Last Remnants of the Soviet Union...

eilzel wrote: Sorry Victor I don't understand? Do you think they should go

eilzel wrote:

These are just two of the impressive buildings in an upcoming book of photography entitled 'Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed'

The other images I have seen that will feature are equally as striking and fantastic. Though they do seem almost grim at first, it only took me moments to see a true beauty in these buildings, they really are unique.

Yet the building on the left, and others also photographed, are under threat of demolition! But is this right? Though they may be a stark reminder of Soviet Oppression they are history the very same as Auschwitz Death Camp and the Colloseum in Rome (though granted the latter has an altogether more obvious beauty).

So should architectural statements like these be saved? Or should the last remnants of a dreary repressive machine be wiped from history forever?

Hi Eilzel
just found this thread on a lazy Sunday trawling lol

I haven't heard of that book, I'm going to try and get hold of it, thanks for the heads up! Of course these building should be preserved...they are fantastic pieces of architecture as well as culturally important icons. There's an awful lot of excellent modernist architecture from the 20s and 30s that's already been lost in the former Soviet Union since the fall of the Iron Curtain, but fortunately there is a movement there now to preserve what they can from what was actually a golden age of Russian architecture that was not just architectural window dressing, but socially/politically integrated as well.

As such I'd argue strongly that they were't examples of a repressive regime; the first fifteen or so years of the Soviet Union were totally different from the grey oppression of later decades; it was full of vigour and promise and it's architecture was designed to reflect that, looking forward and aiming to provide new, healhier and egalitarian form for living and working in. Even some of the latter Soviet architecture was thus inspired and it wasn't all grey concrete slabs. It's architecture wasn't seen as merely a 'corporate' exercise in astheticism and profit making, but one fully integrated with improving people's lives, which is what architecture should be all about and it inspired many major architects in the West such as Le Corbusier,the Bauhaus etc.

Another brilliant book is 'The Lost Vanguard- Russian Modernist Architecture 1922-1932' full of photogaphy by Richard Pare. many of the buildings in it are under threat or have already,sadly, dissapeared. It's wonderful but a bit expensive; put it on your Amazon wish list and someone might get it for Christmas lol

Skemster wrote:


Hi Eilzel
just found this thread on a lazy Sunday trawling lol

I haven't heard of that book, I'm going to try and get hold of it, thanks for the heads up! Of course these building should be preserved...they are fantastic pieces of architecture as well as culturally important icons. There's an awful lot of excellent modernist architecture from the 20s and 30s that's already been lost in the former Soviet Union since the fall of the Iron Curtain but fortunately there is a movement there now to preserve what they can from what was actually a golden age of Russian architecture that not just architectural window dressing, but socially/politically integrated as well. Great stuff albeit admittedly an aquired taste.

Another brilliant book is 'The Lost Vanguard- Russian Modernist Architecture 1922-1932' full of photogaphy by Richard Pare. It's wonderful but a bit expensive; put it on your Amazon wish list and someone might get it for Christmas lol