The Home: Late Late Showpiece

To Russians long resigned to the cramped quarters of Soviet collective living, the thing was a dazzling mirage. There, on a fenced-in lot in Leningrad’s Viborg district, was a new model home designed for four and packed with capitalistic features.

Made entirely of plastics from outer walls to the furniture and draperies inside, the house can be assembled (if it ever reaches the mass-production stage) in a day and a half to form a big box with glassed-in ends. Perched on a concrete pedestal 6 ft. off the ground, the whole thing resembles nothing so much as a huge television set. The glass in the picture windows is specially treated to let in ultraviolet rays so that on sunny days the occupants can indulge in the Russian penchant for midwinter sunbathing. Looking in on such a scene, passers-by might well wonder what channel that show was coming in on.

Designed by three young Lenproiekt workshop architects, the giant-screen bungalow boasts such innovations (for Russia) as built-in clothes closets, dressers and cupboards, plastic plumbing and—fantastic/mo!—central air conditioning.

But Russians long ago learned that there is a big difference between what they see displayed in show windows and what they can actually buy. Nikita Khrushchev had promised every Russian citizen an average 97 sq. ft. of living space by 1970 (v. the present 75 sq. ft.*), and the new house’s 430 sq. ft. for four people would more than fill the bill. But would the Soviet authorities divert enough materials and labor to produce the new house in quantity? Even as they queued up in the snow to inspect it last week, Russians were aware that except for a few top bureaucrats, the mirage would probably remain more dream than house.

* U.S. average: 300 sq. ft.