Another brainchild of Melnikov: the Gosplan Garage on Aviamotornaya Street, 1936

Another brainchild of Melnikov: the Gosplan Garage on Aviamotornaya Street, 1936. Originally the main floor space of the garage was given over to the departmental cars of Gosplan; from the 1950s it housed the 8th taxi depot, and since the 1990s it has been home to assorted organisations, car workshops, repair shops and warehouses. Part of the building has been privatised, part is on a long lease, and part has burned down. Fortunately, the Melnikov-Kurochkin garage is protected as a monument of history, and the façade that Melnikov himself actually created may not be altered. The glazing of the front was conceived as a stylisation of a radiator grille with headlamps, but in the end the client could afford to finance only one headlamp, and from that one the original glazing was, alas, removed and replaced with some sort of filth. Today the inside of the headlamp has been fitted out as a residential loft, apparently available to rent. As for the gatehouse and the entrance group, if memory serves, they appear in some Soviet black-and-white film; if I remember which, I shall certainly show the stills. You can see the condition of the whole building for yourselves, but at least it is still standing, and for that, thanks be