The outpatient (external) building is a two-story brick building at the corner of Minina Street and Semashko Street, built in 1913–1915 to a design by Gleb Dmitrievich Bekhli, a technician of the provincial zemstvo, for the reception ward and outpatient department of the provincial zemstvo (Martynovskaya) hospital. Documents record the address in different forms: Minina Street, 20/3, litera E, and Minina Street, 20e. It is a regionally significant cultural heritage site within the complex "Buildings of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Zemstvo Hospital, where the physicians Yoshe Yegor Bogdanovich, Vensky Dmitry Alexandrovich, Kashchenko, Mikhalkin Pyotr Nikolaevich, and Avramov Pyotr Georgievich worked." In Soviet years the building housed the Gorky branch of the "GiproNIIzdrav" institute — the Nizhegorodzdravproekt.[1] Today the building houses the regional center for AIDS and infectious disease prevention and control.[1]

Construction

On the corner lot at the intersection of Zhukovskaya and Martynovskaya streets — today's Minina and Semashko — stood a single-story wooden structure, recorded in nineteenth-century documents as the "right wooden hospital wing." By the start of the twentieth century it had fallen into disrepair, and in 1913 the zemstvo decided to build a stone building on the site.[1]

The design was entrusted to Gleb Dmitrievich Bekhli, a technician of the provincial zemstvo and a recent graduate of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. At the end of 1914 the audit commission of the provincial zemstvo board inspected the construction site and reported to the zemstvo assembly that the building had been raised to shell stage: "only the walls have been erected, the ceilings laid, the roof covered, and the rough floors prepared." The commission found it worth noting that "the brickwork is done well, and the size and layout of the rooms is practical," and that the new building "will significantly improve conditions for receiving patients and provide conveniences for the physicians."[1]

Comparing the finished building with the archival drawings shows that, as the work proceeded, the originally conceived facade design — Art Nouveau with elements of historicism — was simplified in the spirit of rational architecture.[1]

The war and the early Soviet years

World War I prevented the building's completion: in 1915 the still unfinished building was turned over to wounded soldiers and disabled veterans. In the early years of Soviet power it remained under the military department and was only vacated by 1920.[1]

A design institute within the hospital walls

In the Soviet period the building housed departments of the regional clinical hospital and the Gorky branch of the "GiproNIIzdrav" institute, also known as Nizhegorodzdravproekt".[1] The parent institute grew out of the "Goszdravproekt" design bureau, created by order of the USSR People's Commissariat of Health on June 3, 1937: in 1951 it became the "Giprozdrav" institute, and on December 11, 1970 the state design and research institute for the design of healthcare facilities.[6]

By order No. 170 of the Gorky Regional Health Department dated March 30, 1971, all buildings on Minina Street, 20 were transferred to the children's regional hospital: the Semashko regional hospital moved to newly built facilities on Rodionova Street. In 1973–1975 the children's hospital opened a polyclinic and a surgical building here, before itself moving to a newly built complex in Kuznechikha.[7]

From 1989 to 1991 the "GiproNIIzdrav" institute in Gorky was headed by Yuri Mikhailovich Titov, a graduate of the architecture faculty of the Gorky Institute of Civil Engineering, formerly deputy director of "Gorkygrazhdanproekt" and later first deputy general director of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair.[8]

On December 29, 1991, the branch was registered as an independent legal entity — the "Nizhegorodzdravproekt" institute, with the address Minina Street, 20. It existed for eleven and a half years and was liquidated by court decision on June 22, 2003.[5]

Architecture

The building is two stories with a basement and a complex plan, close to a U-shape, forming a semi-enclosed courtyard on the north side. The walls are brick laid on lime mortar with recessed (pustoshovka) joints; the inter-floor and attic ceilings are wooden. The central section faces Minina Street with its main south facade, and the right wing faces Semashko Street with its east facade.[1]

The building was built in the brick style; together with the hospital church at the opposite corner of the block, it marked the boundaries of the hospital grounds. The roof is gabled, with hipped ends on the wings, the roofing is of metal sheets, and the wall coloring alternates white and brick-red. Later the pitch of the roof over the central section and the left wing was changed, raising the exterior walls above the cornice by a meter and a half.[1]

In 1960 an annex was built onto the north end, connecting the building to the hospital's main building; later an annex in the same style as the main building was added to the left wing.[1]

Heritage protection

The cultural heritage site passport was drawn up on July 23, 1997, and the protection obligation was approved by the Nizhny Novgorod Region's department for state protection of cultural heritage sites on June 5, 2013. In the register the building is dated 1885–1918 — reflecting the period over which the whole hospital complex took shape, whereas the building itself was under construction from 1913.[1]

In December 2019 the AIDS center signed a contract for the preparation of scientific design documentation; the restoration and adaptive-reuse project was prepared by LLC "Asgard," and on February 27, 2020 the state historical-cultural expert review — carried out by the firm "Afina" with experts D. N. Rozhin, E. G. Gurina, and Sh. M. Khautiev — found the documentation to be in compliance with legal requirements.[1] For the 800th anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod, the historical appearance of the facades of the zemstvo hospital buildings was restored and the roof was repaired.[3]

Within the hospital ensemble

The outpatient building is one of the surviving structures of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Zemstvo (Martynovskaya) Hospital, the largest medical institution of the pre-revolutionary city and province; its successor is the Semashko Regional Clinical Hospital.[1] Nearby stand the surgical building of 1897–1899 (litera B), built to a design by N. A. Frelikh,[2] and the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow""""." The oldest building of the complex is the wooden pharmacy wing of 1830 (litera I), which in zemstvo times housed the reception ward, the pharmacy, and the apartments of the pharmacist and duty attendant.[4]

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region — Act of state historical-cultural expert review of documentation for the preservation of the outpatient (external) building of the provincial zemstvo hospital… (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region — Act of state historical-cultural expert review: surgical building of the provincial zemstvo hospital, 1897–1899, architect N. A.…
  3. nizhny800.ru — Nizhny 800 — Buildings of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Zemstvo Hospital: restoration for the city's 800th anniversary
  4. nn800.ru — I Am Discovering Nizhny Novgorod — Minina, 20/3 — the pharmacy (inner) wing of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Zemstvo Hospital (archive)
  5. list-org.com — "Nizhegorodzdravproekt" institute, INN 5260001083: Unified State Register of Legal Entities data on registration and liquidation
  6. guides.rusarchives.ru — Guide to Russian Archives — State Design and Research Institute "GiproNIIzdrav": history, fund R-245 (archive)
  7. детскаяобластная52.рф — Nizhny Novgorod Regional Children's Clinical Hospital — History of the hospital: year-by-year chronicle (archive)
  8. names52.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Biographical Encyclopedia — Titov Yuri Mikhailovich (archive)