In Minsk, an interwar hospital designed by a French architect is being demolished. Two local academics helped destroy the monument
The demolition of the monumental building of the former regional children's hospital on Petrus Brovka Street has begun in the capital. To clear the site for a new medical facility, the unique 1930s building had to be stripped of its protected status. Behind this were well-known Doctors of Architecture who used their influence.
Excavators have already begun physically demolishing the walls of the four-story building at Petrus Brovka Street, 5, as can be seen from the published photographs.
For a long time, this monumental building was one of the most famous abandoned buildings in the capital. The Children's Hospital was located here from 1975 to 2004. After a severe fire, the medical facility was transferred to Baravliany, 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), the project did not move forward. The building continued to fall into disrepair, experiencing another fire in 2009.
However, the territory in the city center could not remain unused for long. To erect something new there, the authorities first had to legally get rid of the monument status, otherwise, demolition would not have been an option. In 2019, the object was successfully stripped of its protected status, and only after that was the fate of the site finally decided. Now, a new modern building of the Minsk City Clinical Oncological Center with departments for medical rehabilitation and resuscitation is being erected on the site of the historic building.
Soviet Art Deco by a French Architect
For a long time, it was mistakenly believed that the building at P. Brovka Street, 5 (until 1982 — Padliesnaya Street) was designed by the famous architect Georgy Lavrov as part of the overall ensemble of the BSU Clinical Town (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 under the People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR. It was headed by André Lurçat, a prominent French modernist architect and one of the founders of the International Congress of Modern Architecture, who was invited to the Soviet Union.
Architect A. Aprasyan was the direct executor of the project under Lurçat's leadership. Initially, the monumental building was conceived as a new building for the Medical Institute, but it was not completed before the start of the war.
This large-scale object is a clear and unique example of postconstructivism for Belarus — a style that became a transitional stage from avant-garde to Soviet neoclassicism and combined three directions at once.
From Constructivism, the building adopted large square and horizontal window openings, a blind attic with heraldry on the central facade, as well as 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, however, manifested in the tiered, stepped structure of the central risalit (projection) and the impressive profiled entrance portal. The facades were crowned by a horizontally extended cornice, and the decor actively utilized characteristic plasticity with laconic frames, moldings, and panels.
The main stylistic element on the facade was the deep profiled niches spanning the entire height of the side wings, unifying the windows into a single vertical rhythm: a similar technique can be seen in Minsk on the famous Government House by architect Iosif Langbard.
The building successfully survived World War II. From 1950 to 1953, it underwent reconstruction under the guidance of architects I. Rudenka and M. Barsukov. They approached the work with utmost delicacy 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 Values.
Architectural Collaborationism
According to the Culture Code of Belarus (Art. 94), it is practically impossible to deprive a building of the status of a historical and cultural value. The law strictly requires proof of the physical loss of the object or the complete loss of its merits under the condition of "impossibility of scientifically justified restoration".
Moreover, as sources of "Nasha Niva" note, the building was also physically in a suitable state for restoration: not only the walls and stairs were preserved, all the joinery was intact, and even pre-war furniture still stood. Only the roof had collapsed in one place.
However, in 2018, the government gave a direct instruction to the Ministry of Culture to consider the issue of excluding the building from the list. The legal obstacle in the form of the Code had to be somehow circumvented 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 positively consider the proposal to strip the status" was not only a violation of the Culture Code 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 issues came to the aid of the officials.
According to our sources, who were direct witnesses to the process of stripping the status, the main roles in it were played by Armen Sardarau, then Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at BNTU and Doctor of Architecture, and Alexander Lakotka, Director of the Center for Research of Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Academician.
Armen Sardarau, according to witnesses' recollections, used all his eloquence and influence to convince the Council members, who were not very knowledgeable in matters of cultural heritage protection, that the building had no value.
Alexander Lakotka distinguished himself even more. Employees of his Center at the Academy of Sciences had previously done extensive work researching the building and prepared a thorough scientific conclusion about its high historical and cultural value.
However, Lakotka was very displeased with this result, as the document went against the demands of the Council of Ministers. 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 keep his position longer. But in October 2025, the 70-year-old academician was retired anyway.
«Nasha Niva» — the bastion of Belarus
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