Architecture and Revolution: Contemporary Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe

by Leach,Neil; Leach,Neil

• ISBN13: 9780415139151
• ISBN10: 0415139155
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-04-16
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In 1989 Europe witnessed some of the most dramatic events of the twentieth century, with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. These original essays address the problems and questions architects, planners and politicians in Central and Eastern Europe have had to consider in formulating a new architecture for a new Europe. The buildings that have been inherited from the communist era bring with them a range of problems, such as environmentally inadequate or structurally unsound architecture, or others, that have been designed to serve a defunct social program. This collection of essays by internationally renowned architects, philosophers and cultural theorists represent a snapshot of informed opinion on these issues.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Notes on contributors	xi
Acknowledgements	xv
Introduction	1	(12)
PART I dHistorical perspectives
Sources of a radical mission in the early Soviet profession: Alexei Gan and the Moscow Anarchists	13	(25)
Catherine Cooke
The Vesnins' Palace of Labour: the role of practice in materialising the revolutionary architecture	38	(15)
Catherine Cooke
Notes for a manifesto	53	(9)
Jonathan Charley
A postmodern critic's kit for interpreting socialist realism	62	(7)
Augustin Ioan
PART II Architecture and change
History lessons	69	(12)
Fredric Jameson
Policing the body: Descartes and the architecture of change	81	(11)
Andrew Benjamin
The state as a work of art: the trauma of Ceasescu's Disneyland	92	(20)
Renata Salecl
Architecture or revolution?	112	(15)
Neil Leach
PART III Strategies for a new Europe
Traces of the unborn	127	(3)
Daniel Libeskind
Resisting the erasure of history: Daniel Libeskind interviewed by Anne Wagner	130	(9)
The humanity of architecture	139	(7)
Dalibor Vesely
Disjunctions	146	(4)
Bernard Tschumi
The dark side of the domus: the redomestication of Central and Eastern Europe	150	(13)
Neil Leach
Architecture in a post-totalitarian society: round-table discussion conducted by Bart Goldhoorn	163	(14)
PART IV The Romanian question
Totalitarian city: Bucharest 1980--9, semio-clinical files	177	(11)
Constantin Petcu
The People's House, or the voluptuous violence of an architectural paradox	188	(8)
Doina Petrescu
Utopia 1988, Romania; Post-Utopia 1995, Romania	196	(4)
Dorin Stefan
Rediscovering Romania	200	(9)
Ioana Sandi
PART V Tombs and monuments
Berlin 1961--89: the bridal chamber	209	(10)
Neil Leach
Reflections on disgraced monuments	219	(9)
Laura Mulvey
Attracks on the castle	228	(6)
Helene Cixous
Index	234