Moscow's Libraries Atlas. 448 Rooms with a View.

155

0

338

230

422

1

21

228

22

46

89
145

194

104

86

356

187

359

93
481

21
483

25

16
374

476

114

254
504

200

258

1

442

376

238

372

265

49

498

82

24
100

331
41

282

175

111

18

270
436

451

435

208
520

62

357

94
136
452

350

172

198
179

243

421

427

34

144

MOSCOW’S
LIBRARIES
180

312

384

361

135

171

255

395

216

153

272

55

181

413
457

311
373

35
313

354

71

235

500

467

ATLAS
14

425

351
380

259

291

131

507

444

348

450

334

365

438
391

38

299

448 ROOMS WITH A VIEW

97

99

146

342

371

330

513
217

42

289
236

79

308

307

370

106

160
242

73

218

475

80

332

102

76

333

318

251

95

263

57

389

61

116

516

287

212

51
494

130

449

115
110

31
249

309

75

290

128

366

37

288

197

68

203

168

81

159

485
19

397

0

140

52

463

349

285

295

119

166

277

403

328

321

53
418

15

85

117

219

428

11
294

496

469

26

4

454

489
47

325

189

185

234
244

88

381
3

505
7

510

65

67
133

225

379

281

91

276

430

383
169

490

386

345

156

253

394

317

252

283

360

247
439

429

390

401

237

4

139

120
518

479

158

32

215

271

426

448

58

453

319

257

419
25

447
127

105
327

392

519

MOSCOW’S
LIBRARIES

ATLAS

448 ROOMS WITH A VIEW

project by:
Paolo Ruaro
Giovanni Bellotti

tutors:
Paola Viganò
Alexander Sverdlov

Index
• Introduction

• Chronology of Events

pg.
x
x

• History of Moscow’s Library System

xx

• The 448 Rooms of Moscow’s Library

xxx

• The Zero Degree of the Library

Scandinavian Experiences

Libraries as Places, Books as Objects

The Neutral Library

• A New Library Geography

xxx

Spatial Equality and the role of the libraries

From Free-time to Leisure
Heritage

Current Issues

Round House n°1
K7
P-44
Kvartal

Construction time-line and styles

“Gardens, parks of leisure and culture, water
basins and fountains”
Kvartals and Microrayons
Underground Rooms and Lines

• Moscow Views

• Bibliographic References

xxx

xxx
xx

Introduction
The library system of Moscow stands today as a piece of a wider cultural
infrastructure that no longer exists. The 448 municipal libraries within the
city’s boundaries belong to the list of soviet welfare infrastructures, along with
hospitals, schools, clubs and sport centres, a complex social machine of which
they are a fragment. Their present connotation, distribution, and function largely
depends on this past, although the history of the libraries stretches beyond and
before the 75 years of soviet regime. Its architecture can be seen as an element of
continuity in Moscow’s XX century history, having survived through the change
of three different regimes over one century. This continuity is expressed in their
physical presence of the city, in their interiors, their collections, and especially
in their direct link to political power; under each regime the libraries expressed
the political message of the time.
The present condition of the libraries, in this perspective, is that of a large system
in transition where the lack of political and economical interests have slowed the
changes that affected other institutions. The libraries constitute a huge resource
of public space -their rooms alone would cover 25 hectares, an area three times
that of the red square. This monumentality, however is expressed in a long list
of small interiors, worn out collections and minor histories. Recognizing the
library system as a whole, before considering its circumstantial situations, is a
way to understand how the network was designed and maintained.

The system embodies principles of soviet urbanism; libraries were related to
the number of inhabitants and geographical distance from other services, they
occupy the ground floors of the buildings and are evenly spread throughout the
city. This quantitative approach in the planning faces today a variety of issues;
bringing back the libraries to their present condition, studying their contexts
and seeing which of these relations still exist, which don’t and which could be
formed gives directions on how the network could be reorganized and on what
it could accomplish. Such connections are often hidden behind a curtain of low
fences, rows of garages, and blurred by the different management systems of
the city’s grounds. The Atlas proposes three ecologies and a series of public
elements to which the rooms can relate both on the scale of architecture and
of management. Establishing a common language among the diversity of
circumstances and building an atlas of relations between the libraries and their
contexts is a first step towards the new cycle of the system and in recognizing
the new geography of the libraries.

Chronology of events
This time line is based on Irina Kharkov’s research “Management structure of the territorial network of public libraries in super big cities. Current trends and prospects for improvement”, and on Evgeny Kuzmin’s
“From totalitarianism to democracy: Russian libraries in transition”

Timeline of the most significant events in XX cenbtury Moscow

•1862: “Regulations on public management of Moscow”, chapter on
censorship and press (186), institutes “rooms for reading” under the
control of the ministry of Interior affairs.

•1881 Alexander II assassinated

•1884: new regulations institute penalties for librarians guilty of
displaying censored books.

•1890: new regulations state that public libraries could only acquire
books approved by the Synod or the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Education.

Library n°36 in 1910

•1896: a Catalogue with the authorized books is distributed across
the public libraries of the country

•1901: although plans were to have one library every 1000 literate
people (estimated around 200.000 in Moscow), only 41 libraries were
active in the city.
•1904: plans are made to build 161 more libraries in the city

•1910: the public Libraries in Moscow could count on ca 985.000
books in 65 libraries, 12 of which managed by the city, counting on 31
librarians1 , with a budget of 7000 roubles for the large libraries and
500 for the small ones

•1911: First meeting on librarianship is held in Moscow, a call is
made for the training of professional librarians and for the dismissal
of the 1884 censorship law, problems related to the lack of a central
management are exposed.

•1912: Plans are made for the institution of 300 state owned libraries
in Moscow, including small libraries and larger libraries with reading
rooms. The investment on Moscow was however never approved, and
major investments were only made in St. Petersburg.
•1917: On the eve of the revolution, 180 libraries operate in the city,
76 of which are free public libraries and an additional 40 private
institutions which provided library service. The centralization of the
system begins under the guidance of A. Piskunov.

•1918: Issues regarding the network of Libraries are raised by N.
Krupskaya, new libraries are proposed according to location, level of
literacy and population density.
•1918: City Central Library is opened in January. In December, the
10

•1891 - 1905 Trans Siberian Railroad built

•1894 Accession of Nicholas II to the throne of Russia

• 1896 May Coronation of Nicholas as Czar of all the Russians
• 1901 Socialist Revolutionary Party founded

• 1903 Congress of Social Democrats in London splits into Bolsheviks
and Mensheviks
• 1904 February 8 Russo-Japanese War begins with the Japanese
attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur

• 1905 January 22 “Bloody Sunday.” Lenin returns from Switzerland
to St. Petersburg. Marchers fired on by Imperial Troops. After internal
riots and unrest Nicholas re-establishes his power
September 5 Russia defeated. Treaty of Portsmouth marks the end of
the Russo-Japanese War.
•1906 DUMA - Russia’s first elected parliament

• 1914 August 1 Germany declares war on Russia

•1917 March 16 Abdication of Nicholas II and formation of the Provisional Government
• November 6-7 Bolsheviks seize key points including the Winter
Palace. Provisional Government is overthrown and Bolshevik government is formed
• 1918 March 3 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Bolsheviks negotiate a separate peace with Germany
March 12 Capital is transferred from Petrograd to Moscow
May Civil War begins, Red armies vs White armies
July 16 Czar Nicholas and his family executed at Ekaterinburg
November 11 World War I ends
• 1919 Founding of the Communist International.

•1921 March Lenin announces the New Economic Policy {NEP)—
temporary postponement of socialist measures in agriculture and
commerce. War gradually comes to an end with victories of Red Army.
Uprising at Kronstadt naval base brutally suppressed.
Ban on factions within the Communist Party.
11

centralization of the libraries becomes effective. St. Petersburg and
Moscow work as independent branches of the same organism. The
system is supervised by Lenin’s wife, Nedezhda Krupskaia

• 1919: The principle of centralization proves to be unrealistic during
the years of the NEP. The central system continues to operate 88
libraries, reduced to 80 by 1924, while 448 total libraries operate in
the city.
• 1921: Dewey classification system is introduced in all Russian
libraries
Library n°8 built in 1931

• 1930: major reforms are introduced, restructuring the library system (diagram 3)

• 1935: over 220 libraries operate in Moscow, all under strict control
of the Party.

• 1941-1945: The number of operating libraries is drastically reduced
during the “ Great Patriotic War”, many being bombed or converted to
hospitals.

Lenin’s Library in 1936

• 1953: a Minister for the Libraries is pointed, under direct supervision of the Ministry of Culture. The number of Libraries grows rapidly
to 300, although most institutions are depending directly on the
ministry of Culture and not on the municipality.
• 1955: As the city grows in low density prefabricated housing,
the ground floor of Moscow becomes more and more public: every
micro-rayon hosts a library, the number of cbs and branches rises
rapidly to 400.

• 1959: following radical social changes in the post-war decade,
libraries in Moscow undergo a series of reforms: Each city with more
then one library must adapt one to be the central library, efforts to
transform the independent libraries in a single network are made,
a library code is issued and delivered to all central libraries in the
country.

• 1967: centralization is carried out on rural, urban and regional level.
A solution for the library branches (sometimes up to 80) is still not
found, although three solutions are proposed: total centralization
in one system; a double network, for children and adults; various
centralized system for the different districts. The third solution will
be adopted for Moscow and Leningrad.
• 1975: The city operates 437 free public libraries, united in 33 CBG
(Central Library Systems)

• 1985: during perestroika, the libraries struggle to define their role
in the Russian changing society. Documentation on the period is
inconsistent and gives a multifaceted picture, where single branches
open to new contents while others remain tied to party values. The
strong ideological character of the libraries still remains, proving
the limits of the centralized system incapable of adapting rapidly to
12

•1922 March Stalin is named General Secretary of the Communist
party at the eleventh Party Congress
•Formation of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

• 1923 Communists convert Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed (at
Kremlin) into an anti-religious museum
• 1924 January 21 Lenin dies

• 1925 Work begins on Lenin’s red granite mausoleum
Struggle for leadership of Communist Party gradually won by Stalin
and his supporters.

•1927 End of NEP. Beginning of first 5-year plan and campaign for the
collectivization of agriculture.
• 1935 First stage of Moscow metro opened.

• 1938 Show trials. Tens of thousands of ordinary people, as well as
three fifths of all army officers and many famous wrilters and artists
sent to prison camps in Siberia, where most of them die.

• 1939 Pact between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union - Poland divided
between the two.
• 1942 Germans in occupation of most of western Russia.
Battle of Stalingrad: Germans eventually thrown back.

• 1953 Death of Stalin, leadership taken over by Malenkov, Molotov
and Khrushchev.
• 1955 Khrushchev emerges as new dominant figure.
Signing of military pact by communist countries of eastern Europe
(the Warsaw Pact). Kremlin opened to the public

• 1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin in “secret speech” to 20th Party
Congress. Demotion of some of Stalin’s close associates, rehabilitation
of some of his victims.
• 1964 Khrushchev voted out of office by his colleagues. Replaced by
Joint leadership consisting of Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny.
• 1980 Olympic Games held in Moscow, boycotted by USA and some
other countries
• 1982 Brezhnev dies and is replaced by Andropov

• 1984 Andropov dies and is replaced by the elderly Konstantin
Chernenko
• 1985 Chernenko dies and Gorbachev replaces him

• 1986 Gorbachev begins policies of perestroika and glasnost
13

changing conditions, although there is a greater availability of foreign
newspapers within the libraries.


• 1988: A new re-organization is implemented, trying to introduce
specialization in the library system (leisure, literary history, news,
video, computers, local history etc.) and an aim for each library (development of creative abilities, assistance to the elderly et cetera)

• 1991: As the Soviet Union falls, the three principles that restrained
the 453 libraries existing at the time (partiinost, spetskhran and censorship) fall with it.

• 1994: Bill on libraries is approved, tying all city libraries to the
DUMA authority, meanwhile a process of de-centralization is started.


Right: diagrams of the management of the city’s libraries
1871- 2013

• 2010: 448 Public Libraries operate in Moscow, 168 of which are
children Libraries, under 36 centralized library systems. 4500 librarians are employed in the city serving 2.5 million users, lending around
50 million books per year.

14

• 1989 Yeltsin elected leader of Russia

• 1992 A Federation Treaty is signed by 15 Russian republics
The Supreme Soviet confirmed the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
• 1993 Russian constitutional crisis

• 1999 The State Duma confirmed the appointment of Vladimir Putin
as Prime Minister of Russia.
Second Chechen War: Russian ground troops invaded Chechnya.
The treaty of creation of the Union of Russia and Belarus was signed.
Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of the Russian Federation. Prime
minister Vladimir Putin became acting president.
• 2004 Putin won re-election to a second term, earning 71 percent of
the vote.
• 2008 Russian presidential election, 2008: Dmitry Medvedev won,
earning 70.5 percent of the vote.
• 2012 Russian presidential election, Vladimir Putin wins, earning
63.6 percent of the vote.

15

History OF MOSCOW’S LIBRARY SYSTEM
The History of Moscow’s libraries over the last 100 years is as complex and rich as
that of the city itself. The core of the system stands today as a monument of soviet
network planning, being the only surviving cultural infrastructure of the communist
city spared from the privatizations that have reshaped most of the nation’s welfare
networks1.

As a heritage of the tsarist period - pre-revolutionary Moscow could already count
on 180 collections of books2 - the changes within the libraries management and their
spaces reflect the evolving tendencies of Russian politics under the soviet regime,
just as their difficulty to adapt to contemporary Russian society. The soviet library
system was instituted in 1922 by Lenin and his wife, Nedezhda Krupskaia, librarian
by profession3: “[Libraries] were to serve as instruments for eradicating illiteracy and
for educating the population; an important element was moral education, one which
would make for good Marxist/Leninist citizens. Thus, the role of the librarian was not
to facilitate access to material which the reader demanded, but rather to guide the
reader to material that was considered appropriate and to keep away from the reader
material which was considered inappropriate or harmful.” Since then, partiinost,
spetskhran4 and censorship informed soviet librarianship for almost 75 years.
1. Privatization in Moscow,James H. Bater, Geographical Review, Vol. 84, No. 2 (April, 1994), pp. 201-215

2.Those Libraries were not accessible, however, by the entire population, but reserved to specific classes of workers belonging to trade unions or reserved
to clergy or nobility.
2. From totalitarianism to democracy: Russian libraries in transition. Kuzmin, E. (1993). American Libraries, 24, 568-570.
3. Raymond, B. (1979). Krupskaia and Soviet Russian librarianship, 1917-1939. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

4. Under “Спецхран”, abbreviation for “special storage sections”, were listed all the books that were not accessible to the public without authorization.
Those prohibited archives, opened only for researches of undoubted comunist beliefs became at one point so vast that became a storage problem for the
libraries. Over 60% of the books in the libraries were censored in the year 1930 alone, when their stock had already being purged at least three times. By
1935 only few copies of the censored books were to be kept in a special section of the Lenin library, while the rest was to be destroyed. (Rogers, 1973)

4. N. K. Krupskaya, Part two : Krupskaia
on libraries, ed Sylva Simsova (Hamden :
Archon Books, 1968) 45–51.

5. Thomas, C. (1999). Changes in Russian
libraries in the 1990s. Focus on International and Comparative Librarianship,
30(3), 112-12.
6. Greening, J. M. (1995). Ten years in the
life of Russian libraries. International Information & Library Review, 27, 113-127

Krupskaia started her activity directing underground
libraries in pre-revolutionary Moscow, when libraries
were either reserved for specific trade unions or exclusively for higher classes. After the revolution, Krupskaia
initiated a census of the libraries, revealing the inadequacy of the system4: “We have a laughable number of
libraries, and their book stocks are even more inadequate.
Their quality is terrible, the majority of the population
does not know how to use them and does not even know
what a library is.” In the 1920s the education of a class
of professional librarians was being formed for the first
time in Russia. E.I. Samurin, one of the chief ideologists
of soviet librarianship described in the 1940s the duties
of the Russian librarian:
(1) Indicate for each subject its ‘politically acceptable’
place in the classification scheme;
(2) Grant first place in every division and subdivision to
the opinions of the ‘classics of Marxism-Leninism’, as well
as to party directives;
(3) Grant priority to materials relating the Soviet Union as
the country of ‘victorious socialism’, with the provision that
these materials must be clearly separated from those of
foreign (‘capitalist’) countries;
(4) Grant fist place to ‘advanced’ (communist) theories
and practices and literature about them;
(5) Provide class, division, and subdivision names in ‘politically acute and distinct terms”

above: Municipal Library n°16 in 1934, below: Lenin’s Library in 1936

In 1990, 115.000 libraries were active in the Soviet
Union, all under the tight central planning authority and
financial control of the government5.
The following year, the ideological function of the libraries and their precise social objective - no person was to
live more then 15 minutes from a library6 - became outdated overnight. Much has changed on the shelves of the
libraries and in their management, however the spaces
of the libraries- niches of public space spread homogeneously throughout the city- appear, in most cases, to have
been frozen for over twenty years.
1. Spatial equality and the role of libraries

Most historians recognize two principles shared within
the communist party in the 1920s : a radical view of the
basic structure of society, shifting from family to com20

21

1. Planning the City of Socialist Man, Jack
C. Fisher, Journal of the American Institute
of Planners, Vol. 28, Iss. 4, 1962
2. The first edition of Tomorrow: a
peaceful path to real reform (1898) was
translated into Russian in 1901. In 1913
St. Petersburg already hosted a branch of
the International Garden City Society.

3. Governing the Socialist Metropolis,
Timothy Colton, 1995

3. “leisure” is taken here to define the part
of the day not spent working, sleeping or
travelling, although in communist Russia
- “the nation of workers”- leisure was ill
regarded as a concept, and free time had a
more active connotation.
4. Idee per la città comunista, A. Baburov,
1966, pg 94

munity, and the abolition of “bourgeois” distinctions
between city and countryside1. Both points are rooted
in Marxist theory, and the latter, under the influence of
Howard’s garden cities2, was to become a major theme
of discussion among soviet urbanists from the 1920s.
Although the academic positions that lead the urban discourse - Leonid Sabsovich’s City Urbanists and Mikhail
Okitovic’s Disurbanists - were not taken into account in
the 1935 plan, those Marxist principles influenced greatly the ideas for the communist capital.

As early as 1918 the 17 tchasti of Moscow, the tsarist
shell-like division of the city, were replaced by 11 rayoni, a radial system that was to ensure the inhabitant of
the periphery, at least by definition, the same district of
those living in the centre3. Parks, museums, playgrounds
and libraries, as well as most of the cities free-time facilities revolved along the same principles of spatial equality, contributing to the image of a society where everyone
had access to the same knowledge, therefore to the same
possibilities. Cultural institutions were to build a bridge
between cities and villages, the distance of which constituted a source of social inequality.

As communism eroded more and more every aspect of
private life - “Communism destroyed private life”, Benjamin wrote in the 20s - and as the working hours were
progressively reduced, the problem of infrastructure for
“leisure3” became more and more pressing.
The issue of free time was addressed as an aspect of the
communist lifestyle, “ in the interest of everyone and
each one”, and as such required “a well defined place in
space and time, equally accessible to everyone”4. Free
time thus became an extension of communal living,
where each individual could invest his energies on himself in order to better accomplish his individual aspirations. Facilities were heavily subsidized, and ideologically marked; “cultured” use of free time was seen as a
mean for the transition from the “realm of necessities” to
“the realm of freedom”:“ For a further, greater, growth of
material culture, the following will be guaranteed: Increment of the network of Libraries, reading rooms, clubs and
culture houses, cinemas (...) The Party retains necessary to
distribute homogeneously throughout the nation cultural
institutions to elevate gradually the cultural level of the
22

5. Program of the Communist Party of The
Soviet Union, 1960

6. Time budget studies were conducted in
Russia already between 1922 and 1923,
however, for political reasons, no further
research was conducted again until the
early 60s. Free time and Leisure Participations: International Perspectives, chapter
14, Moscow. I. A. Butenko, 2006

7. Moscou: Portrait de Ville, E. Essaian,
2007, pg. 43

village to that of the city.5” Libraries and cultural institutions played a major role in fulfilling this purpose, and
their history is a reflection of wider phenomena within
the Soviet Union.
2. From free-time to leisure

There are little information on time-use patterns before
the early sixties6, when reading was reported to be the
most common free time activity, averaging almost 6
hours per person each week in 1961 (Murray, 1967). In
the eighties, during perestroika, libraries enjoyed their
peak of success, mainly for the availability of international news. Books were at the time widely considered to
be a good investment and a privileged free-time activity - 19% of Russians read “ regularly”, 25% read 2-3
books per month, 21% read 2-3 books per year (Butenko, 1997). Political changes in the 1990s, when cultural
activities were no longer tied to ideological constraints,
brought government subsidies to be drastically reduced,
and many facilities were forced to close. At the same
time private enterprise was on the rise, and many of the
services became available only to the affluent few, a process accelerated by the 1998 financial crisis that has not
reverted since. The artificial homogeneity of the communist city then became evident; within a few years, a new
class of wealthy Muscovites re-occupied the most central
parts of the city, and a handful of agencies bought, parcel
by parcel, the city’s center7, while most of the cities welfare networks were privatized (Bater, 1994). The Libraries are an exception within this panorama; being a hardly
economically exploitable resource they have remained
public and represent the last social “machine” still active
in the city (Zaitsev, 2001).

3. Physical Heritage

As a heritage of the old regime, libraries still carry spatial
principles of the time, being part of a diversified infrastructure of “use” built of canteens, club rooms, music
halls, sport centres and other facilities, for a society
where possession was reduced to a minimum and
private space eroded, sometimes to the size of a small
bedroom.
23

In a lounge of a house-hold cooperative (Admiralteyskaya embankment), 1927-28

24

In a lounge of a students’ commune of the Water Transport Institute. The 1920s

25

9. The Theology Of Tabula Rasa: Walter
Benjamin And Architecture in The Age
of Precarity, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Log 27,
2013

10. OMA / Rem Koolhaas, El Croquis,
Issues 53 + 79, 2006

“Use” was rapidly substituted by ownership and as
investment was diverted from communal facilities
free time activities became more private, fragmented
and wealth-related. The dispersion of leisure, its “liquid” condition is in this regard not dissimilar to that of
labor9, a dispersion which is not only in space, but in
time as well. The “well defined place in space and time”
(Baburov, 1968) for free-time marks today the change
that took place; leisure can now be everywhere, at any
time. Already in 1989 Rem Koohlaas, when describing
the project for the “Trés Grande Biblioteque” was stressing the irony of designing a temple for books and other
media in a moment when culture was becoming less and
less tied to material boundaries10, addressing the issue
of the role of public cultural spaces in the age of digital
information. Being designed as a machine engineered to
serve a known amount of people in a very controlled environment, Moscow’s libraries face today a double issue:
the problem of defining their role within a society very
different from that which originated them, and a global
change of the role of public libraries. As a stratified system that grew for over a century libraries occupy today
places so diverse that each requires to be recognized as
a specific element, the most evident feature that unites
them being precisely their appearing “out of context” and
“frozen”; elements of a former continuity in a fragmented
city.
4. Current Issues

Moscow’s library network compares very poorly with
most library systems in the world. A comparison between the networks is possible with systems that share
a similar condition - geographical or historical. Considering the Swedish , or Norwegian network, similar for
historical reasons, shows the potential of a dispersed library network, while considering a quantitatively similar
network - like the library system of Los Angeles - shows
how a different management of the network could bring
large improvements without substantial changes to the
funding.
Currently, the city budget for the library network is of
87.5 million Euro per year, 65% of which is spent on

30

personnel and only 2.2% is spent on the collections. The
average of funding for collections in Europe is 15%,;
considering that 10 to 15% of the collection should be
replaced each year and that new acquisitions are vital for
the success of a library, the situation of Moscow’s libraries media collections, although official data are unavailable, is very likely to be bad.

11. SVESMI research on Public Libraries,
2012

Paradoxically, the expenses per library in Moscow are
in average with those of most European cities, but the
results achieved are very poor; Amsterdam, for example
invests on each user 4,5€, in Moscow, proportionally,
each visitor costs to the city 43€. A research conducted
in 201311 on a sample of 133 libraries reveals that at
least one title among the top thirty best sellers of 2011
and 2013 was available in only half of the libraries and
70% of the libraries shares three distributors for the
books paying the books at the shelf price. Problems
extend to the accessibility of the network; not only it is
not possible to borrow books and register at the library
without a residence permit, but using the reading rooms
is also forbidden for non residents in the city. Building a
digital catalogue of the libraries media has been on the
agenda for years, but since four different coding systems
are in use, this operation involves the complete remaking
of each library’s catalogue.

The “local” dimension of the libraries, their small size,
their even distribution in the city and their resistance
to change - largely due to insufficient funding - constitutes a unique feature of Moscow’s library network,
and a chance to address issues raised by two decades
of development that have revolved almost entirely on
housing and office space. Hosted in the ground floor of
almost every architectural type the city has to offer, from
beaux art complexes to early prefabricated structures,
Stalinist kvartaly, 1950s kruschevky, and 1970’s towers, the 448 public “rooms” of the libraries are niches
of heated public space waiting to be recognized, the
strength of which lies beyond the circumstantial facts
that make each library different, but in the repetition
and equal distribution of functions throughout the city’s
boundaries. This continuity, however, has evolved over
the years in the sterile repetition of interiors, of activities
31

7. Specialization in Moscow’s libraries
began in the late 1980s, in the meantime
the most advanced library systems in the
world were abandoning them in favour
of a “generalist” approach to the library
program

dictated with an agenda far from that of the population
and with an anachronistic specialization that was out
of date long before its application7. The lack of interest
in the libraries since the fall of the Soviet Union, both of
the municipality and of the market, where it has preserved for future use their physical space, has marked a
distance between the citizens and one of the traditional
public spaces of the metropolis. The suspension of the
library system between its abstract monumentality and
its decaying elements is a challenge that involves a vision
for the services offered to the citizens and a perspective
on the city’s public dimension.

32

the 448 rooms of Moscow’s library

The municipal libraries of the city are hosted in a variety of types, spread throughout
the boundaries of the municipality. The construction of the network lasted over one
century and grew - or shrank - according to political agendas, economical contingencies or exceptional events. This process crystallized a variety of moments of the city’s
history; the interior architecture of the libraries and of their buildings is a manifestation of these events.

Being a “top-down” institution, there have been few filters between the role of the
libraries in the city and the political agenda behind it; this “stratification”, therefore, is
not simply one of architectural styles or management, but one of contradictory roles
that were assigned to the institution. Most historical narratives on the city develop
around a pivotal year which determines a “before” and an “after” in the city in the XX
century. This definition, although easily readable in the libraries management, does
not apply when it comes to the physical presence of the library in the city; they have
not disappeared nor been radically reformed, but rather faded, once their social role
was no longer felt as a necessity in Russian society. This continuity of the system, not
only historical, but geographical, is today the greatest strength of the network and
makes it one of the few public elements of continuity besides the infrastructural networks.
The classifications proposed and the architectural types shown describe the variety of
structures hosting the libraries as they are visible today.

34

35

Round House n°1

The library is hosted in one of the two “round
houses” existing in the city. Built in 1979 as part
of a grand design envisioned for the 1980 Moscow
Olympics, the round houses were to be part of a
gigantic five ring logo of the olympics, to be seen
from the airplanes landing in Moscow. The library
is located on the ground floor of the building, on the
south east side of the ring. Due to the terrain slope,
the interior facade of the library is half submerged
and only low windows appear in the courtyard. The
ground floor of the building used to host services
and public facilities for the inhabitants of the 936
flats of the building. Most of those places have now
become shops, workshops or small offices while
the library, although underused, maintains its collection accessible to the public. The libraries here
- n°139 and children library n°29 - hold a collection of 116.000 items. Renovated in 2009, it hosts
a variety of events, from fairy tales nights to music
contexts open to users and neighbours.

53

The round house soon after construction in 1972

54

55

K7

K7s were the first generation of industrial housing,
designed by the engineer Vitaliy Lagutenko. The
first protoype was built in 1958 by DSK, a special
purpose company built for the production of K7s.
By the early 1960s a kruschevka could be built in
10-12 days, and inhabited within a month. Assembled like lego bricks - although some exceptions
were made, and some were built in bricks - those
buildings owed their success to their cheapness;
interior partitions were 4cm thick, partitions between apartments were 8cm, elevators were discarded, and their low height is due to medical
considerations, 5 stories being considered the
maximum height allowable to walk. By the end of
the 1960s K7s hosted 54% of the Russian population, and still house today 10% of the population of
Moscow. Most K7s are now being demolished due
to their fast deterioration, replaced by higher buildings. The living condition in the Khrushovka were
terrible, and the project has been openly criticized,
even by Lagutenko himself, although the comfortable neighbourhood dimension is often missed by
the inhabitants of newer houses complexes. The
process of demolition of the K7s involves the libraries directly since over 60 in the city are still hosted
on the ground floor of K7s.

K7

K7s were the �irst gene
ing, designed by the en
The �irst protoype was
special purpose compa
tion of K7s. By the ea
could be built in 10within a month. Asse
although some exceptio
were built in bricks - th
success to their cheap
were 4cm thick, partiti
were 8cm, elevators w
low height is due to m
stories being consider
allowable to walk. By t
hosted 54% of the rus
house today 10% of th
Most K7s are now bein
fast deterioration, repl
The living condition i
terrible, and the pr
criticized, even by Lag
the comfortable neig
often missed by the inh
complexes. The proces
involves the libraries
the city are still hoste
K7s.

57

P-44

A series P-44 (П-44) is the longest lasting housing
product of Soviet Union and one of the most multiplied ones. Developed by DSK-1 in Moscow, buildings of the type had been built from 1979 up until
the year 2000 and became an omni-present symbol
of capital districts built in the 1980s and 90s. North
and South Butovo, Kon’kovo, Krylatskoye, Mitino,
Yasenevo and Zhulebino have been built almost
solely with structures of that one type. P-44 was
replaced by P-44T, P-44-K and P-44TM and those
incarnations of the type remain the most popular
building models in Moscow. The structure of the
P44s allowed for a variety of services to be placed
along its perimeter, the “variable profile” of the
building was to assure a moderate densification of
the services within the micro-rayon.

P-44

A series P-44 (П-44) is
ing product of Soviet U
multiplied ones. De
Moscow, buildings of
from 1979 up until th
an omni-present symb
in the 1980s and 90s.
Kon'kovo, Krylatskoye
Zhulebino have been
structures of that one
by P-44T, P-44-K and Ptions of the type remai
ing models in Moscow.
allowed for a variety
along its perimeter, th
building was to assure
of the services within t

59

Kvartal

Kvartals are the clearest manifestation on an architectural scale of the city envisioned and built with
the “Stalinist” plan of 1935. Those blocks, usually
styled in a classicist fashion, were to give the new
image of the comunist metropolis; large roads up to
thirty meters wide surrounded by a coherent motive of the façades. Kvartals replaced the old blocks
of the city, three to four times smaller, and provided
an image of order. Due to the housing emergency,
however, those blocks often concealed portions of
the older city within; being too expensive to be entirely replaced, portions of the old city fabric still
exist behind those curtains, like corings from another epoch.

Kvartals are the clearest manifestation on an
architectural scale of the city envisioned and
built with the “stalinist” plan of 1935. Those
blocks, usually styled in a classicist fashion,
were to give the new image of the comunist
metropolis; large roads up to thirty meters wide
surrounded by a coherent motive of the facades.
Kvartals replaced the old blocks of the city, three
to four times smaller, and provided an image of
order. Due to the housing emergency, however,
those blocks often conceiled portions of the
older city within; being too expensive to be
entirely replaced, portions of the old city fabric
still exhist behind those curtains, like corings
from another epoch.

63

lation as well as that of the boundaries of the city. Their
role as propaganda machines is, at this point, very clear:
library purges had taken place at least four times, and
over 60% of the collections were not accessible to the
public.

Quantitative History of the Libraries 1890-2013

The construction of the library in Moscow took place
almost entirely in the XX century. Pre-revolutionary Moscow could count on collections accessible to the public,
however the low degree of alphabetization and the central location of those libraries made them approachable
only to a wealthy minority. Since 1918, the number of
libraries in the city grows while their role is redefined
and bounded to other cultural networks - schools, clubs,
universities.

tsar Nicholas II

V. Lenin

A. Rykov

J. Stalin

G. Malenkov

N. Kruschev

Andropov and
Kernenko Gorbachev

L. Brezhnev

• 1999 The State
Duma confirmed
the appointment
of Vladimir Putin
as Prime Minister
of Russia.
• 2012 Russian
presidential
election, Vladimir
Putin wins,
earning 63.6
percent of the
vote.

• 1992 A
Federation Treaty
is signed by 15
Russian republics
The Supreme
Soviet confirmed
the dissolution of
the Soviet Union

• 1972 Brezhnev
and U.S.
President Nixon
sign an arms
control agreement

• 1968 Armed
action taken by
Soviet Union and
allies to keep
Czechoslovakia
firmly in Soviet
bloc and to
reverse
liberalization
measures.

• 1956
Khrushchev
denounces Stalin
in “secret
speech” to 20th
Party Congress.

• 1953 Death of
Stalin. Leadership
taken over by
Malenkov, Molotov
and Khrushchev.

• 1946 - 1950
Kremlin walls and
battlements
restored

• 1941 June:
Germany invades
Soviet Union.

• 1935 First
stage of Moscow
metro opened.

• 1927 End of
NEP and approval
of first
quinquennial plan

• 1923
Communists
demolish
Cathedral of
Saint Basil the
Blessed

• 1917 March 16
Abdication of
Nicholas II and
formation of the
Provisional
Government
• Capital is
moved from St.
Petersburg to
Moscow

• 1901 Socialist
Revolutionary
Party founded
• 1906 Duma Russia’s first
elected
parliament is
founded

8

•1921 March
Lenin announces
the New
Economic Policy .

Following Krupskaia’s reform of 1922 the growth in
number of the libraries follows steadily that of the popu-

9

7

If the years of war see most libraries converted to hospitals, the post war period, under the leadership of Nikita
Kruschev, becomes the moment of maximum expansion
of the network. The library system will enjoy in those
years, between 1960 and 1970, its golden age; many
libraries are opened in the ground floors of prefabricated
housing blocks and their role becomes that to serve a
second generation of comunist citizens. For those born
• 1982 Brezhnev
dies and is
replaced by
Andropov

10

• 1980 Olympic
Games held in
Moscow

11

Y. Luzhkov

S. Sobyanin

6
250

5
200

4
150

3
100

2mil
50 libs

1890

1918

1924

66

1935

1950

1960

1972

1980

67

1990

2000

2013

11

square meters/inhabitant
number of libraries
inhabitants

1980
11,0

1960: As the city
grows in low density
prefabricated housing, the
ground floor of Moscow
becomes more and more
public: every microrayon hosts
a library, the number of cbs
and branches rises to 400
within 1960.

1920
9,5

9

1953: a Minister
for the Libraries is
pointed, under direct
supervision of the
Ministry of Culture. The
number of Libraries
grows rapidly to
300.

8

1912
7,4

1935: over 220
libraries operate in
Moscow, all under
strict control of the
Ministry of Culture.

1922
7,4

square meter
per capita

3
100

2mil
50 libs

1961
6,4
1925
5,9
1926
5,8 1930
5,5

1931
5,2

1939

1934 4.137.000
4,2
1940
4,1

principle of
centralization proves to be
unrealistic during the years
of the NEP. The central system
continues to operate 88
libraries, but many more
are open in the city.

1910: the public
Libraries in Moscow
could count on ca 985.000
books in 65 libraries, 12 of
which managed by the city,
counting on 31 librarians , with
a budget of 7000 rubles for
the large libraries and 500
for the small ones

1941-1945: The
number of operating
libraries is drastically
reduced during the “
Great Patriotic War”,
many being bombed
or converted to
hospitals.

1959
5.032.000

1950
4,2

1924: Public
libraries are
reduced to 80

1901: although
plans were to have
one library every 1000
literate
people (estimated around
200.000 in Moscow), only
41 libraries were active
in the city.

1926
2.019.500

1897
1.038.625

1890

1918

1924

68

1935

1950

2010: 426 Public
Libraries operate in
Moscow, 168 of which are
children Libraries, under 36
centralized library systems.
4500 librarians are employed in
the city, serving 2.5 million
users, lending around 50
million books per
year.

1989
8.967.332

1970
6.941.961

1917: On the eve of
the revolution, 180
libraries operate in the city,
76 of which are free public
libraries and an additional 40
private institutions which
provided library service. The
centralization of the system
begins under the
guidance of A.
Piskunov.
1919: The

4
150

1971
9,3

2002
10.382.754

1979
7.850.509

1924
6,2

6
250

1975: The city
operates 437 free
public libraries,
united in 33 CBG
(Central Library
Systems)

1966
8,2

1923
6,8

5
200

1991: As the
Soviet Union falls, the
three principles that
restrained the 453 libraries
existing at the time
(partiinost, spetskhran
and censorship) fall
with it.

1976
10,3

10

7

2013
11.794.000

1985
11,4

1960

1972

under the regime, the priority is no longer mere alphabetization, but the formation of convinced marxist-leninst citizens. The libraries nature adapts to that of their
new environment, stretching from the wide halls of the
Stalinist blocks to the more modest rooms of the standardized houses. As the government compensates the
chronicle lack of private space with a more developed
welfare system, the libraries become extensions of the
houses, covering the need for activities that the tiny K7
apartments could not allow.

During Perestroika, although the libraries collections
had been purged numberless times, the libraries granted
access to some international publications and enjoyed a
period of active participation to the city’s life.
Since 1991, although the number of libraries has not
being reduced, its growth ceased to follow that of the
population, while no strategy to reform the system has
been proposed since recently. The changes in the libraries over the last years appear to be related to the ability
or interest of the librarians while no clear plan is readable though the various reforms that have involved them
in the past twenty years; as the libraries become more
and more the “houses” of the librarians, the population
diverts its attention from them.
1980

69

1990

2000

2013

THE ZERO DEGREE OF THE LIBRARY

The role of the libraries as “places” has been in the past ten years a topic of studies
mainly in Scandinavian countries, where advanced welfare systems are facing questions common to all cultural institutions in times of digitalization. The Swedish and
Norwegian library systems share the spatial principles of the Muscovite network: a
large amount of medium to small libraries, evenly spread in the major cities12.

Sweden and Norway enjoy today two of the world’s most advanced library systems,
with over 60% of the population using the libraries regularly. Scandinavian and soviet network shared from the 1930s a similar history; where social-democratic positions in Sweden paved the way for a strong welfare state, Russian communism was
building a lifestyle that did not revolve around private properties - and relationsbut on collective rituals and places. Reforms allowed libraries in Sweden to develop
an identity as an institution less bound to ideological constraints, while Moscow’s
libraries once missing all the range of services that completed them - sport centres,
clubs, study circles, canteens et cetera - struggle to define their role.
Revealing the “grade 0” of Moscow’s libraries is an operation of clearance of the
historical stratification and of the ideological positions that the libraries have been
carrying, reading them as a diversity of spaces with a flexible program, united by
their neutrality and ability to interact with over services and places within their
reach. The operation allows to develop a unity of the system and show what it can
accomplish as a whole. Neutrality, therefore, is not intended here as the absence of a
program or role, but as a condition where all the possible developments are implicit
within their physical space, a first step in order to bind the libraries to their physical
context.
12. In 2012 Sweden ran 289 Library networks and over 2000 libraries in the country with an overall collection of 44 milion books. 60% of the population
uses the library regularly, a number growing to 95% for children aged 5 to 13. (Thomas, 2004)

70

71

1. Scandinavian Experiences

13. Global Librarianship. Public Libraries
in Developed countries: a success story
from Scandinavia, by Barbro Thomas,
2004

15. PLACE - Public Libraries Arenas for
Citizenship studies the libraries role in
promoting community and building social
capital.

The origin of the library network lay, in Sweden, in the
parish libraries,t born as an enforcement of the church
law of 1686, according to which the clergy was responsible to teach reading “so that the children may with
their own eyes see God’s holy laws and commands”. By
the end of the XIX century parish libraries, incapable or
unwilling to cope with the challenges of a new time, were
being gradually substituted. The new actors in the development of the library network became then popular
movements -labour and peasentry organizations- often
animated by a left-wing agenda, which introduced new
contents in their “study circle libraries”. These groups
established and for a long time ran a nationwide network
that played an important role in the democratic process.
The study circle library movement promoted contents
beyond the religious restrains of their parish predecessors; by the 1930s 3000 libraries proposed to their
public philosophy, literature, politics, fiction and poetry,
ranging from Marx to Jack London. In the 1950s these
libraries were gradually absorbed by local authorities,
paving the way for the present public library landscape13.
Between the 1950s and the 1970s the growth of the
libraries was huge; the overall media collection passed
from 1.5 milion to 24 millions and circulation almost
doubled. In the meantime, the architecture of the libraries was undergoing structural changings; the number of
libraries was reduced from the over 3000 study circle
libraries to around 1000, until a new left reformist wave
in the 1970s, lead by young librarians, inverted, once
again, the trend; libraries were to be the medium of a
culture for all, and education was regarded as the mean
for the lower classes to raise their social condition. The
number of libraries in Sweden is today above 2500 for a
population of less the 10 milion. The country is considered to have one of the most advanced library systems,
which, although touched by cuts in the early nineties, still
functions as a fundamental social tool for its citizens.
In Norway the role of libraries as public spaces is currently being developed through a series of projects
related to the PLACE15 program. The program studies
the role of libraries in building community values by
providing free public space, services, and a sense of
72

16. How do public libraries function as
meeting places? Svanhild Aabo, Ragnar
Audunson, Andreas Varheim, 2009

17. Use of Library space and the Library
as space, Svanhild Aabo, Ragnar Audunson, 2012

ownership from the community. Statistics show that
the libraries in Norway are used as public spaces to a
great extent and that around 60% of the users do not
visit the library to borrow books, films or other library
material during their visits, but use it as a meeting space
(ABM-utvikling, 2008). Ragnar Adunson, founder of the
place project, identifies six categories of meetings that
are held in Libraries: libraries as community squares,
where acquaintances happen randomly; libraries as places
where people are exposed to diversity; libraries as a public
sphere; libraries as places for joint activities with friends
and families; libraries as meta meeting places and libraries as virtual meeting places16. The public role of the
libraries became evident during the research as patterns
of behaviour were revealed; users would frequently bend
the rules, personalizing their space, consuming food and
frequently interacting within the premises of the libraries (McKechnie et al. 2012). The design of the libraries
physical spaces played a major role in these behaviours.
A similar study conducted in a British University (Bryant
et al., 2009) revealed that the free plan area was the most
widely used in the premise, and that diverse activities
co-existed within it.
2. Libraries as places, books as objects

19. It has been announced that funds for
public libraries will be raised by 50%
from 2014, and that digital cataloguing
of all the collections will be completed
within 2015.
http://www.mn.ru/moscow_people/20130830/355164966.html

History of librarianship shows how the focus of libraries
has been in the past mainly oriented towards the number
of media in the collections. Most of the libraries in the
world still publicize their institution with a quantitative
statement of kind; the more books, the more comprehensive the coverage. Development in information technology is influencing this standard heavily; the British
Library, in its 2020 statement reckons that within 7 years
75% of new books will be published in digital versions,
Amazon sold in the last years more kindles then Harry
Potter books.
The Scandinavian stories illustrate how book collections
and their renewal19 have been an important tool, although not the only one, in granting the libraries success.
Equal attention has been placed in studying the libraries as ecologies, their user’s habits and the patterns of
behaviour. Although most libraries in Moscow still offer
incomplete collections - authors such as Tolstoy, Kant or
73

20. Lenin’s wife, Krupskia, when asked
for reasons why Kant should be censored,
replied: ”The Masses do not read Kant”.
Robert Rogers, Censorship and Libraries
in the soviet Union A Journal of Library
History, Philosophy, and Comparative
Librarianship Vol. 8, n°1, 1973
19. Each library in Sweden receives
special funds for the government besides
ordinary grants to renew their collection.
On average each library receives 700 free
books a year to add to their collection.
(Thomas, 2009)

James still miss from some library shelves, a reminder
of censorship laws from over 70 years ago20 - Moscow’s
network is currently undergoing changes reforming their
databases, digitalizing their contents and upgrading their
collections, which have been degrading since the early
1990s19. These reforms are inevitable and open chances to work on the public functions of those spaces and
on the historical significance of their current archives.
David Pearson, director of Culture, Heritage and Libraries for the City of London foresees a future where public
libraries will share more traits in common with museums - libraries as museums of marginalia - the value of
books shifting from their pure content to their totality
as objects, where collections will not be valued solely by
their numbers but by the history of their items. Pearson
reminds how, although most librarians shudder at the
thought of libraries transformed into museums, many
museums have renewed their civic role by proposing
different ways of exploring their archives and using their
spaces. At the same time, with more and more content
being available online, the choice of users tends to be
more oriented towards the closest library rather then to
a content specific one. This choice is influencing the development of libraries in Scandinavian countries (Thomas, 2012), where specialized public libraries have now
disappeared after reforms undertaken in the 1980s, and
efforts go in the direction of unifying research libraries
with general public ones- as in the case of the towns of
Harnosand and Visby, where under the same roof municipal and University libraries coexist (Thomas 2004).

the temporary institution of “private” domains, together
with the small size of Moscow’s libraries makes them the
ideal continuation of the private space of the homes and
a service to larger and less specialized public areas.

74

75

3. The Neutral Library

Lofland (1998), studying cities and urban life, classifies
spaces in three categories; a public realm, where interaction is between strangers; a parochial realm, where the
main form of relation is communal, and private realm,
where interactions happen between people who know
each other. When observing the use of public libraries,
those three categories seem to exist within the same
building; private activities are carried out within micro
private spaces defined by the users, often personalized,
yet the institution is accessible to all, and interactions
happen as soon as people divert their attention from
their private activity. The appropriation of space and

Libraries n°139-29

Libraries n°139-29

356 square meters available,
165 accessible to the public


The library is hosted in one of the two “round houses” existing in the city. Built
in 1979 as part of a grand design envisioned for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the
round houses were to be part of a gigantic five ring logo of the Olympics, to be
seen from the airplanes landing in Moscow. The library is located on the ground
floor of the building, on the south east side of the ring. Due to the terrain slope,
the interior facade of the library is half submerged and only low windows appear
in the courtyard. The ground floor of the building used to host services and public
facilities for the inhabitants of the 936 flats of the building. Most of those places
have now become shops, workshops or small offices while the library, although
underused, maintains its collection accessible to the public. The libraries here n°139 and children library n°29 - hold a collection of 116.000 items. Renovated
in 2009, it hosts a variety of events, from fairy tales nights to music contexts open
to users and neighbours.

The Round House Library is located in a micro-rayon that has maintained its original characteristics almost unchanged since its construction. The round houses
offer to their inhabitants a closed garden, easily controlled by the tenants, where
children can play freely without supervision as the local community assures constant control over the courtyard. The round garden contained within hosts playgrounds, car parks and greenery accessible directly by the inhabitants but open
to the rest of the micro-rayon community by four large gates distributed along
the perimeter. The domain of the library can stretch easily to the garden, engaging the surrounding spaces with open air activities; the library can be seen as a
large open courtyard and a covered niche, where the inner ecology of the Round
House enriches the public space of the local community.

oid: 494-499

Library n°35


oid: 488

Library n°36 - Tolstoy Library - in the Domodilovo district was opened in 1931
and named after J. Stalin. It was one of the few libraries active during the war,
and became one of the largest in Moscow in the early 1960, when, after being
renamed Tolstoy library, was holding a collection of over 150.000 books. Hosted
in a Stalinist kvartal, the library offers to the public generous rooms, with ceilings up to five meters in height. The large courtyards of the block, accessible yet
hidden from the street, hold within fragments of the pre-soviet city, in this case
dense XIX century fabric. Today, the library holds a collection of 53.000 items
available for its 8000 users.

Library n°35


Library n°175


oid:464

Library n°175 is located in the Cheryomuski district of Moscow. The library was
opened in 1958, soon after the construction of its building. Hosted in one of the
first generation K7s, this space shares with all other first generation Krushevky
buildings an uncertain future; scheduled to be demolished by 2012, thousands
still survive in the city. The replacement of prefabricated structures from the
1950s and 1960s is among the most controversial issues the city is facing today,
where the need for replacement of those structures is evident, the new generation of buildings raises many concerns, their height been often tripled while the
services provided to the neighbourhood is progressively eroded. The library provides 65.000 items between books and magazines to its users.

Library n°175


Library n°151

oid : 280
Library n°151 was instituted in 1980 and moved to the current building in 1984.
It holds a collection of 43.000 books and has subscriptions to around 50 periodicals. Located in the remote Kapotnya rayon in the south east of Moscow, the
library is built as a single story prefabricated building, an extension to the profile
of a P44 tower from the late 1970s. The variable profiles of the buildings allowed
for a great versatility of the ground floor spaces, and used to host a variety of
public services.

Library n°151

802 meters available,

Library n°95


oid: 426
The library was built between 1955 and 1959, it is one of the last buildings designed by the soviet architect Ivan Zholtovsky. Zholtovsky’s work spans from the
early days of the soviet Moscow when he was, together with Schushev, assigned
by Lenin the task to prepare the urban plan for Moscow - a plan to be dismissed
by Stalin in 1932 - till his experiences with prefabricated structures in the 1960s.
This classicist structure maintains in the library most of the original furniture,
although the interiors have undergone many transformations over the years. Due
to the very small number of visitors - not more then two or three people a day the library is facing eviction.

Library n°95


Library n°128


oid: 85
The original collection of Library n° 128 was instituted in 1953 and moved to the
current structure in 1973. Located in the north-east of the city, it is part of an almost unaltered micro-rayon built following the 1972 plan, offering freely accessible recreation grounds, courts and playgrounds in the inside. Located on the edge
of the micro-rayon the library is an elegant single story structure, where the flexible structural plan has allowed for a series of subdivisions over the years. The library has access and view to the large green “mat” of the micro-rayon, where the
low maintenance has allowed greenery to develop freely among niches of sport
facilities and open air services. No data are available regarding the collection or
the number of users.

Library n°128


Library n°22


oid 424

Library Ivan Zabelina hosts a collection of around 40.000 books acquired both
through the cbs and through independent agreement with publishers. It is located in the south western Obrushevky area of the city.

Library n°22


Library n°48

oid: 004
Named after H. C. Andersen for the 200th anniversary of the authors death, Library number 48 was established in the early thirties, probably in 1932. The library specializes in children literature with a collection of 30.000 books.

Library n°48

A NEW Library geography

The libraries seen as a single entity build a continuity that enables to read specific
aspects of the growth of the city - the shift from the dense wooden city of the early
XX century to the monumental interventions of the Stalinist era, the development of
prefabricated structures in the late 1950s or the most recent Euro-remont fashion while disregarding another - the specific value of each piece in its context and its role
in the public realm. This role is one to be re-found, since the libraries have developed
into a closed and self referential system, that not only doesn’t interact with its context, but struggles to work coherently.
The street life described by Benjamin, Bulgakov or Rodchenko in the 1930s embodies this idea of a local community sharing routines and places in the open. This
reality changed when streets and squares became “decorations” to the strictly functional purpose of the streets envisioned in the 1935 plan. The public spaces were
then identified with the large forest-parks, surrounded by public services for culture
and leisure- Gorky park with its air balloon, the library and other amenities. The
development of the post-war period brought life to the court yards of kvartals and to
the wide green surfaces of the microrayons, as the functional elements of the houses
were spread not in the apartments, but in the block as a whole.
The issue of contemporary public spaces is pressing since the changes in the management of the districts and the arrival of new Muscovites in areas that had over
time developed as micro-villages is changing the geography of those areas.

92

93

1. “Gardens, parks of leisure and culture, water basins
and fountains”

1. The text is held at the manuscript
section of the Museum of the History of
Moscow n the Barsov fund

2. In “Mosca, 1900-1950: Nascita di una
capitale”, De Magistris, 1994, extract from
a speach by J. Stalin in 1935

XVI century Moscow covered barely two thirds of the
surface available, the remaining land was a rural landscape, intervaled by few unpaved roads. The “List of
gardens and palaces in Moscow and in the villages of
Moscow’s districts” of 17051 lists the various gardens
and parks that enchanted the villagers of the region.
From the Kremlin gardens to the Vasil’evskij in the white
city, Dutch baroque style inspired the most celebrate
designs of the time. The XVIII century left Moscow with
new parks and gardens, the bul’var ring and a variety
of aristocratic gardens, creating a collection of closed
microcosms in the city. The following centuries saw
this landscape develop into an extremely rich system of
parks, forests and gardens within the city’s boundaries.
(to the right, a plan of Moscow in 1700 from the David
Rumsay map collection)
“In Future Moscow, in the city of happy people, once imaginable only in utopic stories, vast areas will be occupied
by gardens, parks of leisure and culture, water basins
and fountains”. Today 2.345 hectares of large parks, 748
of neighbourhood parks, 126 of gardens and 1.080 of
bul’var form the “green sea” that covers 4,3% of the
municipality’s surface (Frattini, 2007). The 1935 plan
introduced in the city vast green areas, enhancing its
radial structure in an attempt to control the development
of industrial areas. Those large green areas often coupled
“parks of leisure and culture” with vast unmaintained
forests, stretching into the city from the forest surrounding it. The double nature - urban and wild - of these
parks is of great importance for the ecology of Moscow.
The densification of the city in the past years has left
many neighbourhoods facing the paradox of large green
areas that are virtually inaccessible due to their lack of
services; understanding the role of those ecologies as
public spaces means giving value, thus protecting, one
of the most visible heritages of the soviet era. The proximity of the libraries with forests, large parks and water
courses is one to be explored; while those areas are vital
as low maintenance reserves, the libraries can adapt in
order to become their portals.
94

95

2. Moscow’s metro

The connection of the libraries with the metro lines is
one that works on a temporal basis. The social geography
of the city with its artificially maintained diversity was
dismantled very rapidly in the early 1990s; this meant
a change not only in the social panorama, but in the use
that the public transport was to bear. The hours spent in
the metro lines have almost doubled only in the past five
years, as workers cover more and more miles on a daily
basis. Libraries can offer a service for this time, if the
different branches of the network were to be understood
on the basis of transport; a cbs based on abstract municipality boundaries can hardly embrace a community that
is built not only on residents, but changes throughout
the day. The liveliness of the libraries, depends largely on
their ability to serve this wider public. The recognizability of the libraries as systems such as this, in terms both
of architecture and service is necessary if the libraries
are to be truly open.
3. Blocks and super blocks

Microrayons and kvartals were built as a system where
each part was necessary for the functioning of the whole;
canteens and laundries, club rooms and sport facilities,
libraries and museums, cinemas and theatres were
highly specialized public rooms built for a purpose and
functioning as one entity. As those connections fade, new
can be found. The maps proposed are a draft for a series
of local systems that can bring together the existing
facilities.
4. New Geographies

Large scale networks, such as the metro lines, local
services- police stations, hospitals, schools - and vast
natural ecologies were discovered through the mapping of the libraries surroundings. Forty-eight 500m by
500m corings were used as a sample unit to measure the
potential connections between those three ecologies,
revealing a hidden web of opportunities.
96

cinem
sp

school

075

ol

8’

co

lle

ge

8’

nsko

opre
snen

skay
aaa

Za

m

os

kv
or
ets

ka
ya

theatre

ege

coll

156/234

school

met
ro 1
3’

Mo
sco
wr
ive
r

zevs
irya
-Tim

102

103
museum

y
lle

ni
ns

zhsk
o-R
izh
ska
ya
Ka
lu

ka
ya

ko
-R
izh
s

zh
s

Ka
lu

ya

8’

ya

6-4Л

13-3

co

lle

ge

vska

school

eska

lnich

8’

yaze
ukho
vsko
-Tim
ir

school 10’
280

Youza riv
er
Soko

Library n°59 and n°101

museum

Cherkizovskiy pond

058

Le

sev
aya
Ko
lt
9-A
3-3

-Kra
sn

ol

ya

6-4Л

13-3

Library H.C. Andersen

004
Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya

ho

Taga

metro

museum

061/062

metro

ho

eska

lnich

Soko

Library Jurgenson

ool
8’

sc

college

ko
-T

cinema

sc

Youza riv
er

Serp

zhsk
o-Ri

zhsk
aya

Library A. N. Tolstoy

school 8’

6-2

zhsk
o-R
izh
ska
ya
Ka
lu

274

r
va

ul'

b
oy

stn

a
Str

ma 3’

kaya

8’

ki
ya

ive
8k

ter

cen
ort

Kalu

sev
aya
Ko
lt
9-A
3-3

school

080

ukho
vsko

metro

Serp

zhsk
o-Ri

zhsk
aya

theatre 7’

museum

5’

cine

er
riv

Library n°34

488

w
sco

school

Kalu

school

Mo

497

Library n°219

039

cinema 10’

theatre

Mo

school 8’

6-2
8-2
8k
S2

353

Library n°151

ma 3’

cine

8’

Cherkizovskiy pond

156/234

school

Library A. Chekhov

cinema

274

oskv
oret

ska
Library A. N. Tolstoy
ya

075

er
riv

school

school

school

5’

090

Zam

058

cinema

488

museum

college

school

423/424


cinema

’

w
sco

school

’

r8

te
cen
ort

sp

Samad Vurgun pond

096

10

a1

em

cin

5’

403/418

school

ev

N
oy

lsh

Bo

school

ro

r
ve
ri

e
rv
se
re

080

metro
school

nd
museum
po
iy
ich

od
ov

theatre 7’

039

er
riv

et

n

tu
Se

403/418

Library n°219

school

Library n°8

026

cinema 10’

497

school

Mo

m

a
Koltsevay

6

3-4

-4

32

w
sco

’

school

14

r
ive

Moscow river

school

ya

vska

File

school

school

015

school

school

390

school

metro

Library n°161

489

w
co

9
school
-3

metro


5
a1
em ’
cin y 10
it
ers
univ

er
riv

os

M

Library n°34

Library n°41

Library n°8

metro

school

wr
sco

metro

kaya

-Pokrovs

Arbatsko

007/025

ve
ri

school

397

er
riv

261

ve
er
es
rr

n

390

a
Koltsevay

Library n°27

tu
Se

Library n°171
Library n°41
college

w
sco

Ly

metro

school

Library A. T. Twardowski

er
riv

a
ay
nsk

metro

metro

Library n°36

school

school

school

vs

school

school

school

Library n°127

217
353

w
sco
Mo

�ield

theatre 8’

362

college

cinema

li
ub

444

Izmaylovo Park

Library n°12

Izmaylovo Park

aya
insk

Library n°87, n°122 and n°124

Library n°30

school

school

158

school

kaya

File

489

Mo

471

007/025

metro

vs
okro
Academician Korolyov Street
o-P
tsk

Library n°161
Library n°47

252

Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya

Serebryano-Vinogradnyy pond

Arbatsko

Kalin

metro

metro

kaya
-Pokrovs

8-2

6

244/253

Dmitrovskiy park

159

S2

cinema

0’

museum

4

a
Arb

school

Library n°97

Mo

y1

Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya

ya

Mo
sco
wr
ive
r
en
gard
drov
skiy

Soko

lnich

eska

Aleks
an

ya

aya
Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevsk

32-4

sit

Library A. T. Twardowski

11-3

museum

ive
r

museum

261

kaya

sport center

-A

college

Library n°101
Library n°36

Moscow river

school

museum

metro
school

sport center

�ield

school

012/013

museum

479

035

Koltse
vaya

3-9

202

bli

u
Ly

Library n°98

un

r
va

a
ay
nsk

Library n°64

078

cinema

metro

Library n°121

metro

metro

ul'

�ield

theatre

0’

y1

sit

r
ive

un

er
riv

464

Library n°128

cinema

Library n°30

school

school


Udaltsouskiye pond

Library n°14

Library n°175

093

Library n°28

d

w
sco

metro

494/499

Berezovaya Roshcha park

school

051

school

Mo

metro

metro

447

kiy
ep

’

school

085

metro

es
ka
ya
metro

re
et

10
metro

Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya

ich

st

ver
w ri
sco

a
Filevskay

us

031

ko
ln

Mo

2’
ool

school

museum

metro

on

Library n°77, n°160 and n°184

school

Russian State Library
cinema

So

129/134/141/142

sch


so

a 3’

cinem


Nezhinskiy park
ko
va

021/089

museum

school

Library n°120
Library n°29

Ko
ny
on

school

alt

b
yy
dn

cinema

187/228

391

school

Ud

ru
op
ist


metro

024

Ch

school

un

Set

Library n°99
school

Library n°87

344

sch


theatre

060

11-34

rve
ese
rr

e
riv

059

ich
es
ka

college

a 10’

school

school

173/174

r

9

-3

14

Teplyy Stan reserve

metro

sk
ay
a

t

172

bul'var

ko
ln

408

426

re
e

171

Sreten
skiy

school

iry
az
ev

st

school

theatre

im

ov
a

Library n°248

nskaya

Lyubli

rp
uk
ho
vs

Ul
ya
n

Library Turgenev

Sirenevyy bul'var

Se

iy
a

339

’

a8

em

cin

metro

Ka
luz
hsk
o-R
izh
ska
ya

itr

metro

Library n°28

So

113

school

Dm

school

Library n°12

za
r

Library n°59

Ya
u

Library n°95

Veteranov park

140

081

131

Dzhamgarovskiy park
078
105

471

Izhorskiy park

082

220/222
208

Chermyanka river
Dmitrovskiy park

121

Yeniseyskaya street

Natural ecologies - parks, gardens rivers ponds and streams

118
116

Severnoye Tushino Park

Chicherina street
210
518
519

223

Geroyev Pan�ilovtsev street

Druzhby Park

213
206

Likhoborka river

Likhoborka ecologic park

520

Turistskaya street

102
103

514
430/505

Novogorskiy forestpark

517

Novoposelkovaya park

508
509

Penyaginskiy pond

Losinyy Ostrov forestpark

Rechnogo Vokzala Park

Yana Raynisa bul'var

515

Botanical Garden of Science’s Academy

Bolshoy Golovinskiy pond

098

Reservoir Khimki basin

Malyy Golovinskiy pond
Verkhniy Golovinskiy pond

Skhodnya river

Bolshoy Sadovyy pond

427

165

516

Penyaginskaya park

507

Moskva river

510

146
151

Ostankino Park
125

VDNKh
Ostankinskiy pond

Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo park

511

Nemanskiy park

217

Dubki Park

120

157

Kibalchicha street

214

Putyayevskieye pond

232

388

Khabarovsk street

Zvezdnyy bul'var

069/072
073

377

235

Golyanovskiy pond

Kazenyy pond

Gorenskiy forestpark

Putyayevskieye pond

Marshala Katukova street

233

443

Stroginskiy bul'var

170

231

Raketnyy bul'var

219

143

Novopodmoskovny lane

152
128


Dubovaya forest

Moskovskoy Forestpark

474

436

433

434

096

Shchukino park

Samad Vurgun pond

090

155/230

154

092

162

Sirenevyy bul'var

114

Shchukino district

Cherkizovskiy pond

Leningrad Avenue

124

091

Marshala Biryuzova street
Zhivopisnaya bay

Kosmonavta Kamanova square

076

127

113

130/468
Savelovskogo Vokzala square

378

174
173
171/172

159

158

064

070

021/089

442

Yamskogo street
093

435

452

M. S. University botanical garden

Miuss Square

016

Generala Karbysheva bul'var
002

020
065

Graden ring

Karetnyy park

028/033

Tishinskaya Square
Strastnoy bul'var

061/062

346/347/369

Rozhdestvenskiy bul'var
Sretenskiy bul'var

Lefortovskiy park

059/060

Reserve Krylatskiye Hills

475

Chistoprudnyy bul'var
053
012/013

Tverskoy bul'var

1905 park

Kvasnogvardeyskiye pond

365

184

246

018

447

Taynitskiy garden

Novyy Arbat street
Aleksandrovskiy garden

Stalevarov street

489
491

252

244/253
448

492

Krasnokursantskiy avenue

Terletskiy Forestpark

010

Krasnaya Presnya park

Fileviskiy park

1st May park

Izmaylovo Park

250

Pokrovskiy bul'var

048

035

255

036

030
031

058

Aviamotornaya street

Gogolevskiy bul'var
039

488

Perovskiy Park

057

147
150

051

Rogozhskoye pond

364

188

Pryamikova park

Voroshilovskiy park
416/490

Mazilovshiy pond

Romashkovskiy park

229
180
202


Novoslobodskaya street


Berzarina street

201
176

453

Yegerskiy pond

003

Festivalnyy Park

440 444

Rublevskiy park

Sokolniki Park

Izmaylovskiy bul'var

156/234

226

438

367

161
175

179

Pan�ilov street

Troitse-Lykovskaya �loodplan

256

Rogozhskiy Val street

368

149

Pobedy park
Kremenchugskaya street

Verkhnyaya Khokhlovka street

454

Bolshoy Novodevichiy pond

160/242

497

Komsomolskiy alley

389
370

334

033

Gorky park

349

Kuskovskiy Forestpark

245

Zhitnaya street

026

Setun river

182
191

Bolshoy Grafskiy pond

023

Dovzhenko pond

371
396

Setun river reserve

276

Serpukhovskaya square

197

Serpukhovskiy Val street

Nezhinskiy park

402

Moscow University botanical garden

494/499

238

336

Sadki pond
251

Ramenka river

259

196

Gagarinskiy park

Kuzminkiy forestpark

338

356/422

502

50th Anniversary of October park

Ramenka river

Dmitriya Ulyanova street

Krupskoy street
326/393
357

Leninskiy alley

Garibaldi street

198/263

354

Armavirskiy square
330

399

479

Bolshoy Ochakovkiy pond

409

504

275/279

Cheremushkinskiy pond

340

Udaltsouskiye pond
MKAD

284

391
353

500
498

501

Ochakovka river

Kuzminskiy forestpark

463

424
423

Samorodinka river

296

Korobkovo garden

Vorontsovskiy park

Sadovniki park
Troparevskiy forestpark

503

Borovika park

Pechatnikiy pond

Dyusseldors�kiy park

277
374

261

358

Chobotovskaya forest

264

Bratislavskiy park

Ruzskaya street
272

268

262

Donetskaya street

271

Borovskoye highway

199

Troparevskiy reserve

406/407

Kakhovskiye pond

362

Myachkovskiy bul'var

Novocherkasskiy bul'var

283

Chernomorskiy bul'var

361

Moscow's 850th anniversary park
281

Chertanovkiye pond

269

315

Chertanovka river
462

307

412

Klyuchevaya basin

Brateyevskiy park

375
419

305
304

Teplyy Stan reserve
403/418

291

Zhulebinskiy forestpark
328

339

Ochakovka river
Navershka river

333

Topolevaya park
Lyublinskiy park

426

Vernadskogo alley

332

60th years of October avenue

Ramenki pond
496

Yeseninskiy bul'var

Volzhskiy bul'var

282

kapotniskiy forest

The main lane of the Kirov Park, August 1937

106

Swimmers on the Moscow rivers, 1920s

107

Parks and forests
Kuzminkiy forestpark
Losinyy Ostrov forestpark

Topolevaya park
Lyublinskiy park

284
151

152

406/407

231

Kazenyy pond
Yauza river

375

Zhulebinskiy forestpark

332

333
328

Ulyanovskie forestpark

Butovskiy forestpark
330

481
421
311

Kuzminskiy forestpark

108

500m

109

500m

399

161
175

Rublevskiy park
367

296

Moscow river
Moscow river

159

158

Sadovniki park

Bolshoy Sadovyy pond

Bittseviskiy forestpark
403/418

Moskovskoy Forestpark

475

Terletskiy Forestpark
Izmaylovo Park

069/072
073

Ochakovka river

Raketnyy bul'var

092

Kibalchicha street
503

Putyayevskieye pond
233
154

226

Sokolniki Park

362

Yauza river

Yegerskiy pond
160/242

110

500m

334

Kuskovskiy Forestpark


111

500m

Reserve Krylatskiye Hills

Penyaginskaya park

416/490

346/347/369

Troitskiy forestpark
Pobedy park

Ochakovka river
482
510

503

365

113

Izhorskiy park
501

Fileviskiy park

Samorodinka river
362
021/089

Moscow river

Troparevskiy forestpark

492

093

105

358

364

Voroshilovskiy park

121

Shmelevkiy forest

50th Anniversary of October park

Gagarinskiy park

Dzhamgarovskiy park

338

MKAD
292
461
500

Korobkovo garden

208

Leninskiy forest

479

463

Chobotovskaya forest

Perovskiy Park

494/499

188

269

Novogorskiy forestpark

Veteranov park

Nezhinskiy park

Vorontsovskiy park
078
471

409

082

M. S. University botanical garden
452

424
423
508

Dmitrovskiy park

147
150

125

Dubki Park

Pryamikova park
500m

517

Novoposelkovaya park

113

500m

Streets and boulevards

Borovika park

Dyusseldors�kiy park
Strastnoy bul'var

261

061/062

Rozhdestvenskiy bul'var
Sretenskiy bul'var
059/060

262

Chistoprudnyy bul'var

Donetskaya street
264

Bratislavskiy park

053
012/013

Tverskoy bul'var

199

Myachkovskiy bul'var

Novocherkasskiy bul'var

283

Pokrovskiy bul'var

048

Moscow's 850th anniversary park

018

281

Gogolevskiy bul'var

Moscow river

462

Brateyevskiy park

114

Pan�ilov street

Altufeuskiy pond

Novoyasenevsky avenue

124
404/405

Marshala Biryuzova street

Lianozovskiy forestpark

167

438

Lianozovskiy park

132

Yasnogorskaya street

440 444

410

420
378

Berzarina street

166/168

Altufyevskoye highway

Yasenevskiye forestpark

129/134/141/142

081

Zhitnaya street

436

454

Navershka river
276

Shchukino park

Shchukino district

Gorky park

197

434

336

Sadki pond

MKAD

VDNKh

196


504

Kosmonavta Kamanova square

Leningrad Avenue

Dubovaya forest

Volzhskiy bul'var

114

091

474

217

500m

219

Zvezdnyy bul'var

115

500m

374

076

271

Moscow University botanical garden

127

Savelovskogo Vokzala square

Borovskoye highway

128
272

065

Graden ring

Karetnyy park

Novoslobodskaya street

268

064

070

Raketnyy bul'var

Yamskogo street

Vernadskogo alley

518
519

356/422

120

Ramenka river

Novopodmoskovny lane

Turistskaya street

Krupskoy street

Chicherina street

Miuss Square

210
206/213

002

514
430/505

Yana Raynisa bul'var
357

Leninskiy alley

340

238

Garibaldi street

Yeseninskiy bul'var
Nemanskiy park

Khvoynaya park

130/468

388

003

Festivalnyy Park

377

Marshala Katukova street

60th years of October avenue

443

Stroginskiy bul'var

433

244/253

Generala Karbysheva bul'var

245

252

Aviamotornaya street

442

435

Verkhnyaya Khokhlovka street

426

Dmitriya Ulyanova street
447

339

Taynitskiy garden

Aleksandrovskiy garden

396

Serpukhovskaya square

Serpukhovskiy Val street

322

402

30th anniversary of Victory park

028/033

Tishinskaya Square

162

030

Sirenevyy bul'var

1905 park

Kvasnogvardeyskiye pond

179

036
010


Krasnaya Presnya park

201
176

184
229
180

116

174
173
171/172

500m

Chernomorskiy bul'var

361

Novyy Arbat street

Stalevarov street

117

500m

10km
039

326/393
026

488

Komsomolskiy alley

023

491

Zhivopisnaya bay

391

251
402

031
035

TroitseLykovskaya �loodplan

051

489

Bolshoy Novodevichiy pond

275/279

Moscow River

259

1km

154

016
020

Youza river

118

Setun river
Dovzhenko pond

497

494/499

Setun river reserve

371

389

165

223

448

058

131

246

233

462

Brateyevskiy park

119

Verkhniy Golovinskiy pond

Bolshoy Golovinskiy pond

103

137
102
140

368

202

182
191

Likhoborka ecologic park

Chermyanka river


Likhoborka river

Bolshoy Grafskiy pond

353

Mazilovshiy pond

287
303

143

354

118
116

Cheremushkinskiy pond

324

Severnoye Tushino Park

520

515

Komeyevskiye pond

313

256
314

098

090

319

Rogozhskoye pond

Kirovogradskiye pond

507

096

Samad Vurgun pond
500m

511

Reservoir Khimki basin
297
291

Tsaritsynskiye pond

509

Borisovskiy pond

307

Skhodnya river

315

304
427

Gorodnya river

516

Chertanovka river

120

121

Putyayevskieye pond

Altu�ievskoe highway

131

Dmitrovskiy district

Bibirevo district

ghway

way
high
rov
Dmit

78

Severnoye Medvedkovo district

Ostas
hkov
skoe
hi

471

D

A
MK

Districts analyzed

080
075

Timiryazevskiy district
Ostankinskiy district

y
hwa
v hig
itro
Dm

ety
evo
s

tre
et

217

rem

Aeroport district

She

096

Len

ing

rad

090

Preobrazhenskoye district

ave
nu

e

156/234

Vostochnoye Izmaylovo district

hway
e hig


vsko
elko

171/172/173/174

Sch

Shchukino district
113

202

a
kay
ays

Khoroshevskiy district

vom
Per

021/089

et

en
m
nk
ba
m

Basmanny district

ay
ae

stre

t

s
ra

St

yb
no

061/062

Krasnoselskiy district

Sre

ten

skiy

059/060

187/228

var
Basmanny district

ru

op
ist

Zele

t

Val street

ree

Zemlyanoy

Mok

Garden Ring

244/253

252

y
hwa
v hig
asto

058

Perovo district

zi

Entu

085

t

en

m

024

nk

Balchug

ba

m

ae
ay

448

Lefortovo district
Tagansky district

e

sk

051

sh

t
Ku

274

Arbat district

u
Ra

ue

ven
vA
uzo

488

hov
aya
st

447
007/025

489

ar
l'v

035

Sh

u
aven
nyy

bu

031

ey

Ivanovskoye district

012/013

yy
dn

Presnenskiy district

all

ay
ighw
ov h
ziast

Entu

bul'

Ch

Tverskoy district

015

Se

r
'va
ul

m

en

Narod

na

t

skiy distric
ine

ov
sk

nogo

Kuu
s

Meshchan

Opolc

093

ky
ovs
mit

158

159

Izmaylovo district

t

heni
ya st

reet

444

eet
str

Dorogomilovo district

m

nk

ba

m

ye
ch

t

en

vi
de

ya
ka

497

Khamonviki district

s
ov

m

�il

os

M

o
ov 026

eN

Th

t

e
re

st

Troparevo-Nikulino district
397
494/499

Donskoy district

r aven

ue

Aminevskoe highway

464
339

po
l av
enu

y
le

al

Seb
asto

ky

ns

ni

Le

60 ye

Leninsky avenue
426

e

ars of

Octobe

Gagarinskiy district

Nagatinskiy district

Lomonosovskiy district
353

s
ya
ska

n

me

et
Lublin stre

lo
Ko

423/424

et

tre

Akademicheskiy district

457

261

Maryino district

Pr
ofs
oy
u

zn

ay
as

tre
et

Obruchevskiy district

362

D

KA

M
Passage number 5467


Kapotnya district
280
403/418

Microdistrict life in 1972

124

Winter jim class in the micro-district, 2007

125

1st RING

way
igh
252

Presnenskiy district

vh
sto

ia
tuz

En

244/253

e
km
an

497

Kuus
in

t

treet

Arbat district

Krasnoselskiy district

096

Le
lle
y

113

ky
a


an

km

397

en

t

3rd RING

t

mb

035

090

tr
ee

hy
e

026

494/499

en

Am

Khamonviki district

Tagansky district

ue

ns

evi
c

da
ven

iy
as

058

ovo
d

gra

ni

eN

y
alle

Le

Th

ky
ovs
mit

Sh

nin

oy Val s
treet

st
re
e

ena s

Arbat district

Zemlyan

ay
a
�il
m
os
M

024

051

ng

Garden Ring

059/060

Meshchanskiy district
004

en Ri

Gard

Sretenskiy bul'var

007/025

Mira avenue

093

ov
sk

Mok

021/089

nt

hova
ya s
tree
t

mb

Tverskoy district

031

Khoroshevskiy district

e
ya
ska

1929

012/013

ar
ul'v

yb

S

u sh

061/062

Lefortovo district

Ra

yb
no

st
tra

dny

Arbat district

039

pr u

r
'va
ul

sto
Ch i

447

Basmanny district

Op
ol
Na

ro
d

no

go

444
Shchukino district

ay
ighw

2nd RING

eh
sko
inev

ch

Donskoy district

489

rs
ye
a
126

60

Basmanny district

Dorogomilovo district

sto
ba
Se
353

464

la
ve
nu
e

er
tob
Oc
of
rs
ye
a

of

015

274

339

60

Se

488

Oc
tob

m

er

en
ov
sk

ave
nu
e

ay
ae

t
Ku

po

m

av
en

e

nu
Ave
ov
uz

ue

ba
nk
m

en
t

1972

127


av
en
ue

lle
y

Le
ni
ns
ky

ky
a
Le
ni
ns

423/424

426
Gagarinskiy district

Schelkovskoe highway

Lomonosovskiy district

156/234


158

Preobrazhenskoye district

479



Zelenyy avenue


171/172/173/174

Pro

261

fsoy

uzn


aya
st

085

159

et

403/418

n stre

Perovo district

ree
t


Ivanovskoye district

Lubli

Konkovo district
way
igh

ov h
iast

uz

Ent

Maryino district

408

187/228

Nagatinskiy district

y
Teply

391

aya
nsk

075

362

y
lle

a
ky

n
Le

Izmaylovo district

s
in

202

eet
str
Timiryazevskiy district

128

m
rvo
Pe


129

et

tre

s
ya
ka

ays

me

lo
Ko

Dmitrov highway

080

Stan

t

stree

Passage number 5467

Dmitrov highway

Dmitrovskiy district

78

280

471

Kapotnya district
Bibirevo district

Altu�ievskoe highway

141

130

131

dwellings

Evolution of neighbourhood services

dwellings

Dwelling and services

garages

garages

church

dwellings

hospital

kiosks

Volumes pro�ile

Freely accessible and gated areas

post of�ice
bar

school

museum

bank
pharmacy

library

PRESENT
SITUATION

bar
bank
post of�ice
shops

shops

kindergarten

post of�ice
loundry

school

museum

canteen
pharmacy

library

library

services:
bank
of�ices
shops
restaurant
pharmacy

kindergarten

132

PLANNED
SITUATION

100m

club
canteen
pharmacy

bar
library
shop
laundry
post of�ice

Ground �loors

133

50m

dwellings

Evolution of neighbourhood services
dwellings

dwellings

garages

garages

shop

Dwelling and services
dwellings
shop

dwellings
dwellings

dwellings

school

bar

school

Volumes pro�ile

Freely accessible and gated areas
supermarket

shops

supermarket

shops

library

bar
bank
post of�ice
of�ices

PRESENT
SITUATION

school

bank

restaurant

pharmacy

laundry

bank

post of�ice
bar

library

library
club
shop

shop

shop

canteen

134

laundry
canteen
library
club
post of�ice
garage works

PLANNED
SITUATION

shop

club

post of�ice
bar

100m

supermarket

Ground �loors

135

100m

Moscow's Libraries Atlas. 448 Rooms with a View.

Moscow's Libraries Atlas. 448 Rooms with a View.

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Ähnlich wie Moscow's Libraries Atlas. 448 Rooms with a View.

Ähnlich wie Moscow's Libraries Atlas. 448 Rooms with a View. (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Moscow's Libraries Atlas. 448 Rooms with a View.