«Nizhegorodzdravproekt» was a design organization that worked in Gorky and Nizhny Novgorod at Minina Street, 20: the Gorky branch of the state design and research institute for the design of healthcare facilities «GiproNIIzdrav». The branch occupied the Outpatient Building at 20e Minina Street of the former provincial zemstvo hospital.[1] In December 1991 it was registered as an independent legal entity and existed in that form until 2003.[2]
The parent institute
The design office «Goszdravproekt» was established by an order of the USSR People's Commissariat of Health on 3 June 1937. By an order of the USSR Ministry of Health of 7 September 1951 it became the State Design Institute for the Design of Medical and Preventive Facilities «Giprozdrav», and on 11 December 1970 it was reorganized into the State Design and Research Institute for the Design of Healthcare Facilities «GiproNIIzdrav». The name with the «NII» (research institute) prefix is therefore correct only from the end of 1970 onward.[3]
The institute carried out standard design work for almost the entire Soviet medical network: district and rural pharmacies and outpatient clinics, regional, municipal, and local hospitals, tuberculosis and psychoneurological hospitals and hospitals for permafrost regions, maternity homes, dispensaries, polyclinics, sanatoriums-preventoriums, radiology buildings, wastewater treatment facilities, and even solar installations for hospital hot water supply. Its designs were used to build hospitals in Burma, Cambodia, Libya, and Nepal, and a medical complex in China.[3] According to the institute's own account, its history begins in 1932, and it became a leader in the field in 1935.[4]
The branch in Gorky
The branch was located in the outpatient building of the former Nizhny Novgorod provincial zemstvo hospital, at the corner of Ulitsa Minina and Ulitsa Semashko — a two-story brick building constructed in 1913–1915. The proximity was no coincidence: until 1971 the entire block was occupied by the regional clinical hospital, after which an order of the regional health department transferred the buildings to the regional children's hospital, which later moved to a new complex in Kuznechikha.[1][5]
The branch's first head, from its founding, was Viktor Anatolyevich Osipov (b. 1950) — a native of the Avtozavodsky district, son of the Gorky metallurgist Anatoly Andreyevich Osipov, head of foundry shop No. 5 at the automobile plant. He came to the institute from the post of chief engineer of a construction trust. The branch's chief engineer under him was Alexander Bazhan.
From 1989 to 1991 the Gorky «GiproNIIzdrav» institute was headed by Yuri Mikhailovich Titov — a graduate of the architecture faculty of the Gorky Civil Engineering Institute named after V. P. Chkalov, previously deputy director of «Gorkygrazhdanproekt», and after 1991 first deputy general director of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair.[6]
Independent institute and liquidation
On 29 December 1991, amid the collapse of the USSR, the branch was registered as an independent legal entity — the «Nizhegorodzdravproekt» institute, at Ulitsa Minina, 20. Its director and sole founder was listed as Alexander Alexandrovich Yakushin. The organization operated for eleven and a half years and was liquidated by court decision on 22 June 2003.[2]
Design work
The existence of the branch and its second name are recorded in the 2020 state historical and cultural expert assessment report on the outpatient building: «Subsequently, this housed departments of the regional clinical hospital, the Gorky branch of the "GiproNIIzdrav" institute ("Nizhegorodzdravproekt")».[1]
The largest Nizhny Novgorod commission, however, was handled by the Moscow institute: from 1973 «GiproNIIzdrav» developed an individual design for the hospital complex in the Avtozavodsky district, built from 1975 to 1984.[7]
Institute archive
The records of the parent institute are held in the Russian State Archive in the city of Samara: fond R-245, 918 storage units for the years 1944–1980. The design inventory contains 646 files for 1948–1970, and the administrative inventory 272 files for 1944–1980, including orders, minutes of the scientific and technical council, staffing schedules, and reports on the work of the institute and its branches.[3]
Sources
- web.archive.org — Government of Nizhny Novgorod Region — State historical and cultural expert assessment report on the documentation for the preservation of the outpatient (external) building of the provincial zemstvo hospital… (archive)
- list-org.com — «Nizhegorodzdravproekt» Institute, TIN 5260001083: Unified State Register of Legal Entities data on registration and liquidation
- guides.rusarchives.ru — Guide to Russian Archives — State Design and Research Institute «GiproNIIzdrav»: history and composition of fond R-245
- web.archive.org — GiproNIIzdrav — About the institute: the institute's own account of its history and areas of work (archive)
- детскаяобластная52.рф — Nizhny Novgorod Regional Children's Clinical Hospital — History of the hospital: a chronicle by year
- names52.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Biographical Encyclopedia — Titov, Yuri Mikhailovich
- bolnica13nn.ru — City Clinical Hospital No. 13 — History of the hospital: design of the complex from 1973