What do we get wrong about the soviet-era mass housing?

In their efforts to counter the sovietisation of the yet unstable Armenian Republic, the West (predominantly represented by the United States) rendered millions of dollars in aid ("surplus grain and other supplies valued at $11 million"), which, however, would not be sufficient to invest in building substantial urban infrastructure. By 1920, any prospects for spatial development (to retain the plummeting population) would be hindered by the advancing Ankara Government's army, coupled with territorial disputes with Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the recent Bolshevik revolt.

Upon its incorporation into the Soviet Union, Armenia was a state of only 720,000, socio-economically regressed to its agrarian state. Several cities (Yerevan, Alexandrapol, Vagharshapat, Goris) had inherited partial urban infrastructure developed during the short-lived capitalist era led by Tsarist Russia, from the 1830s on. Such interventions were particularly apparent in the geographically crucial cities (Alexandrapol and Goris) where a comprehensive, regular urban fabric boasted small tenement- and private houses, belonging to the urban population from different walks of life. Dozens of these structures stand to this day and make up a hefty portion of listed architectural heritage.

Overall, urban housing predominantly consisted of 1-2 floor detached structures constructed of clay and bricks. Architecturally elaborate houses belonged to the prominent economic and political figures (often represented by the same family clans, such as the Afrikyan family) – the "bourgeois" class of merchants and industrialists repatriated from Tbilisi and Baku during the 19^th century. For most of the population, subsistence agriculture was a key source of livelihood, with housing needs being met through an incremental approach, wherein families expanded their residences according to personal changing needs and availability of resources.

Similarly, across all Soviet states, housing was still in short supply, with many multigenerational families cramped in subpar living conditions. In their search for new housing models, Soviet architects (organized into research groups) looked towards Modernism, with its innovative and technology-heavy solutions. Two clashing schools of thought of urbanists and desurbanists emerged from this pursuit – both of whom concurred on communal living being at the core of the future social structure.

Multiapartment blocks were seen as the typology that would strike a balance between economically viable production and meeting the various needs of multiple urban families. Several experimental projects based on these principles were constructed throughout the 1920s, mostly in Moscow and its vicinity.

The smaller dwelling units were achieved by reducing or altogether eliminating spaces for cooking and laundry (previously contributing to increased humidity and mold). By extracting these activities and grouping them into "third places", not only would fellow citizens be encouraged to engage with one another, but women would be liberated from tedious household obligations, thus becoming equal participants in the workforce. This was a markedly progressive idea in the interwar period.

A generation of early Armenian modernists (most notably: K. Halabyan, M. Mazmanyan, G. Kochar) – many of whom trained at VKhUTEMAS – received a window of opportunity to have their own say within this worldwide movement.

To accelerate the urbanisation of Armenian cities, the Soviet leadership initiated the repatriation of families from the diaspora, predominantly Europe (with a subsequent wave in 1947-1948 from the Near East). Despite considerable progress, territorially and developmentally, the country was not yet prepared to fully absorb the arriving urbanites – including in Yerevan.

Many households (repatriates among them) in solving their housing needs, were left to their own devices, turning to the sites-and-services scheme. This, too, was an incremental approach: a household was given a plot of land, with basic infrastructure, to build on.

In many ways, this era of Soviet industrialization resembled the initial stages of the European industrial revolution, with minimal consideration for urban quality of life.

The concept of prefabricated mass housing was developing in full swing across post-war European cities. Even before replacing Stalin as party leader, Khrushchev was exploring the possibilities offered by prefabrication methods. Several delegations of Soviet architects and engineers made trips to Western countries experimenting with the technology (even as far as the U.S.). In France (city of Le Havre), the group drew inspiration from new urban districts with prefabricated panel houses; in Finland – sparsely built-up bedroom communities immersed in greenery. In 1959, French technology was officially imported through a license purchase. The layout was further simplified, requiring more compact, standardized furniture, which became another branch of Soviet design.

Armenia, in this period, went through its most transforming stage of industrialized urbanisation. In 1960, the first resettlement schedule, encompassing the whole of the country, activated the development of new urban centres (Abovyan, Hrazdan, Metsamor, Ijevan, Kirovakan, Jermuk, and many more). Advancements in housing assembly methods, coupled with the far-reaching tradition of building in stone (and its vast availability), spearheaded the process. Frame-and-panel structures were introduced later, in the early 1970s, mostly through the high-rise variety (nine-storey and taller). To further ramp up the supply and meet the plans, housing provision strategies permitted construction through cooperative membership and private (or loaned) financial resources.

By 1986, it became obvious that the optimistic projections of "one apartment to every family" would have to be postponed by 20 years, with the year 2000 becoming the new target. Nevertheless, universally, the Soviet system of housing provision remains unmatched to this day.

In 1985, Armenian house-building plants were churning 3,300 square meters of housing a day (an equivalent of over 100 apartments). By 1983, the average urban dweller enjoyed 12 square meters of residential floor area. The significance of these indicators was not lost on the Soviet researchers, who compared them against the performance of the policies in capitalist countries – producing unaffordable markets with mass evictions, poverty, and homelessness.

Widespread urban-rural exodus and out-migration skewed the per capita housing area in cities: in 1990 this number stood at 12,9 square meters, while in 2000 it grew to 16,0 square meters. Investments in electricity and other sectors, and the introduction of mortgage loans in the early 2000s, reversed the direction of migration. By 2021, the same indicator reached a whopping 29,5 square meters per urban capita (with Yerevan being the lowest) – putting Armenia on par with other Eastern European and Baltic states. The increase, however, was not due to the rate of housing supply (75% of urban housing was, after all, built between 1950 and 1990), but rather, decreased urban population and proliferation of construction of large single-family houses were the culprit.

The transition to a market-based housing supply created dwelling unaffordability, in line with other developing and developed countries. Now, it is hard to imagine a time spanning half a century, where housing was provided virtually for free, with rent at just 3% of income. The housing unaffordability crisis in developed cities (London, Stockholm, Barcelona, Berlin, Shanghai), today, draws urbanites to unite their efforts and resources around co-living initiatives – a typology that Soviet Constructivists saw as the model of the future.

The communal models of the 1920s, and the mid-century standardisation, were both a response to the desire for decent standards of living for all. In the oversimplified narrative of these projects manifesting Khrushchev's personal dislike for ornament, the more complex nuances are left unexplored. His denouncement of wastefulness and ornamentation in architecture within the same speech as Stalin's crimes is (although not directly) reminiscent of Loos equating architectural ornaments to crime in 1908. In his famous manifesto, Loos framed ornament as criminal wastefulness – as in being an unnecessarily laborious effort inflicted upon the workers and increasing production times.

Remarkably, the brutally imposed neoclassical architecture became the aesthetic that is now favoured and seen as inherently Armenian. Whereas the modernist mass housing was almost immediately denounced as "faceless", run-of-the-mill architecture – which invariably goes hand in hand with the connotation of lower social standing. In the years ensuing 1991, little to no attempts have been made to objectively evaluate the true worth of our prevailing stock of standardised housing. The low quality of these structures was a known drawback early on, just as the architects of the late Soviet period were already conscious of the faults of how these were being used in building up new districts and as infills within existing urban fabric. These are crucial issues but are not ones that should refuse the primary goals and long-lasting outcomes of Soviet-era housing.

Scrutinising mass housing through today's standards of construction and the demands of the new middle class denies its significance as a necessary transitional stage between the pre-Soviet agrarian society and modern-day Armenia and its citizenry.