A hallmark of post-Communist countries are housing projects filled with ugly, utilitarian apartment blocks made of prefabricated concrete slabs that have been crudely stuck together. Way back in 2003, this was my first culture shock on coming to the Czech Republic. In Czech, these buildings are termed “panelový dům” (literally panel home), “panelák” for short. For a point of reference, here is the Wikipedia article. In it there are pictures that show both what these buildings originally looked like, and what many of them look like today, having been renovated with insulating polysterene cladding and plaster. Apparently, in English, these are called large panel system buildings.
On trips back to Canada, I have had a chance to compare these to the many high-rise apartment buildings that are found in Toronto, and compare. Most of them, even the really plain ones, tend to look better than the ones in post-Communist countries. Still, I’m wondering if the method of construction used for the ones in Toronto / North America is essentially similar to the one that was used in Eastern-bloc countries, or if it was a different one.
As an example, here is a builiding in the Jane-Finch neighborhood (which is known for its high-rises). It was built in 1977 and my family lived in it for four years in the 80s. Another view following some kind of paint job. Unlike the ones in the Eastern bloc, I see both concrete and bricks. The concrete looks more put-together than in the former. So:
Is the concrete on this building also made of prefabricated slabs (just stuck together more cunningly), or was it, for example, cast on the spot?
Are the bricks laid, or are they also made of prefabricated panels? Are they real bricks, or are they just tiles covering other concrete panels?
Here’s another example, the building right across the street. Bricks almost all over. Are these real and are they laid, or are they just cladding for prefab concrete slabs?
Now, how about this one on Bathurst Street? It looks much more like something out of the Eastern bloc. Nothing but concrete. Yet it’s hard to see if there are any connecting lines between slabs. Is this building made of prefabricated slabs or was the concrete cast on the spot or some other method?
“Ugly, utiliarian apartment blocks” in the US made me think of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, which I know about only because its destruction featured so prominently in the film Koyaanisqatsi. The irony is that we hired a famous architect to design it and we still got that crap.
Anyway, I looked at your Czech Wikipedia link and they mention Pruitt-Igoe as an example. So I guess the answer is that yes, we do–or did–have just this type of panel building. But I don’t know if they differ in the details. I couldn’t find anything specific about Pruitt-Igor other than that the architect was a fan of precast concrete.
Almost all North American high rises are Curtain Wall built. There is a structural core with elevators and services, and then poured floors with support columns. The facade is then filled in with glass, brick, or pre-cast panels. The facade is not structural.
That building on Bathurst is and has always been pretty ugly with no redeeming architectural features. I drive past it all the time.
A notable exception being the original World Trade Center buildings, which had structural external walls. And–surprise!–designed by the same Minoru Yamasaki that designed the Pruitt-Igoe complex.
For the last two years I have been watching a 7-storey building going up next door to mine. They had cement mixers all the way. Then they had real bricklayers laying a real brick facade. The structural columns were also poured concrete. The one thing that was prefab were the staircases. The building is still not fully finished on the outside, but it is filling with tenants on a daily basis.
Your panels can be bought complete from a supplier, cast somewhere by/for you or made by you on site, depending on a whole bunch of factors, all of which are subsidiary to cost.
As with Lego, skill, care and a good eye for design can create the most wondrous things while laziness, lack of skill and a limited array of pieces can produce the dullest and most boring shapes. Even a brick wall in the care of a good architect who is allowed to play with the potential of the material can produce something unexpected.
The difference between your Czech and more familiar Canadian buildings could be partly through building codes, the relative influence of cost and other design drivers, such as smaller windows meaning less expensive internal temperature regulation, or the general ordinariness of the architectural talent who got to design these buildings.
I always thought one factor with the “ugly communist apartment buildings” vs. North American construction was that post-WWII you had a LOT of massive destruction in some parts of Europe, including what is often called “the Eastern Bloc”, and a lot of people to be housed quickly.
The buildings pointed out are relatively cheap and easy to build. If you have to house a lot of people and don’t have a lot of time or funds it gets the job done. They aren’t pretty, but they are shelter.
Post WWII North American cities were not in ruins and there was more time and money for aesthetics. So the only place you say this sort of thing was public housing for the poor, where funds were limited, people would just have to accept what they were given, and no one really cared about looks.
Just a guess, I could be wrong, and even if I’m right it wouldn’t be the only factor at work here, just one of them.
The major flaw in these buildings, whether Soviet or western, is their thermal design. The horizontal banding you see in the ones that haven’t been re-clad is the poured concrete floor slabs. That does make it easy to construct, because you just lay up your bricks or concrete panels on the edge of the slab to create your exterior walls. The problem is, while you can insulate the walls themselves from the inside, which preserves the aesthetic, durability, and fire resistance of the original cladding, you can’t stop heat migration from the floors/ceilings. That’s a major “thermal bridge” that can’t be as easily addressed.
Thus, many of these buildings get re-clad with exterior insulating panels. That allows a continuous insulation envelope to stop thermal bridging, and if the building is due for an aesthetic redress too, then this achieves that without the need to redo everyone’s interior walls that may have electric, heating, and other utilities in the way.
However, some re-cladding projects have led to disastrous fires because the new cladding system had furring strips or other spacers that created a chase the full height of the building and allowed a lower-story fire to quickly rise through the entire structure. New construction, which in many cases still uses the same sort of poured concrete structural shell, require a lot of design scrutiny to block off any chases that might allow fire to propagate, because the curtain wall is hung on the outside of the floor slabs rather than stopping and starting at each floor.
You’re absolutely right. And as the “large panel system building” Wiki article I linked mentions, buildings like this have been built in e.g. West Germany and Finland as well. And ugly concrete housing projects were built around France (the “HLM”) and the UK (council estates) at one point as well.
I remember when I was on a weekend in Berlin with my friend John. At his instigation, we went to a new brewery opened by an American, I think it was Stone Brewing Berlin. We took the S-Bahn to the neighborhood where it was located. To my surprise, nearby was a housing project with “Plattenbau” (German for “panelák”) and public garden plots with small (IIRC concrete) sheds or huts. It looked like something out of Communism. I asked the barmaid at the brewery if this was East or West Berlin and she answered, “I think it’s West Berlin”. Later in Prague, I mentioned this to a German friend with whom I’ve had German conversation lessons. He answered that that was perfectly normal, as in the 60s they didn’t have much money and needed to solve a housing crisis.
Yes, like the notorious Grenfell Tower incident. I have an ESL class in an architectural company and when I brought this topic up, my students mentioned something to the effect that for newer renovations of the Czech Communist-era housing projects, more fire-resistant insulation, like glass wool, was being considered.
But to return to North America for a moment. About the closest thing I’ve found to the Eastern-bloc type of housing project is the now demolished Cabrini-Green project in Chicago. One segment of that project featured concrete buildings that were eerily reminiscent of those in post-Communist countries. See here. (This was the last remaining building of that project).
It’s interesting how climate plays a role here, too. I live in a warm country, and my apartment building (built in 1970) has none of those things - no insulation, no furring strips, no wooden floors, no drywall, just poured reinforced concrete and cinder blocks. And it’s fine. It doesn’t get that cold in the winter (certainly never near freezing), and all that concrete and tile floors help keep it cool during the summer. Most importantly, other than the internal doors and furniture, there’s nothing to burn.
Sure, but there’s a couple of middle-class buildings near me that have this type of construction. The units go for $150-250K but the HOA fees are $1,000/month so they’re not cheap.
This next place is senior housing, so I’m not sure about the rent, but it’s a bit more dowdy.
This building has always had that Soviet bloc feel. Check out some of the older street view images before it was gussied up.
A bit further down the street, the 3-winged hi-rise at the NE corner of Jane and FInch - I worked as a security guard at the building site when that building was being built in the mid-70’s. (I also worked at one of the Tobermorey apartments when it was Ontario Housing - the east straight one, IIRC). The Jane&Finch apartment was standard contstruction of the time, poured slab floors and pillars, empty holes between pillars were exterior wall infill with actual brick. Note too for fire safety, there was IIRC a solid concrete wall between each suite so the problem was not just uninsulated exposed floor, but separation walls too. The stairwells were (obviously) enclosed by a concrete wall for fire safety.
Process was simple. The molds, including the floor and pillars and walls, were built with wood on standard construction scaffolding with jackposts. Once in place, the concrete was poured, and when it was hardened, the forms were jacked down a few inches and slid out, and the crane lifted them to the next floor. They had two sets of forms, IIRC, hopscotching each other.
Then the bricklayers came and filled in the exterior walls. IIRC in those days there were plenty of experienced professional bricklayers from Italy and Portugal working in construction. Heat was usually electric baseboards (About 6" high) along the exterior walls. Suburban Toronto was a non-stop hive of activity building these hi-rises, pretty much the same. I suppose the idea was in Toronto’s climate, not a lot of heat was lost through that exposed concrete, over a thickness of 98 inches or more.
Yes, they often are. Was very common in Eastern Germany (the buildings mostly still stand), the Plattenbauten. They have a bad reputation, but you can make good buildings with the system. Usually they don’t.
