Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark/Casa Presei Libere – Bucharest

Posted on 06/10/2024 by Michael

Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark

Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark/Casa Presei Libere – Bucharest

The House of the Free Press (Romanian: Casa Presei Libere), known during the Socialist period as Casa Scînteii, ‘House of The Spark’, is a building in northern Bucharest, Romania, the tallest in the city between 1956 and 2007.

Construction began in 1952 and was completed in 1956. The building was named Combinatul Poligrafic Casa Scînteii ‘I.V.Stalin’ and later Casa Scînteii (Scînteia was the name of the Romanian Communist Party’s official newspaper). It was designed by the architect Horia Maicu, in the Socialist Realist style made popular in Moscow in the early 1950s, resembling the main building of the Moscow State University, and was intended to house all of Bucharest’s printing presses, the newsrooms and their staff.

It has a foundation with an area of 280 by 260 metres (920 ft × 850 ft), the total constructed surface is 32,000 m2 (344,445 sq ft) and it has a volume of 735,000 m3 (26,000,000 cu ft). Its height is 91.6 m (301 ft) without the television antenna, which measures an additional 12.4 m (41 ft), bringing the total height to 104 m (341 ft).

Between 1952 and 1966, Casa Scînteii was featured on the reverse of the 100 lei banknote.

100 lei banknote, 1952, reverse

On 21 April 1960, a statue of Vladimir Lenin, made by Romanian sculptor Boris Caragea, was placed in front of the building. However, this statue was removed on 3 March 1990, following the Romanian counter-revolution of 1989.

Casa Scînteii – FOTOFORTEPAN MHSZ

On 30 May 2016, the Monument to Capitalism, ‘Wings’, was inaugurated in the same place.

Renamed Casa Presei Libere (‘House of the Free Press’), the building has basically the same role nowadays, with many of today’s newspapers having their headquarters in it.

As of 2023, the House of the Free Press is the only building in Bucharest that has kept the hammer and sickle communist symbol, together with the Star, which appears on repeated reliefs on its façade.

Text above from (a revised) Wikipedia posting.

Architect;

Horia Maicu

Engineer;

Panaite C. Mazilu

Location;

Piata Casa Presei Libere

GPS;

44.480907°N

26.071261°E

Construction started;

1952

Completed;

1957

Height;

104m (341ft)

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Krasnye Vorota – Transport Ministry Building – Moscow

Posted on 04/07/2024 by Michael

Krasnye Vorota Transport Ministry Building – 04

More on the USSR

Krasnye Vorota – Transport Ministry Building – Moscow

Also known as the Red Gate Building and one of the ‘Seven Sisters’ skyscraper.

Krasnye Vorota Transport Ministry Building – 05

The 138-metre building consists of a central 24-storey building and two side buildings with a variable number of storeys ranging from 11 to 15. The exterior walls of the skyscraper are clad in natural limestone, while the ground floors are clad in red granite. The interiors of the building are more modest than in other post-war skyscrapers. For example, stainless steel was used in the front lobby and there are no expensive materials or picturesque panels.

Krasnye Vorota Transport Ministry Building – 02

The central building on the courtyard side had an assembly hall (on the ground floor) and an exhibition hall (in the basement). A tunnel was created along the perimeter of the basement with an entrance from the side of Komsomolskaya Square. It was intended for trucks serving the services of the building. The building was originally built for the needs of the Ministry of Railways. However, by 1951, when the works were completed, a new union agency, Mintransstroi, existed and it got the offices in the central block of the skyscraper.

Krasnye Vorota Transport Ministry Building – 06

All flats had refrigerators, built-in-furniture and sinks with a crusher to destroy large waste in the kitchens. The kitchens also had access to a rubbish chute. In addition to the traditional ventilation system, the house had central air conditioning. For this purpose, outdoor air was filtered and passed through a humidification system before reaching a temperature of +15°C. Then, depending on the season, the air was heated to the right temperature. All high-rise buildings were equipped with a centralised dust extraction system, which consisted of a system of brushes and hoses located in each flat, a system of pipes running along with the building and dust extraction stations installed in the basement. The collected dust was filtered and discharged into the sewage system, and the purified air from the system was discharged into the street. Boilers were installed in the basement to provide heating for the skyscraper.

Krasnye Vorota Transport Ministry Building – 01

The skyscraper was laid down in 1947 and completed in 1953. The construction of the tower was complicated by its location near the Moscow Metro tunnels and the Krasnye Vorota station. Dushkin built a second entrance to the station into the ground floor of the tower, which opened on 31 July 1954.

Krasnye Vorota Transport Ministry Building – 03

After being the headquarter of the Ministry of Construction of Heavy Industry the administrative part of the skyscraper also hosted the Ministry of Transport Construction. The building is also known as Lermontov Tower from Mikhail Lermontov, who was born on its place, and the Lermontovskaya Square, the name assigned to the Red Gate square between 1962 and 1986.

Text from Wikipedia.

Architect;

Alexey Dushkin

Location;

Sadovaya-Spasskaya Ulitsa, 21/1

How to get there;

One of the entrances of the Krasnye Vorota Metro station is built into the ground floor of the building, on the east side. It’s on Line 1, the red one.

GPS;

55°46′10″N

37°38′45″E

Completed;

1953

Height;

133 m (436 ft)

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Moscow State University

Posted on 25/05/2024 by Michael

Moscow State University – Dmitry A Motti

More on the USSR

Moscow State University

The main building of Moscow State University (Russian: Гла́вное зда́ние МГУ) a 239-metre (784 ft), 36-level (in its central part) skyscraper in Moscow, Russia. Its roof (182 metres (597 ft)) is topped by a 58-metre spire which ends with a 12-ton five-pointed star. Lateral towers are lower than the central one; two 18 and 9 storey dormitory wings define, with the central corpus of the complex, a cour d’honneur courtyard. Designed by Lev Rudnev as the headquarters of Moscow State University, it is the tallest of seven Moscow skyscrapers in the architectural style constructed between 1947 and 1953.

Moscow State University – 1959

Among the statues which decorate the building is a sculpture by Vera Muchina representing a couple of students [which sit either side of the main entrance facing the city of Moscow]. The University premises cover around 1.6 square kilometres.

Moscow State University – 03

The Main Building of Moscow State University is not open to the general public.

The leading architect Boris Iofan bid for the skyscraper project in 1947 but the job was assigned to Lev Rudnev, because Iofan made the mistake of placing his draft skyscraper right on the edge of Sparrow Hills, a site which raised concerns over a potential landslide hazard. Rudnev had already built important edifices like the M. V. Frunze Military Academy (1932–1937) and the Marshals’ Apartments (Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya, 28, 1947), earning the esteem of the Communist Party. He set the building 800 meters away from the cliff. The chief of the engineers’ team was Vsevolod Nikolaevich Nasonov.

Moscow State University – 04

The main tower, which used over 40,000 tons of steel for its framework and 130,000 cubic metres of concrete, was inaugurated on September 1, 1953. At 240 metres tall, it was the 7th tallest building of the world as well as the tallest in Europe. Its European height record held until 1990 when it was surpassed by the Messeturm in Frankfurt, Germany. It was also, and still remains, the tallest educational building in the world.

Moscow University is probably the best known of Rudnev’s buildings, for which he was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1949. The University skyline inspired various buildings in the socialist countries, like the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, and also the logo of 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

Text above from Wikipedia.

Moscow State University – 01

This is a vast structure. From pictures you can get an idea that we are talking about a large building but it’s only when you’re up close and actually walk around the whole of the building you realise what a truly monumental building it is.

The entrance for students and others who have business in the building is actually the ‘back door’ the main entrance being further from any transport links and seems to have been neglected in recent years.

Moscow State University – 02

The actual main entrance is that which faces the river and the city of Moscow. This is presently (May 2024) undergoing a major renovation after years of neglect. This would appear to be in readiness for the 250th anniversary of the foundation of Moscow University. It doesn’t look like the renovation will not alter the original design and it is hoped that the statues and monuments that adorn the entrance will be retained and restored to their former glory.

Moscow State University – 05

This vast building has restricted access to those not connected to the University so the nature of the internal decoration is unknown.

Architect;

Lev Rudnev

Structural Engineer:

Vsevolod Nikolaevich Nasonov

Location;

1 Leninskie Gory

How to get there;

The nearest Metro station, about a 10-15 minute walk from the main University building, is Universitet, south west of the city centre on Line 1, the red one.