Before and after: metamorphoses of Soviet architecture

Soviet architecture is notorious for its unappealing, monotonous appearance. The standardized multi-apartment blocks were designed for a classless society of workers, and the architecture was as featureless and unindividualistic as the presumed ideal communist citizen was envisioned to be – a perfect cog in the machine. Moreover, beautifications and architectural details of all sorts were declared remnants of the bourgeoise past and found to be unfit in the society of comrades.

After the fall of the USSR, countries of the Eastern bloc developed their own approaches to renovating or redesigning its socialist architecture. Ukraine is only starting to tread this path. Blogger Alex Shutyuk gathered some examples of transformations of Soviet (and not only) architecture in different countries. We offer a selection of them.

Bratislava, Slovakia

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Talinn, Estonia

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Krakow, Poland

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Warsaw, Poland

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Lodz, Poland

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Bulgaria

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Berlin, Germany

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Freiburg, Germany

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Hamburg, Germany

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Saragosa, Spain

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Renn, France

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Romania

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Kyiv, Ukraine

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Vinnytsia, Ukraine

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Rivne, Ukraine

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