Super Sad Tiny Home Fetish

There wasn’t really enough room for two, let alone five, but we filed into the tiny apartment nonetheless, walking down a steep wooden staircase into the living area. Despite a huge window that filled one wall, the colors were dark, earthy. Everything smelt of cigarettes and coffee. The owner, a filmmaker, greeted our architect guide in Russian and waved vaguely at us; we could make ourselves at home.

The apartment was a tiny Soviet-era split-level close to the center of Moscow that had been comprehensively refurbished by our guide. It was a precursor to the modern “micro-flat,” a sub-300 square-foot space that had to accommodate the complex puzzle of daily life. Renovated and re-built, it was cramped but undeniably attractive, with simple modern furniture, a galley-like kitchen, a bathroom and bedroom space behind a sliding door, plus the detritus of hip Russian living—ashtrays, monographs, a bike, Fender telecaster, bowls of random tchotchkes. It was a bachelor pad, not a family home, but it fulfilled much the same function today as it was originally intended back in the 1920s. Only the ideologies and aspirations evinced by its contents were... Continue Reading