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THE BUILDING OF THE CITY DUMA IN NIZHNY NOVGOROD, ARCHITECT V. P. ZEIDLER,964
1899-1904.
BUSINESS CENTERS OF THE XX CENTURY
THE HOUSE OF SOVIETS IN NIZHNY NOVGOROD, ARCHITECT A. Z. GRINBERG,965
1929-1931.
At the turn of the XIX—XX centuries, a relatively new type of activity begins to form-business, which gradually becomes a truly mass profession. As a systematically organized process, business is constantly evolving, its terms and conditions are changing. In accordance with this, the building intended for the implementation of business relations, should also change. Therefore, it should initially have a set of potential components for transformation into new directions of the business process. During this period, office buildings appear and begin to actively form. Their emergence is associated with the development of capitalism and office work as an independent function that is important and occupies a certain place in social production. Built at the end of the XIX century, the buildings of offices, joint-stock companies, industrial enterprises, trade institutions are characterized by the most rational layout and appearance. This period is marked by the beginning of the formation of large corporations. This determined the prevailing type of business center building: a high-rise building, a skyscraper, a tower that reflects the character of thinking in its symbolic image.
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Having appeared in the United States, high-rise buildings have become symbols of self-achieved, rather than "inherited" commercial success. Since the 1890s, a rapidly advancing America has found a new romance of machines and technology. Skyscrapers became a product of this era, accommodating the function of an office. In the 1930s, the character of the building plan changed: from a compact tower, a transition was planned to an elongated vertical plate in the plan, which provided better natural light. In addition, in the 1930s, advances in building materials and technology, artificial lighting, and mechanical ventilation made it possible to make buildings wider and higher. During the interwar period, the construction of commercial buildings, hotels, and apartment buildings was still actively developing. The absolute height of business buildings was rapidly increasing. High-rise buildings have also appeared in Europe. Together with the compositional features of building the volume of the office building in Europe from the United States came a certain planning approach: the principle of a free plan, the office landscape-more of a hall space, divided by low partitions.
In the mid-twentieth century, in the West, buildings are no longer considered as complete structures with a rigid program and connections, but as mobile structures that can be easily adapted to a variety of conditions and functions. The idea of a multifunctional building moved away from the limiting concept of a mega structure, as the fabric of the city was once again taken as a basis and considered as a link in the urban context. In the cities of Europe, separate areas of business activity are formed — administrative and business zones, cities. There is transition to the concept of a multifunctional use of buildings and structures. But not only commercial construction projects were the foundation for the formation of a business center. In the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet houses were designed and built in the USSR, which are functionally similar to the buildings of business centers, since they include the business function as a management function. The task programs for the design of the houses of Soviets contained a diverse set of functional elements: administrative management, mass political and educational work, entertainment and recreation of the population.
