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Titre:
London estates: Modernist council housing 1946-1981

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The UK’s landmark Housing Act of 1919 catalyzed the rapid development of state-owned public housing in planned council estates. Construction of these estates has largely ceased since the Thatcherist austerity policies of the ’80s. Fast-forward a few decades and the estates have met various fates; some council estates are now considered notorious, while others are arguably the most desirable places to live in London. This book features 275 estates from the City and every borough. A huge range of architectural styles are represented: from prefabricated and “self-built” schemes to Modernist and Brutalist designs, including over 30 protected historic buildings. There are designs from a broad range of architects, including Denys Lasdun, Erno Goldfinger, Basil Spence and many more. Kate Macintosh’s ziggurat-inspired Dawson’s Heights (1972) shares space with Chamberlin, Powell & Bon’s primary-colored tower Golden Lane Estate (1962). From the paltry to the posh, each estate possesses a fascinating history, and is emblematic of a distinct vision of urban planning.

Titre:
Brutal bloc postcards

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Brutal concrete hotels, futurist TV towers, heroic statues of workers—this collection of Soviet-era postcards documents the uncompromising landscape of the Eastern Bloc through its buildings and monuments. These are interspersed with quotes from prominent figures of the time, which both support and confound the ideologies presented in the images. In contrast to the photographs of a ruined and abandoned Soviet empire we are accustomed to seeing today, the scenes depicted here publicize the bright future of communism: social housing blocks, palaces of culture and monuments to comradeship. Dating from the 1960s to the 1980s, they offer a nostalgic yet revealing insight into social and architectural values of the time, acting as a window through which we can examine cars, people and, of course, buildings. These postcards, sanctioned by the authorities, were intended to show the world what living in communism looked like.

Titre:
Drawings from the Gulag

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Drawings from the Gulag consists of 130 drawings by Danzig Baldaev describing the history, horror and peculiarities of the Gulag system from its inception in 1918. With every vignette, Baldaev brings the characters he depicts to vivid life: from the lowest "zek" (inmate) to the most violent tattooed "vor" (thief), all the practices and inhabitants of the Gulag system are depicted here in incredible and often shocking detail. In documenting the attitude of the authorities to those imprisoned, and the transformation of these citizens into survivors or victims of the Gulag system, this graphic novel vividly depicts methods of torture and mass murder undertaken by the administration, as well as the atrocities committed by criminals upon their fellow inmates.

Titre:
Soviet bus stops

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Photographer Christopher Herwig first noticed the unusual architecture of Soviet-era bus stops during a 2002 long-distance bike ride from London to St. Petersburg. Challenging himself to take one good photograph every hour, Herwig began to notice surprisingly designed bus stops on otherwise deserted stretches of road. Twelve years later, Herwig had covered more than 18,000 miles in 14 countries of the former Soviet Union, traveling by car, bike, bus and taxi to hunt down and document these bus stops. The local bus stop proved to be fertile ground for local artistic experimentation in the Soviet period, and was built seemingly without design restrictions or budgetary concerns. The result is an astonishing variety of styles and types across the region, from the strictest Brutalism to exuberant whimsy.

Titre:
Spomenik monument database

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Spomenik—the Serbo-Croat/Slovenian word for monument—refers to the memorials built in Tito's Republic of Yugoslavia from the 1960s to the 1980s, marking the horror of the occupation and the defeat of Axis forces during World War II. Hundreds were built across the country, from coastal resorts to remote mountains. Through these imaginative forms of concrete and steel, a classless, forward-looking socialist society, free of ethnic tensions, was envisaged. Instead of looking to the ideologically aligned Soviet Union for artistic inspiration, Tito turned to the West and works of abstract expressionism and minimalism. This allowed Yugoslavia to develop its own distinct identity through the monuments, turning them into political tools, articulating Tito's personal vision of a new tomorrow.

Titre:
Arseniy Kotov: Soviet cities: labour, life and leisure

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In recent years Russian cities have visibly changed. The architectural heritage of the Soviet period has not been fully acknowledged. As a result many unique modernist buildings have been destroyed or changed beyond recognition. Russian photographer Arseniy Kotov intends to document these buildings and their surroundings before they are lost forever. He likes to take pictures in winter, during the 'blue hour,' which occurs immediately after sunset or just before sunrise. At this time, the warm yellow colors inside apartment-block windows contrast with the twilight gloom outside. To Kotov, this atmosphere reflects the Soviet period of his imagination. His impression of this time is unashamedly idealistic: he envisages a great civilization, built on a fair society, which hopes to explore nature and conquer space. From the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the desert steppes of Kazakhstan to the grim monolithic high-rise dormitory blocks of inner-city Volgograd, Kotov captures the essence of the post-Soviet world.

Titre:
Dacha: the soviet country cottage

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A dacha is a country house, made of wood, used by Soviet citizens to escape the rigors of the city for a rural idyll. Widespread in the countries of the former USSR, this important cultural and architectural form has been largely ignored academically. In ''Dacha'', Fyodor Savintsev documents this particularly Russian phenomenon. His photographs constitute a unique record of a rapidly vanishing fairy-tale wooden world. The word ''dacha'' has been used to describe constructions ranging from grand imperial villas to small sheds. Originally bestowed by the Tsar to reward courtiers, this custom continued following the revolution, with Soviet cooperatives building dachas for their members. Supposedly for the benefit of laborers, in reality they were destined for those favored by the State, including famous writers, architects and artists from Pasternak to Prokofiev. The fall of the Soviet Union accelerated their use, as economic uncertainty forced city dwellers toward self-sufficiency. The dacha tradition has survived revolution, war and the collapse of Communism, becoming an integral part of life in the process. Using contemporary photographs to showcase these uniquely individual buildings for the first time, alongside an introduction explaining their historical and cultural context, Dacha is the only publication of its kind.

Titre:
Soviet Asia: Soviet modernist architecture in Central Asia

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"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. Gray 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.

Titre:
CCCP cookbook

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The stories and recipes contained in the CCCP Cook Book reflect its turbulent times: from basic subsistence meals consumed by the average citizen (like okroshka, a cold soup made with the fermented beverage kvass) to extravagant banquets held by the political elite (suckling pig with buckwheat), with a scattering of classics (beef stroganoff) in between. Each recipe is introduced with a historical story or anecdote from the period, and illustrated using images sourced from original Soviet recipe books collected by the authors, food historians Olga and Pavel Syutkin.

Titre:
Brutalist Italy: Concrete architecture from the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea

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What makes Italian Brutalist buildings different to their counterparts in other countries? Containing over 140 exclusive photographs-- ranging from private homes to churches and cemeteries via football stadiums-- across every region of the country, ''Brutalist Italy'' is the first publication to focus entirely on this subject. Architectural photographers Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego (authors of Soviet Asia) have spent the past five years traveling over 12,000 miles documenting the monumental concrete structures of their native country. Brutalism-- with its minimalist aesthetic, favoring raw materials and structural elements over decorative design-- has a complex relationship with Italian history. After World War II, Italian architects were keen to distance themselves from fascism, without rejecting the architectural modernism that had flourished during that era. They developed a form of contemporary architecture that engaged with traditional methods and materials, drawing on uncontaminated historical references. This plurality of pasts assimilated into new constructions is a recurring feature of the country’s Brutalist buildings, imparting to them a unique identity. From the imposing social housing of Le Vele di Scampia to the celestial Our Lady of Tears Sanctuary, Syracuse, ''Brutalist Italy'' collects the most compelling examples of this extraordinary architecture for the first time in a single volume.