Stalians - the most popular architectural direction in the 30-60s of the twentieth century. Unlike other residential buildings of the Stalin era (barracks, twin single-story buildings, brick houses without any amenities), there is a full water supply, sewage, heating, several separate rooms. The Stalinist empire in the interior of modern houses, apartments is cozy, solemn, relevant to this day.
This style originated in the USSR in the mid 30s of the XX century. Initially, the empire is a pompous, majestic architectural trend that arose in France during the time of Napoleon the First.In the 30s of the twentieth century, such magnificent, monumental buildings began to be built in the Soviet Union, when the country began to be ruled by I.V. Stalin. In the 1950s, they began to criticize such architecture sharply, considering it unacceptable for Soviet people to be an excess, and after the death of Stalin, all started projects were greatly simplified, excluding decor to the maximum, sharply reducing the total area and ceiling height in some places. Most of the large apartments were given as communal apartments, in which several families lived at the same time, using a shared kitchen and a bathroom.
Characteristic features of the style
The standard apartment - "stalin" consists of three to five, less often two or six to seven separate rooms, a kitchen with an area of seven to fifteen square meters, a huge living room, a spacious entrance hall. One-room apartments were built extremely rarely, and in the three-room apartments, two rooms were sometimes adjacent. All rooms have ceilings with a height of more than three meters, vertically elongated windows overlooking one or two sides, in some places there are bay windows. Typically, such housing is located in the "historical" center of a large city - the view from the windows opens corresponding.
The apartment design of the times of Stalin combined the individual features of Baroque and Napoleonic Empire, neo-Gothic and art deco, classicism and modernity. The thick walls of houses of this era were made of red or white brick, other non-combustible materials, and the buildings themselves had at least two floors, an abundance of stucco molding, real columns. The doors here are also quite high, often double-leafed, the walls are decorated with profile cornices, and the wide “front” staircases are carpeted.
In another way, "Stalin" were called "full-length apartments" or "full-sized in houses of the 50s." Not only residential buildings, but also theaters, departmental buildings, metro stations, sports facilities, and universities were decorated luxuriously and on a large scale.City buildings were grouped into entire ensembles, then architects tried to use all the achievements of construction and fine art. Everywhere the principle acted - "the more the better", gigantomania and optimism.
Features of the color palette
The coloring of the interiors of the first half of the 20th century is very modest, almost devoid of bright colors. The furniture is chosen mainly dark, the walls are pastel shades, the carpets are red-brown, the doors between the rooms are white with multi-colored glazing.
The most suitable color combinations:
linen with mahogany;
agate gray with terracotta;
marsh with woody orange;
antique azure with beige red;
lavender with dark brass;
pale gold with chocolate brown;
bluish green with beaver;
protective blue with light chestnut;
mustard with iron gray;
emerald with brick;
brown-orange with khaki;
coral with creamy;
cream yellow with violet black;
dandelion with opal green;
ocher with silver pink.
Even the monochrome interior allows for bright color accents - curtains, pillows, carpets, paintings on the walls.
The floors are usually laid out with parquet, located "herringbone", but not common to the whole apartment, but for each room separately. The walls are decorated with stucco panels, half-columns, plaster brackets, caissons, corner details, textured niches, etc. On the ceiling there is without fail a stucco socket under the chandelier, the same intricate ceiling cornices, and other similar decorations.Doors are made of wood, plywood, have panels, handles painted with gold paint, platbands with three-dimensional thread. They match the color of the floor or are painted with white oil paint.
The floors in the bathroom and kitchen are laid out with ceramic tiles, less often with natural stone, mostly red-brown colors, and the walls with light tiles, richly decorated with floral ornaments, a narrow contrasting border is allowed.
Furniture selection
The furniture is selected luxurious, solid, massive, mainly made of natural wood (oak, walnut, rosewood) and metal. It is often varnished, decorated with volumetric carvings, mosaics. These are slides with carved “crowns”, convex-shaped sideboards, round or oval dining tables, leather chairs and sofas with high backs, heavy wooden chairs with chiseled legs, beds with balls or peaks in the corners. Wood carving here is welcomed both in the form of complex plot bas-reliefs and a simple "geometric". Overhead slotted elements made of valuable wood are acceptable. In addition to natural or artificial leather, various fabrics are used as upholstery material - plain or with floral ornaments.
Lighting
The main lighting fixture of this era is a luxurious crystal chandelier located in the middle of the ceiling. Later, such designs were made of plastic, which significantly affected the appearance and durability of the device. Separate zones were illuminated by floor lamps, often with textile shades decorated with floral patterns and fringes. Wall sconces, usually stylized as torches, were mounted on bronze curly brackets above the kitchen table and bed. The workplace was illuminated by a table lamp with a greenish lampshade, on a flexible base. In the nursery, in addition to the main light, there were small nightlights that were plugged in, with a stone or plastic decoration.In modern times, design is complemented by LED backlighting, which, with a competent approach, does not violate the main style at all.
The choice of textiles for window decoration
Window draperies are chosen dense, heavy, creating a solemn atmosphere. They have several layers, a large number of folds, fringe, brush. Blackout curtains are preferred in the bedroom, protecting the sleeping person from the morning sunlight, while in the kitchen shorter, lighter ones are preferred. Doorways are decorated with the same curtains as the windows, tied with golden cords-pickups. Fabrics are preferred natural, plain, calm colors or sharply contrasting with the color of the walls. It is desirable that the curtains are combined in color with bedspreads, carpets, and other indoor textiles.
If there are several windows on one wall, they are decorated with one common curtain that covers almost the entire wall completely.
Room Design Examples
The total area of the Stalinist two-room apartment is about 30 meters, the four-room apartment is about 60 meters, the seven-room apartment is up to 160 square meters. The more rooms there were, the more spacious each of them became.
What facilities were available:
kitchen;
one or more bedrooms;
cabinet;
living room;
bath or shower;
restroom;
hall;
pantry.
There were no dressing rooms in those days - clothes were stored in built-in wardrobes and pantries. For children's bedrooms, special furniture, with the exception of the crib, did not exist at all - for these purposes the smallest rooms were chosen, where they put a crib, a simple cabinet, a table with a chair, a drawer with toys, and hung a bookshelf.
Apartments of the Stalinist era are replete with high fitted wardrobes, in which most of the things are housed, because in the rooms a lot of space remains for books and decorative elements.
Living room
The area of the Stalinist living room is from 16 to 30 square meters.The ceilings, partly the walls are abundantly decorated with stucco, in the middle - a multi-tiered crystal chandelier. Along one of the walls is a cabinet-wall, in which there are always a lot of thick books with neat "roots", and in the glazed sections - beautiful ceramic dishes, a tea service for six to twelve people, many porcelain figurines.
The main decoration of the living room is a TV, it is placed on a stand with four legs-cones or a wall console decorated with stucco molding. In the center of one of the walls there are floor or pendant clocks with a battle, richly decorated with carvings, on several others there are paintings in the spirit of a crude “Soviet realism” decorated with heavy frames. Mandatory here is a sofa covered with luxurious drapery, complemented by a pair of armchairs, a carved dressing table. All elements of furniture are combined patterned carpet, which occupies most of the room. Also acceptable are murals depicting a mid-twentieth-century city landscape.
If possible, the principles of symmetry with respect to the compositional center of the room should be observed - a fireplace, TV, sofa, picture, etc.
Kitchen
The kitchen of the times of the Stalinist Empire has an area of 7 to 15 meters. The kitchen set as such is usually absent, there is only a not very roomy cupboard with utensils, table linen, a low round refrigerator. The worktop is made of natural stone or oak, under it are placed drawers, sections for silverware, various kitchen utensils. A few household appliances are placed on any horizontal surfaces. The dining area is decorated with a dining table covered with a fringed tablecloth, chairs are also draped with removable covers. In prominent places are crystal vases for fruits, potted leafy plants, heavy metal candelabra.
Bedroom
The average area of any of the bedrooms is about nine meters.A single or double bed is located in the center of one of the walls, the headboard is decorated with stucco moldings, next to it is one or two bedside tables or a carved dressing table with a view in the color of the curtains. Shelves above the bed are decorated with black and white photographs in wooden frames, small figurines of copper or bronze. It also houses a small glossy two-door wardrobe, which is then locked with a key, less often a wrought-iron chest, for storing linen, various “clothes”. Beige and brown striped or floral wallpaper will complement your chosen style. Be sure to lay the carpet on the floor, optionally complement it with a wall.
If the room seems cramped, in front of the window there is a large mirror, which, reflecting the light from the window, significantly expands the space.
Cabinet library
It was believed that everyone read in the USSR, because there were a lot of books in each family. A study with a desk was usually combined with a library, which was a rack of solid wood to the ceiling. Sometimes they hid the surfaces of all walls, and in order to get the right book from the top shelf, you had to use a stepladder or a special wooden stand with two or three steps, because the ceiling height was often about four meters.
In the modern version of books, there may be a little less, and the desk is replaced by a computer. On open shelves there are plaster or bronze figurines stylized for that era. On the wall hang a map of the Soviet Union, a red flag or a coat of arms.
Hallway
This room is designed no less luxuriously than all others. On the floor there is parquet-fir-tree or real marble, on the walls there are dark patterned wallpapers combined with wooden panels, on the ceiling there is stucco molding and a lamp-ball. Of furniture, carved trellis, a wooden wall or metal floor hanger, a small couch combined with a shelf for installing a home telephone are appropriate here. The carpet will also have to "in the subject."
Elements of the Stalinist decor, accessories
The decorative elements of the Stalinist empire are very peculiar - five-pointed stars, a sickle and a hammer, images of ears of wheat tied with a ribbon, laurel wreaths. These are voluminous plaster or carved panels depicting ordinary working people, with the ecstasy of working people for the benefit of a great country. On shelves, tables, other prominent places are bronze, wooden, porcelain figurines or sculptural groups of ideological orientation. There are also bas-reliefs with lions, as well as inlays with paintings of socially significant events.
Conclusion
Stalin's interior style is a unique phenomenon of the Soviet era, the echoes of which organically look in modern times, although monumental antique columns are replaced by foam imitation, lamp black-and-white TVs - by color liquid-crystal ones, and solid oak sideboards - by mirrored wardrobes from MDF. High-quality styling is possible in today's spacious new buildings with the help of real "historical" pieces of furniture, decor, textiles, preserved by collectors from those times or their suitable imitation, made by designers of the late XX - early XXI centuries.
Stalians - the most popular architectural direction in the 30-60s of the twentieth century. Unlike other residential buildings of the Stalin era (barracks, twin single-story buildings, brick houses without any amenities), there is a full water supply, sewage, heating, several separate rooms. The Stalinist empire in the interior of modern houses, apartments is cozy, solemn, relevant to this day.
Content
Style story
This style originated in the USSR in the mid 30s of the XX century. Initially, the empire is a pompous, majestic architectural trend that arose in France during the time of Napoleon the First.In the 30s of the twentieth century, such magnificent, monumental buildings began to be built in the Soviet Union, when the country began to be ruled by I.V. Stalin. In the 1950s, they began to criticize such architecture sharply, considering it unacceptable for Soviet people to be an excess, and after the death of Stalin, all started projects were greatly simplified, excluding decor to the maximum, sharply reducing the total area and ceiling height in some places. Most of the large apartments were given as communal apartments, in which several families lived at the same time, using a shared kitchen and a bathroom.
Characteristic features of the style
The standard apartment - "stalin" consists of three to five, less often two or six to seven separate rooms, a kitchen with an area of seven to fifteen square meters, a huge living room, a spacious entrance hall. One-room apartments were built extremely rarely, and in the three-room apartments, two rooms were sometimes adjacent. All rooms have ceilings with a height of more than three meters, vertically elongated windows overlooking one or two sides, in some places there are bay windows. Typically, such housing is located in the "historical" center of a large city - the view from the windows opens corresponding.
The apartment design of the times of Stalin combined the individual features of Baroque and Napoleonic Empire, neo-Gothic and art deco, classicism and modernity. The thick walls of houses of this era were made of red or white brick, other non-combustible materials, and the buildings themselves had at least two floors, an abundance of stucco molding, real columns. The doors here are also quite high, often double-leafed, the walls are decorated with profile cornices, and the wide “front” staircases are carpeted.
In another way, "Stalin" were called "full-length apartments" or "full-sized in houses of the 50s." Not only residential buildings, but also theaters, departmental buildings, metro stations, sports facilities, and universities were decorated luxuriously and on a large scale.City buildings were grouped into entire ensembles, then architects tried to use all the achievements of construction and fine art. Everywhere the principle acted - "the more the better", gigantomania and optimism.
Features of the color palette
The coloring of the interiors of the first half of the 20th century is very modest, almost devoid of bright colors. The furniture is chosen mainly dark, the walls are pastel shades, the carpets are red-brown, the doors between the rooms are white with multi-colored glazing.
The most suitable color combinations:
What materials to use when decorating rooms
Finishing materials are used exclusively natural:
The floors are usually laid out with parquet, located "herringbone", but not common to the whole apartment, but for each room separately. The walls are decorated with stucco panels, half-columns, plaster brackets, caissons, corner details, textured niches, etc. On the ceiling there is without fail a stucco socket under the chandelier, the same intricate ceiling cornices, and other similar decorations.Doors are made of wood, plywood, have panels, handles painted with gold paint, platbands with three-dimensional thread. They match the color of the floor or are painted with white oil paint.
The floors in the bathroom and kitchen are laid out with ceramic tiles, less often with natural stone, mostly red-brown colors, and the walls with light tiles, richly decorated with floral ornaments, a narrow contrasting border is allowed.
Furniture selection
The furniture is selected luxurious, solid, massive, mainly made of natural wood (oak, walnut, rosewood) and metal. It is often varnished, decorated with volumetric carvings, mosaics. These are slides with carved “crowns”, convex-shaped sideboards, round or oval dining tables, leather chairs and sofas with high backs, heavy wooden chairs with chiseled legs, beds with balls or peaks in the corners. Wood carving here is welcomed both in the form of complex plot bas-reliefs and a simple "geometric". Overhead slotted elements made of valuable wood are acceptable. In addition to natural or artificial leather, various fabrics are used as upholstery material - plain or with floral ornaments.
Lighting
The main lighting fixture of this era is a luxurious crystal chandelier located in the middle of the ceiling. Later, such designs were made of plastic, which significantly affected the appearance and durability of the device. Separate zones were illuminated by floor lamps, often with textile shades decorated with floral patterns and fringes. Wall sconces, usually stylized as torches, were mounted on bronze curly brackets above the kitchen table and bed. The workplace was illuminated by a table lamp with a greenish lampshade, on a flexible base. In the nursery, in addition to the main light, there were small nightlights that were plugged in, with a stone or plastic decoration.In modern times, design is complemented by LED backlighting, which, with a competent approach, does not violate the main style at all.
The choice of textiles for window decoration
Window draperies are chosen dense, heavy, creating a solemn atmosphere. They have several layers, a large number of folds, fringe, brush. Blackout curtains are preferred in the bedroom, protecting the sleeping person from the morning sunlight, while in the kitchen shorter, lighter ones are preferred. Doorways are decorated with the same curtains as the windows, tied with golden cords-pickups. Fabrics are preferred natural, plain, calm colors or sharply contrasting with the color of the walls. It is desirable that the curtains are combined in color with bedspreads, carpets, and other indoor textiles.
Room Design Examples
The total area of the Stalinist two-room apartment is about 30 meters, the four-room apartment is about 60 meters, the seven-room apartment is up to 160 square meters. The more rooms there were, the more spacious each of them became.
What facilities were available:
There were no dressing rooms in those days - clothes were stored in built-in wardrobes and pantries. For children's bedrooms, special furniture, with the exception of the crib, did not exist at all - for these purposes the smallest rooms were chosen, where they put a crib, a simple cabinet, a table with a chair, a drawer with toys, and hung a bookshelf.
Living room
The area of the Stalinist living room is from 16 to 30 square meters.The ceilings, partly the walls are abundantly decorated with stucco, in the middle - a multi-tiered crystal chandelier. Along one of the walls is a cabinet-wall, in which there are always a lot of thick books with neat "roots", and in the glazed sections - beautiful ceramic dishes, a tea service for six to twelve people, many porcelain figurines.
The main decoration of the living room is a TV, it is placed on a stand with four legs-cones or a wall console decorated with stucco molding. In the center of one of the walls there are floor or pendant clocks with a battle, richly decorated with carvings, on several others there are paintings in the spirit of a crude “Soviet realism” decorated with heavy frames. Mandatory here is a sofa covered with luxurious drapery, complemented by a pair of armchairs, a carved dressing table. All elements of furniture are combined patterned carpet, which occupies most of the room. Also acceptable are murals depicting a mid-twentieth-century city landscape.
Kitchen
The kitchen of the times of the Stalinist Empire has an area of 7 to 15 meters. The kitchen set as such is usually absent, there is only a not very roomy cupboard with utensils, table linen, a low round refrigerator. The worktop is made of natural stone or oak, under it are placed drawers, sections for silverware, various kitchen utensils. A few household appliances are placed on any horizontal surfaces. The dining area is decorated with a dining table covered with a fringed tablecloth, chairs are also draped with removable covers. In prominent places are crystal vases for fruits, potted leafy plants, heavy metal candelabra.
Bedroom
The average area of any of the bedrooms is about nine meters.A single or double bed is located in the center of one of the walls, the headboard is decorated with stucco moldings, next to it is one or two bedside tables or a carved dressing table with a view in the color of the curtains. Shelves above the bed are decorated with black and white photographs in wooden frames, small figurines of copper or bronze. It also houses a small glossy two-door wardrobe, which is then locked with a key, less often a wrought-iron chest, for storing linen, various “clothes”. Beige and brown striped or floral wallpaper will complement your chosen style. Be sure to lay the carpet on the floor, optionally complement it with a wall.
Cabinet library
It was believed that everyone read in the USSR, because there were a lot of books in each family. A study with a desk was usually combined with a library, which was a rack of solid wood to the ceiling. Sometimes they hid the surfaces of all walls, and in order to get the right book from the top shelf, you had to use a stepladder or a special wooden stand with two or three steps, because the ceiling height was often about four meters.
In the modern version of books, there may be a little less, and the desk is replaced by a computer. On open shelves there are plaster or bronze figurines stylized for that era. On the wall hang a map of the Soviet Union, a red flag or a coat of arms.
Hallway
This room is designed no less luxuriously than all others. On the floor there is parquet-fir-tree or real marble, on the walls there are dark patterned wallpapers combined with wooden panels, on the ceiling there is stucco molding and a lamp-ball. Of furniture, carved trellis, a wooden wall or metal floor hanger, a small couch combined with a shelf for installing a home telephone are appropriate here. The carpet will also have to "in the subject."
Elements of the Stalinist decor, accessories
The decorative elements of the Stalinist empire are very peculiar - five-pointed stars, a sickle and a hammer, images of ears of wheat tied with a ribbon, laurel wreaths. These are voluminous plaster or carved panels depicting ordinary working people, with the ecstasy of working people for the benefit of a great country. On shelves, tables, other prominent places are bronze, wooden, porcelain figurines or sculptural groups of ideological orientation. There are also bas-reliefs with lions, as well as inlays with paintings of socially significant events.
Conclusion
Stalin's interior style is a unique phenomenon of the Soviet era, the echoes of which organically look in modern times, although monumental antique columns are replaced by foam imitation, lamp black-and-white TVs - by color liquid-crystal ones, and solid oak sideboards - by mirrored wardrobes from MDF. High-quality styling is possible in today's spacious new buildings with the help of real "historical" pieces of furniture, decor, textiles, preserved by collectors from those times or their suitable imitation, made by designers of the late XX - early XXI centuries.