The Narkomfin Building

The 1930 house by Ginzburg and Milinis is the transitional commune-house with which any conversation about twentieth-century housing begins: two-level units, a corridor every second floor, kitchen and laundry taken out of the flat. Le Corbusier knew this building and leaned on it in the Unité d’habitation at Marseille — the ribbon window, the pilotis and the interlocking sections are all here…