While Constructivism and Stalinist architecture are familiar to a specialist audience, knowledge of postwar Soviet Modernism in architecture is very limited. Much of the former Eastern Bloc's architecture is regarded as monotonous and uninteresting. Yet

Moscow: A Guide to Soviet Modernist Architecture 1955-1991 provides descriptions of almost 100 buildings from the most underrated period of Soviet architecture. This is the first guide to bring together the architecture made during the three decades between Khrushchev and Gorbachev, from the naive modernism of the "thaw" of the late 1950s through postmodernism. Buildings include the Palace of Youth, the Rossiya cinema, the Pioneer Palace, the Ostankino TV Tower, the TASS headquarters, the "golden brains" of the Academy of Sciences and less well-known structures such as the House of New Life and the Lenin Komsomol Automobile Plant Museum. The authors situate Moscow's postwar architecture within the historical and political context of the Soviet Union, while also referencing developments in international architecture of the period.

To nonspecialists outside Eastern Europe, Soviet architecture conjures up vast, gray cityscapes of monotonous Brutalistbuildings, all created with utility rather than style in mind. This widely held impression glosses over the many stunning works created during the Soviet era and the diversity of architecture throughout the Soviet region. Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 seeks to correct pervasive opinions on Soviet architecture by exploring and documenting buildings throughout the former Eastern Bloc. Poor construction techniques and a lack of funding for conservation mean that these buildings are rapidly decaying. The Vienna Centre of Architecture (Az W)is creating a comprehensive inventory of the notable architecture from fourteen different former Soviet republics. The volume begins with an introduction to the period and an overview of the relationship between Moscow and the other city centers found in the region. The book is then organized geographically into four chapters: the Baltic States, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Each country is represented by a factsheet, which gives a brief account of its national history, a research and travel report by a member of Az W, and a scholarly essay by a local expert. More than four hundred buildings are represented in over eight hundred images, making Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 impressively complete and stunningly illustrated. Essays outside the country profiles cover topics such as Soviet urban planning and typologies found throughout these regions. To nonspecialists outside Eastern Europe, Soviet architecture conjures up vast, gray cityscapes of monotonous Brutalistbuildings, all created with utility rather than style in mind. This widely held impression glosses over the many stunning works created during the Soviet era and the diversity of architecture throughout the Soviet region. Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 seeks to correct pervasive opinions on Soviet architecture by exploring and documenting buildings throughout the former Eastern Bloc. Poor construction techniques and a lack of funding for conservation mean that these buildings are rapidly decaying. The Vienna Centre of Architecture (Az W)is creating a comprehensive inventory of the notable architecture from fourteen different former Soviet republics. The volume begins with an introduction to the period and an overview of the relationship between Moscow and the other city centers found in the region. The book is then organized geographically into four chapters: the Baltic States, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Each country is represented by a factsheet, which gives a brief account of its national history, a research and travel report by a member of Az W, and a scholarly essay by a local expert. More than four hundred buildings are represented in over eight hundred images, making Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 impressively complete and stunningly illustrated. Essays outside the country profiles cover topics such as Soviet urban planning and typologies found throughout these regions. To nonspecialists outside Eastern Europe, Soviet architecture conjures up vast, gray cityscapes of monotonous Brutalistbuildings, all created with utility rather than style in mind. This widely held impression glosses over the many stunning works created during the Soviet era and the diversity of architecture throughout the Soviet region. Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 seeks to correct pervasive opinions on Soviet architecture by exploring and documenting buildings throughout the former Eastern Bloc. Poor construction techniques and a lack of funding for conservation mean that these buildings are rapidly decaying. The Vienna Centre of Architecture (Az W)is creating a comprehensive inventory of the notable architecture from fourteen different former Soviet republics. The volume begins with an introduction to the period and an overview of the relationship between Moscow and the other city centers found in the region. The book is then organized geographically into four chapters: the Baltic States, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Each country is represented by a factsheet, which gives a brief account of its national history, a research and travel report by a member of Az W, and a scholarly essay by a local expert. More than four hundred buildings are represented in over eight hundred images, making Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 impressively complete and stunningly illustrated. Essays outside the country profiles cover topics such as Soviet urban planning and typologies found throughout these regions. To nonspecialists outside Eastern Europe, Soviet architecture conjures up vast, gray cityscapes of monotonous Brutalistbuildings, all created with utility rather than style in mind. This widely held impression glosses over the many stunning works created during the Soviet era and the diversity of architecture throughout the Soviet region. Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 seeks to correct pervasive opinions on Soviet architecture by exploring and documenting buildings throughout the former Eastern Bloc. Poor construction techniques and a lack of funding for conservation mean that these buildings are rapidly decaying. The Vienna Centre of Architecture (Az W)is creating a comprehensive inventory of the notable architecture from fourteen different former Soviet republics. The volume begins with an introduction to the period and an overview of the relationship between Moscow and the other city centers found in the region. The book is then organized geographically into four chapters: the Baltic States, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Each country is represented by a factsheet, which gives a brief account of its national history, a research and travel report by a member of Az W, and a scholarly essay by a local expert. More than four hundred buildings are represented in over eight hundred images, making Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 impressively complete and stunningly illustrated. Essays outside the country profiles cover topics such as Soviet urban planning and typologies found throughout these regions. To nonspecialists outside Eastern Europe, Soviet architecture conjures up vast, gray cityscapes of monotonous Brutalistbuildings, all created with utility rather than style in mind. This widely held impression glosses over the many stunning works created during the Soviet era and the diversity of architecture throughout the Soviet region. Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 seeks to correct pervasive opinions on Soviet architecture by exploring and documenting buildings throughout the former Eastern Bloc. Poor construction techniques and a lack of funding for conservation mean that these buildings are rapidly decaying. The Vienna Centre of Architecture (Az W)is creating a comprehensive inventory of the notable architecture from fourteen different former Soviet republics. The volume begins with an introduction to the period and an overview of the relationship between Moscow and the other city centers found in the region. The book is then organized geographically into four chapters: the Baltic States, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Each country is represented by a factsheet, which gives a brief account of its national history, a research and travel report by a member of Az W, and a scholarly essay by a local expert.

A fantastic collection of Soviet Asian architecture, many photographed here for the first time Soviet Asia explores the Soviet modernist architecture of Central Asia. Italian photographers Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego crossed the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, documenting buildings constructed from the 1950s until the fall of the USSR. The resulting images showcase the majestic, largely unknown, modernist buildings of the region. Museums, housing complexes, universities, circuses, ritual palaces - all were constructed using a composite aesthetic. Influenced by Persian and Islamic architecture, pattern and mosaic motifs articulated a connection with Central Asia. Grey concrete slabs were juxtaposed with colourful tiling and rectilinear shapes broken by ornate curved forms: the brutal designs normally associated with Soviet-era architecture were reconstructed with Eastern characteristics. Many of the buildings shown in Soviet Asia are recorded here for the first time, making this book an important document, as despite the recent revival of interest in Brutalist and Modernist architecture, a number of them remain under threat of demolition. The publication includes two contextual essays, one by Alessandro De Magistris (architect and History of Architecture professor, University of Milan, contributor to the book Vertical Moscow) and the other by Marco Buttino (Modern and Urban History professor, University of Turin, specializing in the history of social change in the USSR).

This open access book focuses on the formation and later socio-spatial trajectories of large housing estates in the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It also explores claims that a distinctly “westward-looking orientation” in their design produced housing estates that were superior in design to those produced elsewhere in the Soviet Union (between 1944 and 1991, Estonia was a member republic of the USSR). The first two parts of the book provide contextual material to help readers understand the vision behind housing estates in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. These sections present the background of housing estates in the Baltic Republics as well as challenges and debates concerning their formation, evolution, and present condition and importance. Subsequent parts of the book consist of: demographic analyses of the socioeconomic characteristics and ethnicity of housing estate residents (past and present) in the three Baltic capital cities, case studies of people and places related to housing estates in the Baltic countries, and chapters exploring relevant special topics and themes. This book will be of interest to students, scholars, and advocates interested in understanding the past, present, and future importance of housing estates in the Baltic countries.