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Built in 1969, Metsamor, Armenia (then the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic), was intended as a settlement for employees of a nearby nuclear power plant to be completed between 1976 and 1980. But the power plant would never realize the ambitions of its creators. In 1988, an earthquake caused the facility to be shut down. In 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union(...)
Utopia and collapse: rethinking Metsamor, the Armenian atomic city
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Built in 1969, Metsamor, Armenia (then the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic), was intended as a settlement for employees of a nearby nuclear power plant to be completed between 1976 and 1980. But the power plant would never realize the ambitions of its creators. In 1988, an earthquake caused the facility to be shut down. In 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted a complete construction freeze. The symbol of the dream of a technologically advanced nation, Metsamor remained incomplete and fell into decay undiminished by the recommissioning of the power plant in 1995. "Utopia and Collapse" documents the rise and fall of Metsamor.
Architectural Theory
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Despite attempts to promote the aesthetics of ruins in Russia - from Catherine the Great's construction of fake ruins in imperial parks to Josef Brodsky's elegiac meditations - ruins have never achieved the status they enjoy in Western Europe. While the Soviet Union was notorious for leveling churches, post-Soviet Russia has only intensified the practice of massive(...)
Architecture of oblivion : ruins and historical consciousness in modern Russia
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Despite attempts to promote the aesthetics of ruins in Russia - from Catherine the Great's construction of fake ruins in imperial parks to Josef Brodsky's elegiac meditations - ruins have never achieved the status they enjoy in Western Europe. While the Soviet Union was notorious for leveling churches, post-Soviet Russia has only intensified the practice of massive destruction and reconstruction. "Architecture of Oblivion "examines the role of ruins in the development of Russia's historical consciousness from the 18th century to the present. This original work from a leading authority on the subject will appeal to historians of Russian culture and thought, literature and art scholars, and general readers interested in ruins.
Architectural Theory
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The Soviet Union was founded on a fairytale. It was built on 20th-century magic called 'the planned economy', which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the penny-pinching lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. "Red Plenty" is about that moment in(...)
Red plenty: inside the fifties' soviet dream
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The Soviet Union was founded on a fairytale. It was built on 20th-century magic called 'the planned economy', which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the penny-pinching lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. "Red Plenty" is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan, every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche and sputniks would lead the way to the stars. And it's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending.
Architecture and the imaginary
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The Viipuri Library has international reputation as a seminal early work of Alvar Aalto, and is a key example of modern architecture. Simultaneously, the meanings associated with it stem from its geopolitical location: the library was originally opened to the Finnish city of Viipuri, but at the end of the World War II the city was annexed to the Soviet Union. Since 1991(...)
The building that disappeared: the Viipuri library by Alvar Aalto
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The Viipuri Library has international reputation as a seminal early work of Alvar Aalto, and is a key example of modern architecture. Simultaneously, the meanings associated with it stem from its geopolitical location: the library was originally opened to the Finnish city of Viipuri, but at the end of the World War II the city was annexed to the Soviet Union. Since 1991 the building has been located in modern day Russia. The title of the book reflects the widely spread misunderstanding that the Library has been lost at war, and future generations can learn about it only from drawings and images. This work unfolds its 'life’ in four thematic chapters, each presenting a totally different perspective to what this building is all about: First, the context of the city of Viipuri, second, the Library as a work of Aalto, third, the time period of the Second World War and the Soviet Union, and last, the international restoration project.
Architecture Monographs
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Urbanism in dictatorship has been discussed from the national view only, but urbanism has always been an instrument to gain recognition by other states. The book analyses dictatorship in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Germany and the Soviet Union, discusses the current state of research, and presents new research. An overall view helps to understand the characteristics of each(...)
Urbanism and dictatorship: a european perspective
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Urbanism in dictatorship has been discussed from the national view only, but urbanism has always been an instrument to gain recognition by other states. The book analyses dictatorship in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Germany and the Soviet Union, discusses the current state of research, and presents new research. An overall view helps to understand the characteristics of each country and prevents to oversimplify the understanding of dictatorship.
Urban Theory
L'inachevé
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Depuis l’effondrement de l’Union soviétique en 1991, l’Arménie transite entre deux états, évoluant en marge, avec sa propre temporalité. Elle demeure en dehors du flux des images et c’est précisément ce vide, cette part manquante, qu’interroge le photographe Julien Lombardi, lui-même d’origine arménienne. La mémoire défaillante de cette jeune république se superpose à la(...)
L'inachevé
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Depuis l’effondrement de l’Union soviétique en 1991, l’Arménie transite entre deux états, évoluant en marge, avec sa propre temporalité. Elle demeure en dehors du flux des images et c’est précisément ce vide, cette part manquante, qu’interroge le photographe Julien Lombardi, lui-même d’origine arménienne. La mémoire défaillante de cette jeune république se superpose à la sienne, tronquée par le déplacement et l’exil de la diaspora. Comment documenter ce qui n’existe plus ou n’est pas encore advenu ? Ces photographies sont autant de décors et d’espaces fragmentés susceptibles de devenir la toile de fond d’actions à venir. Comme le territoire qui les inspire, elles sont le réceptacle d’une nouvelle histoire à écrire, suggérant que l’inachevé est le théâtre d’une multitude de possibles.
Photography monographs
Halte à la surchauffe!
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En 1961, quand le président Kennedy a lancé le projet d’envoyer des astronautes américains sur la Lune dans un délai de dix ans, on ne savait trop comment un tel objectif pourrait être atteint. L’essentiel, c’était de damer le pion à l’Union soviétique. Avec beaucoup d’argent, d’énergie et de créativité, les États-Unis ont fini par réussir cet exploit scientifique, avec(...)
Environment and environmental theory
September 2017
Halte à la surchauffe!
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En 1961, quand le président Kennedy a lancé le projet d’envoyer des astronautes américains sur la Lune dans un délai de dix ans, on ne savait trop comment un tel objectif pourrait être atteint. L’essentiel, c’était de damer le pion à l’Union soviétique. Avec beaucoup d’argent, d’énergie et de créativité, les États-Unis ont fini par réussir cet exploit scientifique, avec des retombées auxquelles nul ne se serait attendu. Encore aujourd’hui, une part disproportionnée des prix Nobel de sciences revient chaque année à des Américains, en grande partie parce que leur pays a décidé de se rendre sur la Lune avant les Russes voilà plus d’un demi-siècle. Décider de relever le défi du changement climatique entraînera toutes sortes de retombées bénéfiques inattendues. C’est ce que l’histoire nous apprend.
Environment and environmental theory
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Covering the first decades of the Soviet Union, from the Civil War to the end of Stalin's Second Five-Year Plan in the 1930s, the graphic works in this volume provide a remarkable overview of design during one of this century's most politically turbulent and artistically active periods. This book is the catalogue to an exhibition at Columbia University's Miriam(...)
Building the collective : Soviet graphic design 1917-1937
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Covering the first decades of the Soviet Union, from the Civil War to the end of Stalin's Second Five-Year Plan in the 1930s, the graphic works in this volume provide a remarkable overview of design during one of this century's most politically turbulent and artistically active periods. This book is the catalogue to an exhibition at Columbia University's Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery.
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April 1996, New York
Graphic Design and Typography
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The road to Oxiana
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In 1933, the delightfully eccentric travel writer Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana, near the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. The Road to Oxiana serves as a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travelers, and a nostalgic(...)
The road to Oxiana
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In 1933, the delightfully eccentric travel writer Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana, near the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. The Road to Oxiana serves as a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travelers, and a nostalgic look back at a more innocent time.
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September 2007
Transportation, Tourism, Migration
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In this Eurasian post-Soviet space, we try to find the continuities with Communism - if there are any - and the remnants of revolutions both distant and recent. Instead of a wistful journey through ruins, this intends to be an engaged travelogue, a subjective, personal Marxist Humanist guidebook to somewhere that actually exists, but which is constantly haunted by what it(...)
The adventures of Owen Hatherley In the post-soviet space
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In this Eurasian post-Soviet space, we try to find the continuities with Communism - if there are any - and the remnants of revolutions both distant and recent. Instead of a wistful journey through ruins, this intends to be an engaged travelogue, a subjective, personal Marxist Humanist guidebook to somewhere that actually exists, but which is constantly haunted by what it didn't become, whether a real Communist utopia or a successful or fair capitalism. In the course of this transcontinental account of what used to be the Soviet Union and is now a patchwork of EU democracies, neoliberal dictatorships and Soviet nostalgic enclaves (often found in the same countries) we might just find the outlines of a way of building cities that is a powerful alternative, both in the past and present.
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