Han van Loghem’s normalized window panes in Kemerovo Oblast'.
Many attempts have been made to prove that a certain building has a ground plan, sections and or façades based on a proportional system. A favourite is the Golden Section. In fact, this is unapplicable in buildings. To begin with, one needs to choose or design building elements (like a brick) with the same proportion. Berlage understood this and found a practical proportion for his Amsterdam Exchange (1904), very near to the Golden Section, with the use of the classic Waal size brick (waalsteen). The proof is in the measured drawings.
This is indirectly the case in Kromhout’s design for the Hotel Americain. Although none of the drawings of this building contains a sign of a proportional system, the façade drawings for another (not built) hotel that Kromhout designed at the same time show an equilateral triangular grid and a square in the ground plans. From there one can simply trace the use of a (different) grid in the built Hotel Americain (1902).
A comparable system I found in Van der Mey’s Scheepvaarthuis (1916-’23). So, it appears, that at the beginning of the XXth Century Dutch architects held a rational measure system ‘en vogue’
Question: What about Van Loghem in Kemerovo about a quarter of a century later?