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Sadovaya St. 23

Statistics speak for themselves regarding the scale of construction in Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1897, there were 498 stone buildings in the city. By 1910, the housing stock consisted of almost 38,000 buildings, 40% of which were made of stone.

In the early nineteen hundreds, the urban population was increasing due to the drift of labor into the factories of the city. The population growth was accompanied by a growth in land prices. Both rental and property prices were also growing more expensive. Rental house construction was considered a very profitable investment.

Nice modern-style building in Kamenoostrovsky Prospect

Since the beginning of the 20th century, more and more went up in the city center. The Architects' job could sometimes be quite complicated - trying to squeeze a building into inconvenient, narrow, irregular areas. One examples of this is the Commercial House of I. A. Alferov, which was erected by the architect V. V. Shaub on a tiny piece of land in the city center (Sadovaya Street 23, 1903-1904).

Many old 2-3 storey buildings were torn down or completely rebuilt to increase the number of floors. From 1908 to 1910 the St. Petersburg Arrangement Project was revised. Construction in some districts of the city was accelerated by the construction of tramways.

Modern-style shop building in Bolshoy Prospect

Petrogradskaya Storona was built up very quickly during this period. On Kamenostrovsky Prospect, large rental houses replaced gardens. Kamenostrovsky Prospect led to the islands, a favourite leisure place for Peterburgians. The second most important street of the capital after Nevsky Prospect was Bolshoy Prospect (Peterburgskaya Storona). By the early 20th century, the street was quickly transformed into an entertainment center.

The Soviet State monopolised all construction and design. It determined the aims and goals of each industry, regulated the architectural and building activity of both companies and individuals and evaluated the final products.

view onto Esenina St. Ozerki region

This system had certain advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, preconditions were created to actually develop and realise vast architectural (and especially urban development) projects such as the reconstruction of older districts. On the other hand, the state greatly interfered with the creative process which, in the end, resulted in monotonous, impersonal districts full of similar buildings.

Constructivizm-style building

Postwar neoclassicizm -style building

Example of functional architecture

Socialist architects tried to remove the contrast between the city center and the tenements. These architects considered the city to be a uniform architectural organism. These architects were also faced with the serious problem of providing accommodation to the growing population of the city. Industrial development and new building technologies made it possible to solve this problem only in part but the problem still exists today.

Soviet architecture in St. Petersburg can be divided into the following periods:

• 1917-1924 - the "paper period": the State constructed almost no buildings; construction projects were developed mainly "on paper" (drawings, sketches) and were made out of paper (models);
• 1924-1932 - constructivism;
• 1930s - prewar neoclassicism;
• 1945-1950s - postwar neoclassicism;
• 1950-1980s - functional architecture.

The architectural structure of the city that developed over a 300 year period allows us to accurately divide the city into several parts (yellow - pre-Revolutionary zones, red - industrial zones and zones with heavy transport lines, blue - residential regions built after WWII).

Just like the ring pattern of the tree, the map features rings representing certain years that are characterised by various architectural styles.

From the starting point - Peter and Paul Fortress to the Admiralty, from the University building and along the prospects and lines of Vasilyevsky Island to the sea, along the three radiating streets to the east, to Obvodnoy Canal and then to the north up to Petrogradskaya Storona and along Kamenostrovsky Prospect.

Industrial districts of the late 19th and early 20th century surround the center and these districts are in turn, surrounded by the socialist and post-socialist buildings of the new regions.