The New City Tol’iatti

Boris Romanenko, New Cities — Tol’iatti. 1970

 

Translated by Lewis Siegelbaum

Boris Rafalovich Romanenko (1910-85), a member of the Communist Party from 1939, studied architecture in Leningrad and received his doctoral degree in 1967. In 1970 he became a professor at the Moscow Architectural Institute. Aside from the Auto Factory District of Tol’iatti for which he received a state prize in 1973, he also developed the general plan for Naberezhnye Chelny.

Original Source: “Novye goroda–Tol’iatti,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo, no. 4 (1970), 14-17

This report is about how the new Soviet cities of Tol’iatti on the Volga and Zelenograd near Moscow have been conceived and planned. The leading architects of these cities talk about how the Leninist ideas of the socialist city, the propaganda of monumentality, the harmonious combination of the creativity of the artist and the architect are realized in life.

The word belongs to the director of TsNIIEP (Central Scientific Research and Planning Institute of Housing) Doctor of Architecture B. Romanenko:

The city of Tol’iatti is being built simultaneously with the Volga automobile factory in accordance with the resolution of the party and the government. In a very short time a large modern city will be constructed on empty ground.

We settled on a linear scheme for the construction of the city with an open developing structure that would permit the city to grow along the reservoir from east to west as necessary. The danger of violating the harmonious relationship of residential and industrial zones, transport highways and green plantings is thereby avoided. The city and the factory are being developed in parallel fashion along the northern shore of the Volga reservoir. The city consists of several bands: a riverside treed park zone, residential territory, and an industrial zone. The residential zone is separated from the industrial by a 1.5 km green strip. Short crossing thoroughfares connect the factory with the residential and wooded areas.

The general plan for the project is simple: the city consists of separate regularly designed districts connected to the center…The residential part of Tol’iatti’s first stage of construction is divided into four reinforced districts each of which in its turn is divided by diagonal boulevards into micro-districts. The network of cultural and social services is constructed in steps and differentiated by frequency of use. All services used on a daily basis are concentrated in the centers of the micro-districts for 12,000 people (with a radius of 400-500 m.); services of periodic use are in the centers of the districts for each 80,000 people (radius of 1000-1200 m.). The district centers therefore are located on major roads. A main green esplanade passes through the center of each district abutting district squares, boulevards, leisure zones, schools, kindergartens and sporting complexes. The scale of construction grows as it were toward the center which appears more festive and imposing. We are trying to employ nature, the abundance of greenery, free spaces and the proximity of the Volga as one of the basic formulating elements.

The city is being built with houses of mainly five and nine stories. On the basic arterial roads near the center and along the river houses will rise to greater heights. We will try to overcome the monotony of standardized buildings of industrial production by using the most varied combinations of houses and open space. Five-story houses, as a rule, of sufficiently complex configuration will form spacious green courtyards or interior squares. This architectural decision will result in good protection from the wind, which at this point along the Volga can be very strong and is often accompanied by snowstorms.

Tol’iatti is a city of car workers. We anticipate that there will be a large number of residents with their own cars and thus the necessity of a modern transport system that avoids crowded cross-streets, and contains underground garages and special parking lots for cars in shopping and other public centers.

The height of the buildings will be increased from the center of the micro-district towards the periphery. The basic mass of 5-9 story buildings will be supported, as it were, by higher structures rising along the main routes. The city stands on a very flat location and therefore we can apply a heavily vertical modulus. The largest objects will rise at the intersections of the major East-West boulevard and the rapid-transit cross streets; they will have a strong supple quality in contrast to the simpler and more modest standardized buildings.

The ensemble of Tol’iatti’s urban center arises at the intersection of two large parks — the main boulevards of the city — forming a grand composition parallel to the Volga. Here will be a number of squares, much greenery, water, and open space. The center itself is projected to be a complex of buildings with facades pointing in the direction of the green spaces. The architecture of the complex appears especially expressive in contrast to the ordinary buildings of the residential areas. It will rest in its entirety on a specially formed platform-podium. Among its buildings will be the administrative headquarters of municipal organizations the functional and architectural leitmotif of the complex — the commercial center and a Palace of Culture of the auto factory, a library of strict geometrical proportions underscoring the plasticity of a cinema and concert hall. From the level of the platform down to the main city square for demonstrations is a level for spectators. The city center thus includes business and cultural-entertainment enterprises, as well as stores and cafés. We consciously created such a multi-functional organism. The global experience of town planning shows that purely commercial districts of the city become desolate in the evenings the City in London being a classic example. Therefore we not only combined commercial and cultural-entertainment parts of the city, but will give them a single system of service. Cafés and restaurants frequented by employees during the workday, will continue to function in the evenings serving cinema-goers, visitors to the Palace of Culture and the concert halls . We remember our old cities. In contrast to the squares of Russian classicism and the main squares of renaissance cities, the core of old Russian towns could be seen from afar. In Venice, in Rome, in Leningrad you exit from the street to a main square of the city and suddenly find yourself inside a ceremonial space enclosed on all sides. The Russian Kremlin, on the other hand, is open to space, it is perceived from different directions differently and, only after having viewed it from the outside, does the spectator enter.

The projected spacious system of the central ensemble of Tol’iatti is consistent, in our opinion, with the spirit of Russian town planning.

We intend to hire artists to formulate the squares and streets of the city and the interiors of the public buildings. On the main square will stand a monument in honor of V. I. Lenin, and before the factory, a monument in honor of labor.

Besides this, the faculty of construction physics of the Moscow Architectural Institute is working up for us a plan for street lighting. Many young people will live in Tol’iatti as in any new industrial town. We are trying to create for them all the conditions necessary for successful work and fulfilling leisure.

The general plan envisions construction of three complexes of dormitories for 16,000 people. Each residential unit combines 2 rooms for 2-3 people. Large, free standing blocks containing concentrations of social and cultural services are situated in the vicinity of the dormitories. At the moment, three complexes for 10,000 peoples are under excavation. In the lower end of the North-South boulevard a hotel tower is being built. Entry into the hotel will enable visitors to have a view of the Volga. All rooms, restaurants and corridors will be done in modern style but the bar will be stylized as a Russian izba.

The upper floor of the hotel where the bar and café are located will have a viewing space from which one can see the city of Zhiguli, the Volga and admire the open vistas …

 

Comments are closed.