Moscow's mammoths

Moscow is booming. A building fever has taken hold of the city. After two decades of stagnation, building production is now at full force. During the late 1990s, the political and economic situation allowed for huge investments in real estate. Since then, the sky has been the limit. The reasons for this growth are manifold. First of all, the collapse of the socialist doctrine clearly had its effect on housing. Secondly, the square metres per capita have increased. Under communist rule several families occupied one apartment, the so-called kommunalka. The (political) elite slowly started to gain privileges including 'elite' housing. This can be seen clearly within the central garden ring where the population decreased from one million in 1940 to 250,000 in the 1990s. The trend was further strengthened by the up-and-coming market economy claiming space for retail and offices.

Still, seen from another point of view, this growth is remarkable: Russia has the world's highest decline in population – about 700,000 each year – and in Moscow itself deaths outnumber births. It appears that the main driving force of Moscow's growth is migration. Many Russians, including from former Soviet republics, are choosing to leave rural areas and head for the big city in search of a better life and living conditions.

In the 1980s, 90% of the Moscow real estate was state owned and all housing projects were centrally planned and developed. Each leadership period produced a distinctive style of architecture, which came to be named after the leader concerned. Staliniski, for example, is the term used to refer to the neo-classical, monumental city palaces of the Stalin era. These buildings were well constructed but this proved to be a drawback, for mass housing and production levels under Stalin were far too low. Prefabrication was introduced in the 1930s but it was not until the Khrushchev period (1953-1964) that it was applied on a large scale. Starting in the 1950s, housing production was geared to quantity, from the earliest prefab systems under Khrushchev, which resulted in monotonous five-storey blocks, to the vast estates of 24-storey beehives under Brezhnev (1964-1982). The use of decoration, so symbolic under Stalin, was abandoned. Throughout this period the basic unit didn't really change and people had no choice but to live in these two- or three-room, poorly outfitted apartments.

In the new century some, although not all, things are changing. The state is no longer the dominant player in property development and, as a result, central planning seems to have disappeared. The market is being controlled by a small group of investors, such as Capital Group, Krost and Donstroy. The massive shortage of new housing puts these developers in a very powerful position. In most cases apartments are sold before a single drawing has been made. Dwellings sometimes turn out to be smaller than people paid for, but a loss of 10 to 15% is generally accepted. Architects in particular find it very strange that people should be prepared to buy an apartment without knowing what it looks like, without any plans. And this brings us to another issue: Russia's underdeveloped banking system. This is one of the reasons why people prefer to invest their money in bricks and mortar. Real estate close to the city centre is seen as the soundest investment. Given that new 'clients' don't have high demands in quality after 70 years of communism, it is no surprise that developers don't really bother to improve standards, let alone care about architecture. For them, the most important factors are speed and quantity. Even though several realized projects have demonstrated the monetary value of quality and style, it is still a low priority with property developers.

The consequences for the architectural profession are self-evident. Architects are faced with increasingly impossible deadlines. One firm asserts that they wouldn't mind losing half their assignments if this meant they could spend double the time on the rest. The developers set the rules and all the firms featured here work for the same developers. The choice is a stark one: either you work for them or you don't work.

Few firms are managing to keep their head above water. They are engaged in a continuous battle and they need to be extremely creative, not only with respect to the design, but maybe even more in their endeavour to lure developers down the road to quality.