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Photographer Frédéric Chaubin reveals 90 buildings sited in fourteen former Soviet Republics which express what he considers to be the fourth age of Soviet architecture. His poetic pictures reveal an unexpected rebirth of imagination, an unknown burgeoning that took place from 1970 until 1990. Contrary to the 1920s and 1950s, no “school” or main trend emerges here. These(...)
Photography monographs
September 2010
Cosmic communist constructions photographed
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Photographer Frédéric Chaubin reveals 90 buildings sited in fourteen former Soviet Republics which express what he considers to be the fourth age of Soviet architecture. His poetic pictures reveal an unexpected rebirth of imagination, an unknown burgeoning that took place from 1970 until 1990. Contrary to the 1920s and 1950s, no “school” or main trend emerges here. These buildings represent a chaotic impulse brought about by a decaying system. Their diversity announced the end of the Soviet Union. Taking advantage of the collapsing monolithic structure, the holes in the widening net, architects went far beyond modernism, going back to the roots or freely innovating. Some of the daring ones completed projects that the Constructivists would have dreamt of (Druzhba Sanatorium, Yalta), others expressed their imagination in an expressionist way (Palace of Weddings, Tbilisi). A summer camp, inspired by sketches of a prototype lunar base, lays claim to Suprematist influence (Prometheus youth camp, Bogatyr). Then comes the "speaking architecture" widespread in the last years of the USSR : a crematorium adorned with concrete flames (Crematorium, Kiev), a technological institute with a flying saucer crashed on the roof (Institute of Scientific Research, Kiev), a political center watching you like Big Brother (House of Soviets, Kaliningrad). This puzzle of styles testifies to all the ideological dreams of the period, from the obsession with the cosmos to the rebirth of identity. It also outlines the geography of the USSR, showing how local influences made their exotic twists before the country was brought to its end.
Photography monographs
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With the two volumes of Las grandes esperanzas (1976-1992), published in Spanish, Luis Fernández-Galiano looks back on a troubled and fertile era that in Spain began with the Transition to democracy and in the world saw the rise of conservative politics with Reagan and Thatcher at the helm, to last until the historic rupture that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and(...)
Empenos Sostenibles - Las Grandes Esperanzas 1976-1984
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With the two volumes of Las grandes esperanzas (1976-1992), published in Spanish, Luis Fernández-Galiano looks back on a troubled and fertile era that in Spain began with the Transition to democracy and in the world saw the rise of conservative politics with Reagan and Thatcher at the helm, to last until the historic rupture that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the USSR. The first tome, Empeños sostenibles (1976-1984), dissects a period marked by the economic recession and ecological awakening brought on by the petroleum shocks that rocked the planet, matters addressed by two dozen texts on technological alternatives, sustainable construction, and the relationship between architecture and energy.
Contemporary Architecture
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Preservation is ordinarily reserved for architecture that is unique. So how would we go about preserving buildings that are utterly generic? Such is the case with Belyayevo, an ordinary residential district in Moscow. Belyayevo is a typical microrayon – the standardised neighbourhood system that successive Soviet regimes laid out across the USSR in what was the most(...)
January 2016
Belyayevo forever: a Soviet microrayon on its way to the UNESCO list
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Preservation is ordinarily reserved for architecture that is unique. So how would we go about preserving buildings that are utterly generic? Such is the case with Belyayevo, an ordinary residential district in Moscow. Belyayevo is a typical microrayon – the standardised neighbourhood system that successive Soviet regimes laid out across the USSR in what was the most expansive programme of industrialised construction the world has ever seen. Belyayevo’s buildings, and the desolate spaces between them, are identical to thousands of others, but is it different? Kuba Snopek argues that it is. Home to many of the artists of the Moscow Conceptualism school, the place was written into the character of their art. Snopek argues that this intangible heritage is the key to saving a neighbourhood many feel has had its day. But as Russia comes to terms with ist Soviet legacy, will such arguments fall on deaf ears?