>sotsgorod/ gorstroy project/ orsk/ design

Together with Mart Stam, Hans Schmidt made a strictly open plan where rows of identical housing blocks, all on the North-South axis, were repeated linearly. This plan was heavily critisised: they were reproached to have forgotten that a city was a place for people to live in.
plan

Stam left for Alma Ata and Schmidt adapted the design. He created a centre and turned the blocks on the edges of the quarters for 90 degrees, to form a traditional boulevard to stroll along. Schmidt designed in Moscow, and the former Bauhausler Philipp Tolziner, Konrad Puschel and Tibor Weiner worked at the site in Orsk. They filled in the details of the drawings and attended the construction.

The building site was very primitive. Camels drew carts piled up with stones. There were 12 bricklayers working with thousands of Kazakh nomads and prisoners. Windows were bricked up and balconies tumbled down. But still: in 1937 there were 450 apartments and two schools realised in Sotsgorod Orsk.

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