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[UTOPIAN COMMUNAL HOUSING] Zhilishche i byt: Zhilishchnyi vopros v rekonstruktivnyi period [i.e. Dwelling and Everyday Life: Dwelling Issue in Reconstructive Period]

Larin, Iu.

Moscow: Vlast’ sovetov, 1931. Item #1143

127 pp. 21x15 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Spine chipped, with tear, contemporary signature on the front cover, otherwise very good.

Design includes a photograph of a constructivist student dormitory built in Moscow in 1931 on the front cover and a photomontage of communal activities on its rear side.
An interesting work on how to improve everyday life of people uniting them into utopian “daily routine” collectives. It was written by revolutionary and economist Iurii Larin (pseudonym of Mikhail Lurie; 1882-1932) who actively promoted continuous working week (nepreryvka) and transformation of everyday life. The Soviet experiment of the uninterrupted working process started in 1929 and meant three shifts per 24 hours. For higher efficiency, workers might cooperate with others and share the hardest parts of their daily routine. Proceeding ideas of kitchen-factory, nurseries and laundries, these collectives were created for simplifying life.
It slightly differed from house-communes with enterprises and many common facilities. The concept of daily routine collective included three components - doing laundry, baby care and cooking - that were implemented by a collective together without outside organizations. Such communal housing united fifty or more individuals, married or single. They gave all ration cards to a chosen person who bought food and cooked common meals. A laundry room and a nursery were organized in the same building and were also managed by a collective member or a hired employee. According to Larin, about 100 daily routine collectives existed in Moscow at that time while house planning wasn’t comfortable for this type of communal housing. It required the redesign of contemporary houses and the construction of new ones.
The last chapter is dedicated to involving women in production: advantages, methods and curious calculations of state expenses (per one woman) where the author compares daily routine collectives and costly kitchen-factories.

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