The first prefabricated apartment building in both Ukraine and the entire Soviet Union was built between 1931 and 1933 in Kharkiv. It is located at Hryhoriia Skovorody Street, 40 and is designated as an architectural monument.

The design for a 6-story building constructed from large blocks was developed in 1931 by a team of young architects from the Ukrainian Scientific Institute of Structures: Nikolai Plekhov, Oleksiy Tatsii, Andriy Postnikov (a student of O. Beketov), under the direction of engineer Andriy Vatsenko.

The panels were not entirely made of reinforced concrete—they consisted of a “sandwich” of thin reinforced concrete slabs joined by a frame to form a thicker slab filled with slag.

Researchers note that this house, built in the Constructivist style, already exhibited the beginnings of a “three-part” vertical division of the facade, as seen in classical-style buildings.

During the Soviet era, the ground floor of the corner section housed a grocery store and a dairy shop.

Residents recall that the balconies in this section were not partitioned, which the children took advantage of by riding their bicycles along them. The 6th floor was set aside for communal apartments—their ceiling heights sloped downward toward the windows.

In a photo from the 1930s, the building’s facade facing Hryhoriia Skovorody Street was much lighter in color than it is today. And it was truly harmonious and beautiful—with open, unglazed balconies and without the numerous commercial additions that began to mar the building’s appearance in the 1990s.