MOSCOW. One of the world’s great utopian buildings is now a crumbling relic. Located near the centre of the Russian capital, the 1930 Narkomfin apartment block was originally known as the “House of the New Way of Life”. It was built as an exercise in social engineering, to encourage communal living.

The Modernist building was constructed for Narkomfin (the abbreviated name of the People’s Commissariat of Finance) and designed by Moisey Ginzburg. Located on Novinsky Boulevard, the six-storey concrete block was set on pillars, in a design which would influence Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles. Ginzburg’s columns were originally painted black, to blend in with the mature trees which then surrounded the site.

Apartments were small, with minute kitchens, but there was an adjacent building with shared facilities—a refectory and kitchen, laundry, nursery, recreation room and library. Above the apartments was a roof garden and communal solarium. Life was intended to be fairly regimented, and the corridors were wide enough to be used for communal exercises when reveille sounded at 6am.

Narkomfin is among the greatest examples of Constructivist architecture in the Soviet Union, reflecting the social changes which were introduced under communism. Although families retained reasonable privacy in the Narkomfin apartments, there was also a major element of communal living.

Much of the inspiration for the Narkomfin project came from the People’s Commissar for Finance, Nikolay Milyutin, whose ministerial staff were housed there. Bureaucrats lived in long rows of compact apartments, while the Commissar built his own penthouse suite on the roof.

Milyutin, a close colleague of Lenin, was not only a revolutionary economist, but also an artist and architect. Despite the fact that he was organising the transformation of the Soviet economy, he managed to find time to design furniture for his rooftop residence. He also supervised the painting of the penthouse walls, which were a dramatic mix of blues and pinks; the ceiling of the main room was ultramarine, mimicking the sky.

The Commissar’s penthouse has now virtually collapsed. Last month I was taken up to the roof, to inspect what remains, but warned not to linger. Just next door is the US embassy, and American security guards are nervous of visitors peering down on their property. Inside the penthouse, the floors and ceilings are broken, and most of the built-in furniture has been smashed. Only traces of the original paint scheme remain on the walls.

Although the building was regarded as a marvel upon its completion in 1930, thereafter it had a chequered history. Milyutin was soon purged by Stalin, and he lost his power and went into film production; other Narkomfin residents were imprisoned during the purges.

With economic problems and World War II, there was great overcrowding in Moscow. Several families were soon lodged in each Narkomfin apartment and the aerial walkway to the shared facilities was turned into a dormitory. The area between the columns on the ground level was filled in, creating a lower floor. The communal dining room became the offices of the local fire brigade.

The building, which is owned by the Moscow municipality, is now in a deplorable state, particularly the roof, exterior walls and staircases. Half the 50 apartments are currently occupied, and these tenants can only be moved if they are willing to accept alternative accommodation.

There are currently two proposals to rescue and restore the building. MIAN, a Russian property development company, has suggested transforming Narkomfin into a visual arts centre, by using some apartments as individual studios and four larger apartments as public gallery spaces. Restoration would be a non-profit venture sponsored by the company, but it would be a challenge to raise the running costs.

The second scheme has been proposed by Aleksey Ginzburg, grandson of the designer (and himself an architect), who would like to use the building as an apartment-hotel, renting out apartments for visitors. This should hopefully make restoration economically viable.

The Moscow Architecture Preservation Society is also campaigning for urgent action to save the Narkomfin building. Spokesperson Clementine Cecil stresses “the importance of preserving the interior, with minimal intervention”.

Finally, the World Monuments Fund has put the building on its endangered watch list. Fund vice president John Stubbs says that of all the 200 architectural conservation projects that it is concerned about in 86 countries, “it is the Narkomfin building that worries us the most”.