Architecture inspired by space
Images of the future in late Soviet architecture
Illustrations and maps
illustrations
49 USD
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The book consists of a collection of nearly 150 photographs, sketches, drawings and models of space-age buildings across Russia and former Soviet republics, from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad and from St Petersburg to Havana. The buildings have one characteristic in common: each is a representative of the “cosmic architecture” that emerged in Russia after WWII and which coincided with the “golden age” of Russian space exploration, which began in the late 1950s.
The buildings of the post-war period in the USSR, when the primary aim was to construct inexpensive residential buildings for the Soviet people rather than aesthetic marvels, are generally believed to be of little architectural interest, being associated with unimaginative housing projects and soulless development. Yet these are stereotypes that leave in the shadows a whole stratum of Soviet architecture which enjoyed creative freedom and expressed ideas of experiment and innovation.
The subject of outer space was one of the main cultural references throughout late Soviet culture, with ideas about the universal power of the Soviet Union reflected in literature, movies, music and architecture. It was architecture, however, more than any other discipline, which brought together art, engineering and science, and where society’s most forward-looking impulses found their fullest expression.
