Delastre Apartments

General contractors: A. V. Kooklin.

The apartment house representing one of Tomashevsky’s "midget apartments" was built in 1940–1941. The project was chosen over two earlier proposals to develop this irregular lot No. 10256A on Route Delastre: a single-family residence with a garden (Cai Jiren, 1939) and a three-story apartment building (J. L. Slaschov, 1939). 

“Skillful planning by Architect Tomashevsky fitted this small tenement snugly into a limited lot on Route Delastre. Four apartments are contained in the building, each spreading over the entire floor”. (Shanghai Times Industrial Supplement, Dec 1941).

The building’s footprint is, indeed, tiny: only 108 sq. m. on the lot measuring about 120 sq. m. With the total construction area of about 400 sq. m., the building is four stories high, with a brick-concrete structure and reinforced concrete floors. 

The residents, as of 1947, were Miss L. Poletika, A. D. Pigulevsky and G. B. Rosen (office).

In 2015, the Delastre Apartment was inserted into the roster of Shanghai’s Excellent Historical Buildings.