Architectural Scientific Institutes

Architectural Scientific Institutes 

The first architectural scientific institutes in the USSR—concerned with the architecture of public and industrial buildings, urban construction and planning of populated localities, building techniques, kolkhoz architecture and rural construction, and the history and theory of architecture—were all established under the jurisdiction of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR (AA SSSR) in 1934. In 1964 independent scientific institutes were formed under the administration of the State Committee on Civil Construction and Architecture of Gosstroi (the State Construction Committee of the USSR). These institutes are the Central Scientific Research and Planning Institutes for Standard and Experimental Design (TsNIIEP’s) in the areas of housing, educational buildings, hospitals, and sanatoriums, trade buildings, theaters, stadiums, and engineering installations; and the Central Scientific Research and Planning Institute (TsNIIP) for Urban Construction. This system also includes regional institutes (ZNIIEP’s)—for example, the Leningrad, Kiev, Siberian, and Tashkent ZNIIEP’s. Problems of urban construction are studied in Leningrad (LenNIIPgrad) and in Kiev (NIIP for Urban Construction).

In the field of standard planning and the problems of standardization and unification connected with it, research is being conducted at the Moscow Institute of Standard and Experimental Design (MNIITEP). A number of institutes are working on the problems of industrial architecture—for example, the Central Scientific Research and Experimental Design Institute for Industrial Buildings and Installations—and others are working on rural architecture. The Moscow and Kiev Scientific Research Institutes of the Theory, History, and Long-range Problems of Soviet Architecture work on problems in architectural theory and history. The Central Institute of Scientific Information on Construction and Architecture (TsINIS) gathers scientific information in all areas. There are also scientific institutes under the State Construction Committees of the Byelorussian and Lithuanian SSR’s. These scientific institutes consist of departments of scientific research operations—including standardization sections and construction sections—as well as sections for engineering and technical equipment, economic aspects of construction, and laboratories of structural physics, which carry on their studies in conformity with the profile of the institute as well as the design workshops. On this basis the design workshops conduct standardized, experimental and individual planning. The institutes develop scientific forecasts of the growth of urban construction, as well as theoretical foundations for planning and building cities and fundamentals of designing dwellings and public buildings. They establish normative instructions and manuals for designing buildings and their siting in cities and villages; they work out design assignments that have an active influence on design and construction practices.

In foreign countries most architectural research is carried out in departments and schools of architecture connected with universities and engineering institutes. The Universities of Wales, Nottingham, Manchester, and Belfast and other universities, the Bath University of Technology (all in Great Britain); the University of North Carolina and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (in the USA); and the University of Sydney (in Australia) comprise a basic network of architectural scientific research institutes. The Scientific Research Institute on Construction, created within the Academy of Sciences of the USA in 1952, became independent in 1962. In France architectural research is carried out not by state but by public institutions—the Research Center for Urban Construction and the Scientific-Technical Center for Construction—and by private institutions—the Research Center for Architecture, Urban Construction, and Building, which was established by the Union of Architects in 1966. In the Federal Republic of Germany the study of architectural problems is directed by the Scientific Research Institute on Construction (in Hanover) and is also carried on at universities, construction centers, and research associations. After World War II, Italy and Japan attached special importance to research societies and creative architectural groups, which were working out long-range problems in architecture and in forecasting urban construction.

In the socialist countries much attention is devoted to the problems of scientific design and construction and the study of the architectural heritage. In 1951 the German Construction Academy was organized in the German Democratic Republic. A section on the theory and history of architecture and urban construction was established within the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1962. In Poland the Institute of Urban Construction and Architecture is in operation; in Czechoslovakia, the Scientific Research Institute on Construction and Architecture; and in Hungary, the Institute for the Design of Public Buildings.

N. IA. MATVEEVA