Narkomfin Building
Moisei Ginzburg + Ignaty Milinis · Moscow, Russia · 1930
The Narkomfin Building is a foundational experiment in collective housing by Moisei Ginzburg and Ignaty Milinis. Duplex living units are interlocked within a long raised slab, while communal kitchens, dining and social facilities were intended to support new patterns of everyday life. Ribbon windows, pilotis and roof terraces place the project within the international modern movement, but its social program was specifically tied to Soviet debates about domestic reform. Completed around 1930 and extensively restored in the twenty-first century, Narkomfin strongly influenced later modern housing, including Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation.