Architecture and Revolution Contemporary Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe

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.

Architecture and Revolution explores the consequences of the 1989 revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe from an architectural perspective. It presents new writings from a team of renowned architects, philosophers and cultural theorists from both the East and the West. They explore the questions over the built environment that now face architects, planners and politicians in the region. They examine the problems of buildings inherited from the communist era: some are environmentally inadequate, many were designed to serve a now redundant social programme and others carry the stigma of association with previous regimes. Contributors include: Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, Laura Mulvey, Helene Cixous, Andrew Benjamin and Frederic Jameson.

bPart I. Historical Perspectives. 1. Sources of a Radical Mission in the Early Soviet Profession: Alexei Gan and the Moscow Anarchists. 2. The Vesnin's Palace of Labour: the Role of Practice in Materialising the Revolutionary. 3. Notes for a Manifesto. A Postmodern Critic's Kit for Interpreting Socialist. Part II. Architecture and Change. 5. History Lessons - Policing the Body: Descartes and the Architecture of Change. 7. The State as a Work of Art: the Trauma of Ceausescu's Disneyland - 8. Architecture or Revolution? Part III. Strategies for a New Europe. 9. Traces of the Unborn. Resisting the Erasure of History: Daniel Libeskind Interviewed by Anne Wagner. 11. The Humanity of Architecture. 12. Disjunctions. 13. The Dark Side of the Domus: The Redomestication of Central and Eastern Europe. 14. Architecture in a Post-Totalitarian Society: Round-Table Discussion Conducted by Bart Goldhoorn. Part IV. The Romanian Question. 15. Totalitarian city: Bucharest 1980-9, Semio-Clinical Files. 16. The People's House, or the Voluptuous Violence of an Architectural Paradox.17. Utopia 1988, Romania; Post-Utopia 1995, Romania. 18. Rediscovering Romania. Part V. Tombs and Monuments. 19. Berlin 1961-89: The Bridal Chamber. Reflections on Disgraced Monuments. 21. Attacks on the Castle. Index.