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The tower block as a recurring theme in post-Soviet photography

2018-05-04T15:24:00-04:00

In some places, the tower block has never faded from view. The history of mass housing in eastern Europe is complex and uncomfortable. Yet what’s striking is how prominently the tower block features in the work of contemporary photographers from that territory. These artists have every reason to turn their backs on such buildings. They’re ugly and overbearing, not to say reminiscent of an authoritarian past. But the mass housing block is a recurring presence in their work.

Writer and critic Ekow Eshun provides a beautiful overview of the tower block as a recurring architectural, social, and aesthetic theme in the works of post-Soviet-era photographers in Russia, Serbia, the Baltic states, and throughout Eastern Europe.

"However ugly and monolithic such buildings were after all, they provided homes for people and are worth time and scrutiny as sites of possibility and connection," Ekow writes. "They were places where people gathered to sleep and eat, to argue and to raise families. And they continue to be so. Perhaps this is a modest artistic aim. But it’s also a worthwhile one."

Restricted Areas: abandoned Soviet structures photographed in all their eerie beauty

2016-07-25T20:24:00-04:00

Danila Tkachenko is a Russian photographer whose series Restricted Areas crystallises the tendencies of many artists working on themes of the post-Soviet space. As Calvert 22’s Power and Architecture season demonstrates, there is a healthy interest in the abandoned or neglected buildings that once served as landmarks of Soviet ambition: the rack and ruin of utopia. What sets Tkachenko apart is the unforgiving simplicity of his compositions.

All photos from Danila Tkachenko's series Restricted Areas. For far more of these beauties, head over to Calvert Journal.

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On the rapid privatization of public space in post-communist cities

2016-04-21T15:12:00-04:00

From 1917 to 1991 in the former Russian Empire, and from 1945 to 1989 in the countries it dominated after the war, there was no real private ownership. No landowners, no developers, no “placemakers” - in half of Europe. Did this mean public space was done differently, and are attitudes to it different in those countries? [...] observed more closely, public space here is every bit as complex as it is elsewhere in Europe.

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Owen Hatherley on a Stalinist city's efforts to "de-communize"

2016-03-24T14:34:00-04:00

The largest remaining statue of Lenin in Ukraine was removed from its pedestal in Zaporizhia last week, the latest victim of the Ukrainian ban on Soviet symbols. But how do you go about “de-communising” an almost entirely Stalinist city?

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The New East is where western starchitect dreams come true (or turn into nightmares)

2016-01-07T14:00:00-05:00

The rise of international architecture competitions has given western architects an opportunity to make their mark on eastern Europe and Central Asia [...] Regardless of record-high fees, some of their projects are being cancelled half-way through or take a good decade to build. But the ones that are brought to life often become some of the most recognised works of its authors. For starchitects the miles between eastern Europe and Central Asia is the place where dreams and ambitions come true.

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The Siberian Silicon Valley: the billion-dollar tech hub built on the ruins of a Soviet science city

2016-01-06T14:14:00-05:00

Located in the middle of the Eurasian landmass 3,000km east of Moscow, with a climate that ranges from 30C mosquito-ridden summers to -40C snow-drenched winters, this isn’t the most obvious place for a tech startup hub... The Academpark is not some random outpost in the middle of nowhere, but the latest part of a plan to revive Akademgorodok, the Soviet science town that was established here in 1957, and long since left to languish.

Providing egalitarian habitat for humanity

2015-11-30T05:04:00-05:00

more of them were built in the former Czechoslovakia — in a boom that stretched from 1959 to 1995 — than any place else on what was once Soviet earth. Today, about a third of all Czechs and Slovaks, from all income brackets, still call their panelaks home

Lisa Schwarzbaum traveled to Bratislava to explore its ubiquitous panelaks (aka "panel house"), Soviet era concrete high-rise housing units. The city is also the home of monuments to new capitalism, such as the Aupark shopping center and corporate complexes like Digital Park.

On a related note back in 2014, Hello Czech Republic interviewed architect Michal Kohout regarding possible future(s) for the panelak housing estates.

Owen Hatherley on Kiev's struggle with its Soviet architectural heritage

2015-11-06T17:07:00-05:00

It’s a reminder that decommunisation is a project which might actually be physically impossible to execute in full, which hopefully begs the question — if Soviet Ukraine can't be wished away, what should be conserved, and what should be rejected? [...] The nationalist purging of any traces of socialism from the landscape is a fool’s errand at best, gross historical revisionism at worst.

Related on Archinect:

Moscow skaters reclaiming hidden spaces on top of Soviet-era buildings

2015-09-03T13:28:00-04:00

Moscow's landscape is filled with Soviet-era buildings, many of them shuttered after the privatisation programme of the Nineties. Built for the people's benefit, they are now shut away off from public access, patrolled by security guards, most of whom never dream of exploring the upper floors. But it is the roof of the Moscow pavilion that brings us here. Because of its concave shape the roof looks like a giant skate ramp. My friends and I want to see if it can perform like one too.

Head over to Calvert Journal for many more stunning photos by Pasha Volkov.

In other daring-Russian-kids news on Archinect:

Contemporary wooden architecture celebrates revival in Russia and Ukraine

2015-08-25T15:15:00-04:00

Wood fell out of fashion as a building material in the Soviet Union in favour of concrete. Now, architects across the new east are returning to wood for its many qualities including cost-effectiveness and sustainability. [...] “Urban wooden architecture is something completely different. It is for the people, without any kind of pretensions for the long-term. It has no direct economic benefit, but it promotes unity and healthy communication.”

The topic of wood in the Archinect news:

Haunting beauty: Alexander Gronsky photographs Russia's polluted North

2015-02-10T20:12:00-05:00

Russia’s northern cities are a triumph of will; grand settlements in the middle of snow and darkness where people are dwarfed by the outsized factories they’ve built and helpless next to the industrial waste those factories create. Photographer Alexander Gronsky’s images of Norilsk seem both close to reality and something out of a dream. [...] But at the same time it is a place of heart-wrenching almost Arcadian beauty. A place of pale skies and metallic rivers.

Make sure to also check out the other tales in Calvert Journal's excellent mini-series, "Six stories from the Russian North."

The Calvert Journal asks experts: How to fix Moscow?

2015-01-22T14:42:00-05:00

Big, brash, and full of energy, Moscow is a city that knows how to make an impression. But for all its attractions — world-class museums, clubs and rapidly transforming food scene, to name a few — its downsides are impossible to ignore. [...] This week, The Calvert Journal considers Moscow’s prospects, consulting experts at the Moscow Urban Forum, looking in detail at two projects in the pipeline — VDNKh and Zaryadye Park — and checking out some neighbourhoods that are already going places.

The fantasy castles of Belarus' nouveau riche

2015-01-07T14:13:00-05:00

Driving through the suburbs of Minsk, photographer Vitus Saloshanka, a Belorusian native who moved away in 2001, was struck by the way in which familiar places had changed. “I saw something I’ve never seen in Minsk before,” he says. “Contrast, social differences.” [...] “The houses represent a new sense of self-awareness in Belorusian society as well as a search for a new cultural identity. Who are we? Where are our roots? How is this expressed in the form of architecture?”

Paradise lost? The enduring legacy of a Soviet-era utopian workers’ district

2014-12-04T14:36:00-05:00

Architecture critic Owen Hatherley travelled to Nizhny Novgorod to visit Avtozavod, a purpose-built “workers’ paradise”. The idealism may have gone, but its legacy remains strong

Building sight: pictures of a post-Soviet city in flux

2014-10-16T15:10:00-04:00

In A Model for a City photographer Petr Antonov studies Moscow as the perfect example of a post-Soviet urban environment. The streets, buildings, cars and people captured by his camera are isolated from their everyday purposes and work like visual elements of the cityscape. [...] Antonov successfully captured the change so typical for most post-Soviet cities: newly built high-rises and faceless malls emerging on the horizon, ugly signage and never-ending building works.

Exploring post-Soviet architectural oddities

2013-09-05T15:17:00-04:00

Frank Herfort is fascinated by the uniquely shaped buildings that have seemed to sprout from the ground since the end of the Soviet era. Some of the German photographer's images of these eye-catching structures are published in his new book, "Imperial Pomp: Post-Soviet High-Rise." [...] "I want to show the reputation there, the power," he said. "It's also a signal of the new Russian time."

Editor's Picks #306

2013-03-12T12:30:00-04:00

For the latest edition of the ShowCase feature, Archinect published the Hotel Wiesergut a complex renovation and extension by by GOGL ARCHITEKTEN, located in Hinterglemm/Salzburger Land, Austria. FRaC thought "those cold roofs are hot!"

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Over at the financial times Emma Jacobs chatted with Zaha Hadid an "Unlikely ‘pushover’ who doesn’t play safe". In response Donna Sink commented "I wouldn't work for free, but I'd be happy to be bullied by Zaha for a short term. Like a wilderness survival camp-type vacation" but GiaCarbello replied "Diplomacy aside. Donna Sink. Wow. Your comment is as low as Hadids and Schumachers lame comments regarding their inexcusable behavior. They have an idea in their heads that ‘uncompromising standards’ is the reasons being for such behaviour. Hadid had to fight her way to the top because of a male dominated industry and forgot along the way to find a balance. Self integrity and self respect at lost".

However Apurimac argued "For christ's sa...