall-screens, horizontal windows, open planning and flat, functional roofs. Yet it predated Le Corbusier's vertical city. The story goes that the young architect asked Ginzburg for copies of the layouts of the duplex apartments, which he took back to Paris and developed into his own revolutionary designs.

Despite its iconic status, Narkomfin is on the edge of collapse. Few Muscovites know of its existence, and so dilapidated is its façade, most who pass think it is an abandoned ruin. Half of its apartments are still inhabited but its roof is leaking and the walls are at the point of falling away due to water damage. The building is scheduled for demolition due to advanced deterioration, which has been speeded along by the recent construction of a shopping centre next door. Mayor Luzhkov has spoken openly against Constructivist buildings, calling them 'flat-faced.' Moscow's chief architect, Alexander Kuzmin, grimly joked that the buildings are doomed, as 'they do not convert easily into casinos.'