In Minsk, an interwar hospital designed by a French architect is being demolished. Two local academics helped destroy the monument

Excavators have already begun physically demolishing the walls of the four-story building on Petrus Brovka Street, 5, as can be seen from the published photos.

For a long time, this monumental building was one of the capital's most famous abandoned structures. The children's hospital was located here from 1975 to 2004. After a major fire, the medical facility was moved to Borovlyany, and the building itself became vacant. In 2007, a reconstruction project was even developed, but due to the high cost of the work (about 20 million dollars equivalent), nothing moved forward. The building continued to fall into disrepair, enduring another fire in 2009.

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However, the territory in the city center could not remain unused for long. To erect something new there, the authorities first had to legally strip the building of its monument status, as otherwise, demolition would not have been an option. In 2019, the object was successfully deprived of its protected status, and only after that was the fate of the site finally decided. Now, a new modern building for the Minsk City Clinical Oncological Center with departments for medical rehabilitation and intensive care is being erected on the site of the historic building.

Soviet Art Deco by a French architect

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For a long time, it was mistakenly believed that the building on P. Brovka Street, 5 (until 1982 — Padlesnaya Street) was designed by the famous architect Georgy Lavrov as part of the overall ensemble of the BSU Clinical Campus (1929–1931).

However, as researchers of interwar architecture have found, the building's project was created in the mid-1930s in the 2nd design workshop at the People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR. It was headed by the outstanding French modernist architect André Lurçat, one of the founders of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture, who was invited to the Soviet Union.

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Architect A. Aprasyan was the direct executor of the project under Lurçat's leadership. Initially, the monumental building was intended as a new building for the Medical Institute, but it was not completed before the war began.

This large-scale object is a clear and unique example for Belarus of Postconstructivism — a style that became a transitional stage from avant-garde to Soviet neoclassicism and combined three directions at once.

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From Constructivism, the building adopted large square and horizontal window openings, a blind attic with heraldry on the central facade, and a round cylindrical volume integrated into the center of the courtyard facade. It housed a library with a spacious reading room on the lower level and an amphitheater-style lecture hall on the second floor. This volume formed a single spatial composition with the main entrance group. From Neoclassicism, the project inherited a monumental symmetrical composition.

The influence of 'bourgeois' Art Deco manifested itself in the tiered, stepped structure of the central risalit (projection) and a prospective profiled entrance portal. The facades were crowned by a horizontally extended cornice, and the decor actively used characteristic plasticity with laconic frames, pulls, and panels.

The main stylistic elements on the facade were deep profiled niches running the full height of the side wings, which unified the windows into a single vertical rhythm: a similar technique can be seen in Minsk on the famous Government House by architect Iosif Langbard.

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The building successfully survived World War II. In 1950–1953, it underwent reconstruction under the guidance of architects I. Rudenka and M. Barsukov. They approached the work with utmost care and preserved the authentic style and detailing of the pre-war facades. The interiors retained original elements of the entrance group: coffered ceilings, decorative plafonds, profiled cornices, and balustrades.

In 2001, all these architectural merits were officially recognized, and the building was included in the State List of Historical and Cultural Heritage.

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Architectural collaborationism

According to the Code on Culture of Belarus (Art. 94), it is practically impossible to strip a building of its historical and cultural heritage status. The law strictly requires proof of physical loss of the object or complete loss of its merits under the condition of «impossibility of scientifically justified restoration». 

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Moreover, as sources of «Nasha Niva» note, physically the building was also in a state suitable for restoration: not only the walls and stairs were preserved, all the joinery was intact, and even pre-war furniture was still there. Only the roof had collapsed in one place.

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However, in 2018, the government issued a direct instruction to the Ministry of Culture to consider the exclusion of the building from the list. The legal obstacle in the form of the Code had to be circumvented somehow to justify the demolition and free up space for the oncology center's investment project.

In September of the same year, the Belarusian Voluntary Society for the Protection of Monuments appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office. Experts warned that direct instructions from the Council of Ministers and personally from the then Minister of Culture Yuri Bondar «to favorably consider the proposal to strip the status» constituted not only a violation of the Code on Culture but also a clear corrupt offense: interference by officials in the activities of other bodies. The Prosecutor's Office turned a blind eye to this appeal.

Loyal scientists from the Republican Scientific and Methodological Council for Historical and Cultural Heritage came to the aid of the officials.

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According to our sources, who were direct witnesses to the process of stripping the status, the main roles in it were played by the then Dean of the Faculty of Architecture of BNTU, Doctor of Architecture Armen Sardarov, and the Director of the Center for Research of Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Academician Alexander Lakotka.

Armen Sardarov, according to witnesses' recollections, used all his eloquence and influence to convince the Council members, who were not very experienced in cultural heritage protection issues, that the building had no value.

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Alexander Lakotka distinguished himself even further. Employees of his Center at the Academy of Sciences had previously conducted extensive work on studying the building and prepared a thorough scientific conclusion on its high historical and cultural value.

However, Lakotka was very dissatisfied with this result, as the document ran contrary to the Council of Ministers' demand. As a result, the academician ignored the work of his subordinates and personally prepared and signed a different conclusion.

It was this document that gave the Ministry of Culture the necessary formal basis for excluding the building from the heritage list.

As our sources note, this is not the only known case where Lakotka directly hindered the preservation of architectural monuments in situations where it required nothing from him but a signature. All to avoid irritating the authorities and to hold onto his position longer. However, in October 2025, the 70-year-old academician was still sent into retirement.

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