Anthony Paletta reviews the recent glut of art volumes devoted to communist architecture in the former Eastern bloc, and includes stunning photos of "sublime sci-fi" Soviet architecture largely unseen in the West.
Paletta looks at some of the incredible architecture captured in five volumes published in the last several years: Taschen's CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed, Hatje Cantz's Socialist Modernism, Monacelli's The Lost Vanguard: Russian Modernist Architecture 1922-1932, Roma's Spomenik, and Jovis's Modernism In-Between: The Mediatory Architectures of Socialist Yugoslavia.
While Paletta's ruminations on the symbolism of architecture built under totalitarian societies once such rule is over deserves attention, the images of the buildings themselves, with their uniformly durable materials and commanding presences, are the star of this essay.
Read the full story: The Sublime Sci-Fi Buildings That Communism Built
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