House of Architects

(full name, Central House of Architects; TsDA), a club for people active in architecture and construction. It was founded in 1932 and is situated in Moscow. It functions under the direction of the Presidium of the Moscow Division of the Architects’ Union of the USSR.

The TsDA goals are to raise the ideological and political level, qualifications, and public activity of the members of the Architects’ Union; to enlist young cadres in the creative and social life of the union; to establish contacts and an exchange of experience with other unions; and to popularize architecture among the public. TsDA organizes readings of papers, lectures, and meetings with masters of architecture and workers in the sciences and arts and holds exhibitions, concerts, stage performances, and viewings of films. The TsDA has a library, an office of architecture, 15 art commissions, and nine sections of the TsDA Council.

There are Houses of Architects in Leningrad, Kiev, Baku, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Minsk, Alma-Ata, Riga, Dushanbe, Volgograd, Vilnius, Kazan, Batumi, and some other cities.