Panel space
by Vlad Bulenkov
portfolio shortlisted call 'URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE AWARDS 2021', 2021
Category: Representations of Space, Architecture, and Conflicts
The USSR faced an acute housing shortage in the 1950s. Due to the massive relocation of people to cities and the dilapidation of the housing stock, the country needed new solutions that would make it possible to solve the problem in the shortest possible time.
Khrushchev buildings began to be actively built on the eve of the first manned flight into space. These two events marked the beginning of a new era. The similarity of the internal characteristics of the spacecraft and the apartments in the new buildings was not accidental. The architects preferred compactness, which implied human mobility. A woman in the kitchen could reach the refrigerator, stove, distant cabinet and even open the window in between cooking borscht and washing dishes.
Now I live in a typical Khrushchev building. I peered into walls, apartments and houses in order to recognize in them a cosmic belonging. What a message is kept in the shadows of the past years, which have witnessed the development of the whole country after the conquest of space.