Melnikov House / Konstantin Melnikov | Classics On Architecture Lab

Architects: Konstantin Melnikov
Area: 200 m² (2,153 ft²)
Year: 1929
Photography: Konstantin Melnikov, World Monuments Watch, Iwan Baan, Cemal Emden, Denis Esakov, Stefanos Christodoulides, Will Webster, Anya Kim, Ksenia Smirnova, Igor Palmin, Ksenia Smirnova, Natasha Buzina, Roberto Conte, Doctor Casino, Ksenia Smirnova, Wikimedia Commons, shakko, Paulkuz, Stas Lobov, WikiArquitectura, architecture-history.org
Status: Museum / Cultural heritage site
Client: Konstantin Melnikov
City: Moscow
Country: Russia

Melnikov House, a private residence and studio designed by Konstantin Melnikov in Moscow, Russia, combined two intersecting cylindrical volumes, experimental brick construction, column-free interiors, and a layered domestic program and was completed in 1929. The 200 m² house stands on Krivoarbatsky Lane in the Arbat district and was conceived by Melnikov for himself and his family during a period of architectural experimentation in the Soviet Union. Two cylinders of equal diameter but different heights overlap to form a figure-eight plan, while their exterior treatments establish contrasting identities. The street-facing cylinder is cut by a large vertical glazed plane and contains the principal entrance, living spaces, and roof terrace. The rear cylinder is perforated by a grid of hexagonal openings that illuminate the bedroom and double-height studio. Load-bearing brick walls eliminate the need for internal columns, while timber inter-storey shells span the interiors through crossing planks arranged as a self-reinforcing grid. The house combines domestic rooms, communal sleeping, workspaces, storage, and Melnikov’s studio within a compact vertical sequence. Hexagonal windows, internal voids, changing ceiling heights, stairs, and filtered daylight shape the interior experience. The house remained closely associated with the Melnikov family after the architect’s death and later became the principal exhibit of the Melnikov Museum, established as a branch of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture.

Melnikov house / konstantin melnikov | classics on architecture lab

Melnikov developed the house after years of studying different models for combining domestic and working environments. Early schemes included square, pyramidal, oval, and circular plans before the design evolved into two intersecting cylinders. The final composition drew in part from his unrealized proposal for the Zuev Workers’ Club, where cylindrical forms had already become central to his spatial experiments.

The house was built between 1927 and 1929 at a time when private residential construction in Moscow was increasingly uncommon. Melnikov treated the project as both a family residence and an experimental prototype, allowing him to test economical structural systems, flexible planning, and alternative relationships between living and work.

Melnikov’s Rusakov Workers’ Club explores a different relationship between geometry and occupation. Its projecting auditorium blocks express collective assembly, while the overlapping cylinders of his house organize family life and studio work. The two projects show the range of his experiments in late-1920s Moscow.

The two cylinders have approximately the same diameter but different heights and overlap by roughly one-third of their radius. Their intersection creates an elongated figure-eight plan oriented north to south. The lower southern cylinder faces Krivoarbatsky Lane, while the taller northern cylinder contains the bedroom and studio.

The street facade is composed around a central entrance and a large vertical glazed opening. The window rises across much of the front cylinder and illuminates the living room above. A relief inscription identifying “Konstantin Melnikov Architect” occupies the facade above the glazing, reinforcing the house as both residence and professional workplace.

The northern cylinder is perforated by hexagonal openings generated directly from a honeycomb brick lattice that distributes loads through the cylindrical envelope. Melnikov used standard local bricks without conventional lintels or sills, allowing the openings to emerge from the masonry geometry itself. Many became windows, while others were filled during construction and used as niches or service voids. Filled cells incorporated clay, sand, broken brick, and other material, reducing brick consumption while increasing wall mass.

This construction system allowed the exterior walls to function as the primary load-bearing structure. Interior spaces therefore remained largely free of columns, giving Melnikov greater freedom to organize rooms across the full diameter of each cylinder.

The inter-storey floors developed the same structural economy. Crossing timber planks form a dense grid of approximately 0.5 × 0.5 m cells, covered by tongue-and-groove boards laid diagonally above and below. The resulting shell behaves as a unified membrane and eliminates conventional beams, rafters, and internal columns.

The ground floor contains most of the family’s daily-service spaces, including the entrance, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, dressing room, workrooms, and circulation. A small basement beneath the front cylinder contains the calorifier chamber for the house’s warm-air heating system.

The second floor contains the principal living room and communal bedroom. The living room receives light through the large street-facing window, while the bedroom occupies much of the northern cylinder and is illuminated by twelve hexagonal windows facing the garden. Melnikov organized the bedroom around sleeping rather than individual ownership, using built-in beds for the parents and children separated partly by radial screens instead of conventional private bedrooms. Clothing was stored in a communal dressing room downstairs, allowing the bedroom to remain largely free of furniture.

The upper level contains Melnikov’s studio, a large workspace illuminated by a dense field of hexagonal windows. Light enters from multiple directions, reducing shadows across drawings and work surfaces. A mezzanine within the studio provides an elevated position for viewing drawings and paintings laid out below.

A terrace extends from the upper level above the lower cylinder. The terrace connects directly with the studio and completes the vertical progression from enclosed domestic rooms to open working and outdoor space.

The house experienced alterations and material loss during the twentieth century. Wartime blast damage affected windows and the bedroom, while later changes modified partitions, entrances, finishes, and portions of the original interior. Restoration campaigns during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries sought to recover the original layout and address structural and material deterioration.

The Melnikov Museum was established in 2014 as a branch of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture, making the house itself the principal exhibit. Conservation work has focused on preserving original materials, finishes, structural systems, furnishings, and engineering features while limiting intervention where possible.