Soviet Architecture - Cold War DOCUMENTARY

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  • čas přidán 9. 05. 2023
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    Our historical documentary series on the history of the Cold War continues with a video on the Soviet Architecture.
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    #ColdWar #Soviet #Architecture

Komentáře • 360

  • @danilstepanchenko9296
    @danilstepanchenko9296 Před rokem +216

    I'm from the city of Yekaterinburg that was mentioned in the video
    My city was mostly wooden before the 1930s and 1960s - these periods are two waves of mass constructions. Yekaterinburg isn't that big (especially comparing it to Moscow), so you can actually see different styles of architecture within city-centre. And even though they may look the same, soviet buildings are quite unique with unique philosophy behind them. Constructivist buildings of 1930s embrace simple geometrical design and emphasis for creating a community, which corresponds with the idea of creating a "new soviet man". Сталинки, that appeared in late 30s and 40s, were inhabited by the soviet elite at the time - engineers and communist party officials - this is why they are bigger, have more decorations, the apartments have high ceilings, etc. Хрущевки (sorry, this name is much easier to write in russian) aime to provide cheap PRIVATE apartments for families to solve housing problem. Брежневки, that were built in the 1970-1980s, have more floors, wider apartments and are in general more comfortable - and the Брежнев-era in Russia is often considered the period of social stability and prosperity.
    So, my friends, soviet architecture is much more complex that you could have thought

    • @aoilpe
      @aoilpe Před rokem +2

      I have got a glimpse of your city and thought “ a very nice city in a nice place “ , just a pity not a lot of the wooden houses remain in the city, We were invited to visit one of them- beautiful!
      I’m living in the country the descendants of the founders have been send to… Salut
      And I like the movies of Jacques Tati(scheff)

    • @ericoberlies7537
      @ericoberlies7537 Před 11 měsíci

      There was that one old house - that once belonged to the merchant Ipatiev - which was torn down.

    • @aoilpe
      @aoilpe Před 11 měsíci +1

      @@ericoberlies7537
      Hahaha….
      Instead you got a cathedral !!!
      No, on the other riverbank…

    • @piccalillipit9211
      @piccalillipit9211 Před 8 měsíci +1

      IVE LIVED IN BULGARIA for 14 years now and I now live in a "commi block" - my attitude has completely changed towards the architecture and indeed the commi blocks
      , they are a great solution to housing needs and avoided the problems of the tower blocks in the UK.

    • @rdallas81
      @rdallas81 Před 7 měsíci

      ​@@piccalillipit9211Nice

  • @noobster4779
    @noobster4779 Před rokem +211

    Fun fact: There are more "communist blocks" in former west germany then in former east germany
    There was a HUGE demand for housing post WW2 in West Germany do to on the one side cities being destroyed from the war and on the other side around 10 million people fleeing/being ethnically cleansed from eastern europe now ending up in western germany.
    There are still entire cities based on commie blocks in west germany and basically every city has at least one city district full of them. Even my home village of 5.000 people has several 5 story commie blocks do to this.
    It was simply the easiest and fastest way to build housing for a huge ammount of people in a short ammount of time. If everyone waited for single family homes being build in west germany the refugee camp slums would have remained until the 1990s.

    • @ZMCFERON
      @ZMCFERON Před rokem +10

      It's almost like the USSR suffered some massive depopulation for completely unrelated reasons, yet still threw up buildings 😂

    • @DanielGarcia-kw4ep
      @DanielGarcia-kw4ep Před rokem +1

      ​@@ZMCFERONof course WW2 didn't happened right?😊

    • @westrim
      @westrim Před rokem +3

      I've heard this is why Germany has some apartment practices that seem odd to other countries, like not having built in kitchens - the renter has to install counters and whatever else they want.

    • @aoilpe
      @aoilpe Před rokem +1

      @@westrim
      As a renter you rent a functional apartment WITH kitchen!
      That’s why I was surprised in France where you find only the sink in the kitchen…

    • @aoilpe
      @aoilpe Před rokem

      Eastern Germany lost an awful amount of inhabitants after 1989-the Reunification- they had to demolish A LOT of the pre-fabricated bars and still continue to do so.

  • @michamalinowski8015
    @michamalinowski8015 Před rokem +426

    Love it when westeners say that soviet era architecture is copy-pasted. Yea- unlike an american suburb made from the same house from a Sears Catalog. The thing is- soviet buildings were standardized in order to maximize the ammount of tenants per square meter, where the american suburb homes were made to maximize profit from square foot.

    • @michamalinowski8015
      @michamalinowski8015 Před rokem +44

      @@chiefslinginbeef3641 Most soviet-era buildings, and all post stalinist ones are non communal. Apartments were not shared.

    • @schnarfschnarf5886
      @schnarfschnarf5886 Před rokem +21

      USA USA USA

    • @BMWE90HQ
      @BMWE90HQ Před rokem +23

      Yo those craftsman houses from back in the day were high quality. Modern American Apartments look like Soviet era apartments with nicer finishes (brick or hardee board).

    • @michaeldelisieux5252
      @michaeldelisieux5252 Před rokem +1

      The more it changes, the more it continues the same.

    • @georgepirpiris7309
      @georgepirpiris7309 Před rokem +16

      Thank capitalist Jesus we were born in USA.

  • @bikkiikun
    @bikkiikun Před rokem +20

    Mind you, these mass produced concrete blocks are not just a thing of the Soviet or Communist world, you'll find these kind of buildings and townships in western Cities, Suburbs and Banlieues. In America they are commonly known as "projects".

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem +2

      Same case in the Asia-Pacific, mainly Japan and Hong Kong in the 1950s, South Korea and Singapore in the 1960s, and Vietnam and the Philippines in the 1970s. Only Japan, HK, and Singapore still build new public housing developments today.

    • @cdrone4066
      @cdrone4066 Před rokem +1

      Yes and they created ghettos, horrible.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem +10

      @@cdrone4066 which means the US did something terribly wrong. It worked in Japan, Singapore, Austria, etc. Why didn't it work in the US?

    • @jasoncrandall
      @jasoncrandall Před rokem +1

      Living in projects in America is a choice.

    • @aritakalo8011
      @aritakalo8011 Před rokem +1

      Also regarding uniformity, how about those mcmansions.... .... .... USSR isn't only one to adhere to cultural uniformity.... ... ... only in say USA it wasn't maybe as centrally planned, but oh boy does that home owners association make sure no one deviates from the cultural norms.

  • @jaanth314
    @jaanth314 Před rokem +54

    I live in Japan. There are lots of Krushevka in some suburbs. I used to live in one for about 4 years. I really liked it. It was spacious, well maintained, and cheap. There were dozens of them with lots of trees and greenery and playgrounds in between them. And each complex has its own little shopping center. The buildings in my complex had nice murals painted on the walls. They're nice places to live.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem +4

      Ah, danchi. Yep, the Japanese got the idea from the Soviets. Since millions of young people were moving from the countryside to work for factories in the cities, the government had to build thousands of housing units at a much faster and cheaper rate, so they build prefab apartments. The government still builds new public housing today, and they never stopped, unlike the US and UK.

    • @LuckyBird551
      @LuckyBird551 Před 10 měsíci +9

      Krushevkas are the best solution if any country is facing a housing crisis, it provides the population with cheap and affordable houses, while also creating a neighborhood out of nowhere. Its unfortunate that most of the western world doesn't do them because "communist idea is evil" and so nobody even considers building them. If they built a few Krushevkas in California, the homeless problem would be solved in 5 years, maybe less.

    • @piccalillipit9211
      @piccalillipit9211 Před 8 měsíci +2

      IVE LIVED IN BULGARIA for 14 years now and I now live in a "commi block" - my attitude has completely changed towards the architecture and indeed the commi blocks. They are exactly as you describe and I love living in mine.

    • @rdallas81
      @rdallas81 Před 7 měsíci +2

      ​@@LuckyBird551you can thank Western, British media for that lie.

  • @zacharyposkin1239
    @zacharyposkin1239 Před rokem +145

    Teaching Marxist concept via architecture reminds me of victor Hugo's thoughts on architecture being the first form of mass communication.

    • @perfectallycromulent
      @perfectallycromulent Před rokem +1

      fire is older than architecture, but is only the second oldest form of mass communication. yelling is the oldest.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem

      @@perfectallycromulent that is on a personal level. At the societal level, it did start with architecture. The higher your status in society and wealth, the larger your house will be.

    • @perfectallycromulent
      @perfectallycromulent Před rokem +1

      @@ianhomerpura8937 yeah, and the way people get high status is by yelling at other people to tell them to do what they want, including building those houses. yelling, it's been popular for a few hundred million years now.

    • @LuDux
      @LuDux Před měsícem

      Sorry, can't hear you over the Great Pyramid

  • @gwiazdapioun2127
    @gwiazdapioun2127 Před rokem +33

    One thing I believe Soviet architectural thinking got right was that a lot of apartment buildings (that would be wielka płyta in my country) were surrounded by a lot of plantlife: trees, bushes, flower gardens etc. This was partially because of the belief in workers' right to rest, so the immediate surrounding of their houses were planned to be quite lush, and partially because cars were considered luxurious goods, so there wasn't so much need for parking spaces.
    This creates some problems nowadays, now that families often have two cars (one for each parent) and need to find places to park them, but I think it's a small price to pay to not be surrounded by concrete, marble and sandstone nightmare that are modern apartment buildings (known colloquially as "patodeweloperka", which are made quick, cheaply, not very durable, and often against any common sense).

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem +4

      Poland should have expanded its metro and commuter railways instead of being too obsessed with cars. It's just weird that nowadays only Warsaw has a decent metro rail system, with Lodz planning to build only now.

    • @danielhalachev4714
      @danielhalachev4714 Před 10 měsíci

      It should be also mentioned that the concrete blocks were meant to be a temporary solution to accomodate the influx of workers from the countryside and were to be replaced with better buildings in the coming decades. The last one never came to life.

  • @lucacollalti2520
    @lucacollalti2520 Před rokem +27

    Funny to hear that the USSR was a very ideological state, as if that weren't the case for all countries; as if the rise of car-centric, single-house suburbs in the US wasn't equally reflective of ideology, that of consumerism, individualism, and racial segregation.

    • @labrakis
      @labrakis Před rokem +8

      well said

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem +5

      And those single house suburbs were mostly copy-pasted as well, to skimp on costs and rake in more profits for developers.

  • @benespection
    @benespection Před 6 měsíci +5

    So happy you mentioned Christopher Herwig's soviet bus stop book! I was lucky to be one of the Kickstarter backers for the project, and the diversity of the designs and expressions are incredible.

  • @emmanuelblavo3915
    @emmanuelblavo3915 Před rokem +11

    That is so cool! I'm Ghanaian and I didn't know about the soviet influences in some of our iconic buildings.

  • @magellantv
    @magellantv Před rokem +23

    Wow, we honestly learned so much in this. Thank you!

  • @brokenbridge6316
    @brokenbridge6316 Před rokem +19

    I didn't know that Soviet architects had to construct bus stops. It's really interesting. The things you learn everyday.

    • @carkawalakhatulistiwa
      @carkawalakhatulistiwa Před rokem +4

      all that is privately owned home is one and the same apartment block.
      but something that is owned by the public such as metro stations and bus stops. differ from one another reflecting the ideas and culture of each district. This is in line with the socialist ideology

    • @agentepolaris4914
      @agentepolaris4914 Před rokem

      ​@@carkawalakhatulistiwa indeed

  • @piccalillipit9211
    @piccalillipit9211 Před 9 měsíci +17

    *IVE LIVED IN BULGARIA* for 14 years now and I now live in a "commi block" - my attitude has completely changed towards the architecture and indeed the commi blocks
    You have to remember when they were built they had not suffered 20 years of post Soviet collapse and neglect. Now they are being refurbished it is much easier to see them as pretty good solutions and in many many ways FAR superior to the American car-dependent suburb.

    • @meowcula
      @meowcula Před 7 měsíci +1

      A lot of north american cities are starting to find out just how bad an idea it was to build cities around cars and not people.

    • @Georgi_Slavov79
      @Georgi_Slavov79 Před 7 měsíci

      You have a good sense of humour, sir!

    • @piccalillipit9211
      @piccalillipit9211 Před 7 měsíci +1

      @@Georgi_Slavov79 Like all societies георги, they don't appreciate what they have and they long for what others have. Try living in an American suburb where you have to drive 15 km to get milk because no shops or businesses are allowed in the residential zones. You are in Sliven I guess...?

    • @Georgi_Slavov79
      @Georgi_Slavov79 Před 7 měsíci

      @@piccalillipit9211 i live in Sofia. Living in the USA-absolutely NO PROBLEM!

    • @piccalillipit9211
      @piccalillipit9211 Před 7 měsíci +1

      @@Georgi_Slavov79 GO, Go live in America, it will make you really appreciate Bulgaria 😀

  • @sabashukvani
    @sabashukvani Před rokem +12

    Andropov's Ears in Tbilisi was yet another one of the most bizarre structures in the Soviet Union.

  • @mikkokoivunalho7952
    @mikkokoivunalho7952 Před rokem +6

    Great topic. Thanks for presenting it in such positive light! The many fascinating bus stops brought a smile on my face. I didn’t know anything about those.

  • @leonstevens1382
    @leonstevens1382 Před rokem +6

    You forgot about Cleveland’s Terminal Tower, thought by many to have inspired the “seven sisters.” Stalin may have seen it, and thought it “cutting edge modern.” The Terminal Tower is based on what the architect thought that the Lighthouse of Alexandria might have looked like. Cleveland is located on the shore of Lake Erie.

    • @bluegregory6239
      @bluegregory6239 Před 11 měsíci

      This is a hilarious comment, and I mean that in a good way.

  • @ZapQuacc
    @ZapQuacc Před rokem +6

    Fun (more like ironic) fact: the building pictured on the thumbnail nowadays serves as the head office of one of the largest commercial banks in Georgia

  • @peacefulamerican4994
    @peacefulamerican4994 Před rokem +5

    Awesome! 'Bald and Bankrupt' will enjoy the bus stop segment.

    • @thegarfield2414
      @thegarfield2414 Před 9 měsíci

      @@panosdotnet The words russian and slave are synonims.

  • @reybladen3068
    @reybladen3068 Před rokem +14

    Do Soviet Animation. They're really diverse and "artsy".

  • @tedslaughter169
    @tedslaughter169 Před rokem +10

    Brilliant presentation! One of the best episodes yet!👍

  • @nicolek4076
    @nicolek4076 Před rokem +30

    Thank you for showing examples of Soviet architecture that I had not previously. I had been under the impression this is was either drably uniform or trying to be innovative just for the sake of being different.

  • @katyty1496
    @katyty1496 Před rokem +9

    When I was a kid, we lived in a Soviet built building and it was not practical at all. It was 15 stories but sort of bi-level. So if you lived on floor 12.5, you would take the elevator to 12 and then walk about 20 steps up the stairs. Elevators didn't go there, even though that affected half of the apartments.

    • @JTA1961
      @JTA1961 Před rokem +1

      A stepchild...

    • @HoBoeBpeM9l
      @HoBoeBpeM9l Před 4 měsíci

      Можете ли вы сказать в каком городе это было? Никогда не слышал о таких постройках

  • @ronrozen2105
    @ronrozen2105 Před rokem +3

    Great episode, learned quite a bit, thanks!

  • @gamingseizure
    @gamingseizure Před rokem +2

    Finally! I've been looking for a video on soviet architecture for so long!!!

  • @lanagro
    @lanagro Před rokem +22

    Some say the University of Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada) is a prime example of Soviet-style architecture.

  • @davidgeary490
    @davidgeary490 Před 3 měsíci

    Thanks! Very informative. I studied this subject in graduate school (Canada) and have written about it since that time. Your video taught me lots more about it. Great images you found !👍

  • @morgan97475
    @morgan97475 Před rokem

    Fascinating episode!

  • @treverblanco
    @treverblanco Před rokem

    Great video! 👏👏👏

  • @albertmisic3876
    @albertmisic3876 Před rokem +15

    I came from comunist country. When government in 60-ies first built this buildings that simbolized modernisation and progress. It was privilege to live in this kind of settlements. Latter and now it simbolize depression and apathy. It's interesting how perception of society change by the time.

    • @carkawalakhatulistiwa
      @carkawalakhatulistiwa Před rokem +9

      it's strange why we can't picture a homeless village in california as a pathetic symbol of the united states of america

    • @rrai1999
      @rrai1999 Před rokem

      @@carkawalakhatulistiwa we can, it's just far less of an issue. it's like taking a magnifying glass and blowing it up. there's a crisis there for damn sure but the nation itself still outperforms in most sectors against nations you can compare it to fairly, excluding places like luxembourg. the quality of life in comparison to your average post-soviet nation's citizen is just not fair. americans on average live a much nicer life than people in the countries it has made enemies of, and therefore, i consider that to be cherry-picking

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem

      @@carkawalakhatulistiwa and yet for some reason, the US, both on the federal and state level, still refuses to build any new public housing, made worse by the cap on housing enacted through the Faircloth Amendment in 1997.

    • @danielhalachev4714
      @danielhalachev4714 Před 10 měsíci +2

      The problem with these buildings is that they are poorly maintained. If they were taken care of, as they were in Soviet times, they wouldn't look miserable and depressing.

    • @rrai1999
      @rrai1999 Před 10 měsíci

      @@ianhomerpura8937 it's opposed by the people. when you construct public housing all it does is get filled in by high crime and low income. that's it. it never improves. all you're doing is building in capacity for your area to contain people you don't even want around you. would YOU vote for public housing to be build right next to your home?

  • @vladimir.zlokazov
    @vladimir.zlokazov Před rokem +10

    Thank you for this video! I am an architect from Russia and I grew up in 'khrushevka' :)
    I would say that Soviet architecture and city planning was a part of the global architectural thinking from the start despite the USSR being a closed coutry. Soviet Constructivism was clearly connected with the German Bauhaus. Stalinist architecture was somewhat similar to Art Deco. And then there was modernism in USSR and all over the world. Interestingly Soviet cities despite being almost car-free were designed around modernist ideas about street and road networks (cul-de-sacs, collectors and arterials instead of frequent street grids).

    • @user-ok5xz1zo3e
      @user-ok5xz1zo3e Před 18 hodinami

      苏联并不封闭,诞生理想的国家很耀眼,尽管他的道路走错了

  • @mohammedsaysrashid3587
    @mohammedsaysrashid3587 Před rokem +1

    Informative historical coverage video about Soviet Architecture during the USSR period...

  • @ekmalsukarno2302
    @ekmalsukarno2302 Před rokem +6

    The Cold War, can you please make a video on Françafrique, which is basically France's Monroe Doctrine approach towards Africa. I want you to make a video on this topic, since the concept of Françafrique dates back to the Cold War era.

  • @maxheadrom3088
    @maxheadrom3088 Před rokem +1

    Oh ... about the Bauhaus: Tom Wolfe had a book called "From Bauhaus to the Chaos or our time" about how the ideas from Bauhaus were taken into the "cheapest to build" that created all those hot glass building with steel frames.

  • @nativoobstinado3525
    @nativoobstinado3525 Před rokem

    How interesting and beautiful topic

  • @wildbill9919
    @wildbill9919 Před 2 měsíci +1

    16:45 Awesome!

  • @paulgaskins7713
    @paulgaskins7713 Před rokem +2

    16:24 believe it or not, this design and function competition based around the space race went to even the vacuum industry. Both the United States and the USSR made vacuums that looked like space ships and were made to have extreme suction, they even had advertisements in both nations utilizing some form of the concept of comparing your home vacuum to the ‘vacuum’ of space. I saw a huge display of said vacuums and ads at the museum of clean in Idaho.

    • @tiborpurzsas2136
      @tiborpurzsas2136 Před rokem

      True! I was born in communist Hungary, and we had a Soviet vacuum cleaner called
      " Raketa" which translates to rocket. And it indeed looked spaceshipy
      Edit: I remember my Father had to put in a stronger fuse in the circuit breaker, bc the original one would melt down when my mom turned on the Rocket😅😅😅

  • @jozopako
    @jozopako Před rokem +10

    Say what you want but that architecture is badass.

  • @lambadainc8510
    @lambadainc8510 Před 8 měsíci

    I am so suprised that you don't have more followers when considering the high quality content you are producing!

  • @Mrgunsngear
    @Mrgunsngear Před rokem

    Thanks

  • @bernadmanny
    @bernadmanny Před rokem +18

    As someone who enjoys both history and architecture this episode was a real treat. Any chance of an episode focusing on Australia?

  • @thelovertunisia
    @thelovertunisia Před rokem +3

    These panel houses are exactly like state housing in the 1960s in Tunisia.

    • @daniel-ino
      @daniel-ino Před rokem

      at least you had sun-

    • @thelovertunisia
      @thelovertunisia Před rokem +1

      @@daniel-ino Too much to be honest. Cold and rain are a gift here. We are in a dry period with water reservoirs almost empty all over the Mediterraneannl.

  • @snicket87
    @snicket87 Před rokem +6

    A good addition to your video is to cite Brasilia, Brazil capital city built from the scratch on the 50's by a communist architect! Love your channel

  • @Eastmarch2
    @Eastmarch2 Před rokem +5

    Khrushchev is one of my 'if you could have dinner with anyone' candidates. What an interesting person.

    • @johnfritz2944
      @johnfritz2944 Před rokem +2

      Lots and lots of blood on his hands. Don't forget to bring that up at dinner with him.

    • @terrygerhart1485
      @terrygerhart1485 Před rokem +1

      Easy to say when you are not forced to pick between youself and others to send to the gulag.

    • @jasonromage6129
      @jasonromage6129 Před 10 měsíci

      "If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive" I'd rather have dinner with someone alive than dead. 😮

  • @ganiniii
    @ganiniii Před 2 měsíci

    Its the most beautiful architecture that ever was. Brutalism and plattenbau are marvelous.

  • @jamesgornall5731
    @jamesgornall5731 Před rokem +2

    We had a lot of brutalist buildings go up in the 1950s and 60s in the UK, much derided then and since it is interesting that there were examples where fires did not take hold because of the construction materials, whrreas we had the Grenfell disaster precisely because of measures put in place to "improve" the aesthetics of the building.

  • @bluevol1976
    @bluevol1976 Před 4 měsíci

    Smithsonian Associates hosted a webinar on Brutalism a few weeks ago. It was fascinating. Some of the buildings are really beautiful but they’re all striking. Thanks for a great video.

  • @aoilpe
    @aoilpe Před rokem +2

    Le Corbusier was a SWISS architect from La-Chaux-de-Fonds where he realized his first buildings…
    And as the example of the “House of the Soviets” in Kaliningrad/Königsberg shows us - the Soviet architecture was not always successful…

  • @fordisfurious
    @fordisfurious Před 11 měsíci +1

    Thank you for explaining brutalist. I had no idea. I always thought this was from the word brutal and was used to disparage the architecture.

  • @ggtt2547
    @ggtt2547 Před rokem

    Damn what an interesting video. For the record, i have never thought that you are crazy!! Not even once!

  • @claesvanoldenphatt9972
    @claesvanoldenphatt9972 Před rokem +1

    That transportation dept. pile was the very first thing I saw when I was dropped off the Rize-Baku bus in Tbilisi. It’s even worse in real life.

  • @SRW_
    @SRW_ Před rokem +1

    These buildings are beautiful

  • @bman6065
    @bman6065 Před rokem

    This was excellent I wanna go

  • @BB-kt5eb
    @BB-kt5eb Před rokem +5

    Public housing from the same era is the same in many parts of the United States

    • @carkawalakhatulistiwa
      @carkawalakhatulistiwa Před rokem +7

      It's good that the United States has torn down those bad buildings so now all the poor people can live in tents or city sewers

    • @BB-kt5eb
      @BB-kt5eb Před rokem +1

      @@carkawalakhatulistiwa
      Most of them are either still standing or were replaced by newer public housing projects in the last 20 years. Yes, there are homeless people, but they don’t have to remain homeless. I was once homeless myself and once I decided to work my way out of it, I was able to change my circumstances. I know there are people with difficult challenges, but the opportunity to have a better life is available if they’re willing to work for it.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem

      @@BB-kt5eb however, the cap on public housing put in place through the Faircloth Amendment back in 1997 was one of the most idiotic things Congress ever passed. As a result, the government both at the federal and state levels cannot intervene to end the housing crisis by building more public housing. It gave NIMBYs the power to artificially inflate housing prices for their own benefit.

  • @vladilenkalatschev4915
    @vladilenkalatschev4915 Před rokem +3

    The most beautiful and remarkable architecture was during the Stalin’s time

  • @concept5631
    @concept5631 Před rokem +7

    That thumbnail looks crazy.

  • @SionTJobbins
    @SionTJobbins Před 10 měsíci +1

    The Khrushchevska are quite good designs, we need to build them in the West but with obvious improvements in terms of heat retention, insulation etc. But as a concept and their aesthetics they are much better than western toeerblocks, apartments with green moats around them and, in the UK, the obsession with building semidetached houses (were running out if land) or appartements which are built for young single people and not families.

  • @run2fire
    @run2fire Před rokem +5

    Balds favorite hotels are designed in Soviet architecture

  • @carkawalakhatulistiwa
    @carkawalakhatulistiwa Před rokem +15

    Soviet microdistrict is better than usa Suburbia. With 15 minutes city

  • @aaronrey2658
    @aaronrey2658 Před rokem

    Awesome presentation, you should build Coursera classes with college credits on the Cold War..

  • @adamcheklat7387
    @adamcheklat7387 Před rokem

    7:10: And was the nation’s tallest building up until the Varso Tower was built.

  •  Před rokem

    Nice Video. Now I know what the Brutalism Name stand for. Thx

  • @Pasta_Pirate
    @Pasta_Pirate Před rokem

    what's going on with the audio? it keeps looping a couple of notes in the background at around 10 mins?

  • @Georgi_Slavov79
    @Georgi_Slavov79 Před 7 měsíci +1

    What my neighbourhood is considered 'the stereotype" is 💯 true.

  • @EmaMariaCBrito
    @EmaMariaCBrito Před 7 měsíci

    Marvelous 1

  • @Ye4rZero
    @Ye4rZero Před rokem +5

    Do you know what the Soviets could design beautifully imo? Many of their military jet aircraft and rockets, especially the rockets, just beautiful

    • @bluegregory6239
      @bluegregory6239 Před 11 měsíci

      Up until the US started taking it more seriously.

  • @emjayay
    @emjayay Před 7 měsíci

    Weird that all the visuals during the first part of the Khrushchevka discussion are not of that kind of building but were mostly of steel frame high rises. In the DDR at least this sort of building was often stacked modules with gaskets in between them.

  • @ISawABear
    @ISawABear Před rokem

    Darn, this would have been a good episode for a collab with Stewart Hicks

  • @BUEAU
    @BUEAU Před rokem

    @16:50 that is terrifying.

  • @carkawalakhatulistiwa
    @carkawalakhatulistiwa Před rokem +5

    Free home for pople

  • @jozopako
    @jozopako Před rokem +8

    Sadly all these buildings are just decaying in capitalism.

  • @agentepolaris4914
    @agentepolaris4914 Před rokem +1

    The soviet architecture is so fascinating, Im in love with the central asian buildings and the bus stops.
    I wonder why most of these more artsy and outlandish buildings are in central asia or the Baltics or Georgia and not in Russia or most of the other comunist states

    • @omnidroid70
      @omnidroid70 Před rokem +1

      To be honest, there are just as many in Russia but with this video we tried to de-focus Russia slightly given the current context. But beyond that, they are indeed probably more concentrated in the periphery precisely because expressions of national identity were more acceptable outside the RSFSR :)

  • @jeffcleghorn1223
    @jeffcleghorn1223 Před 7 měsíci +1

    Call me crazy but the soviet futurist architecture is my favorite on earth.

  • @maxheadrom3088
    @maxheadrom3088 Před rokem

    There are some instereting videos I saw on the subject:
    From EcoGecko: USSR Urban Planning - czcams.com/video/CWKuCoSg85w/video.html
    From DavidHoffman: The Story of the Sputnik Moment - czcams.com/video/GhJnt3xW2Fc/video.html
    From WhatIsPolitics?: Why the Russian Revolution Failed ... - czcams.com/video/_WXSsSgLpRE/video.html
    The USSR's housing plan was fantastic - the video on urban planning is very informative. A State shows its guts when it builts. You'll be surprised on how similar the US and the USSR buildings are similar - all you have to do is go after the interviews Trump's doctors gave when he was on the military hospital.
    Also important to remember that we're talking of a country that had Kachaturian, Shostakovich, Dostoievski and the most important director in Cinema history - Eisenstein - who did the most important scene ever filmed in Ukraine, BTW. It's the famous "Odessa Staircase Scene" from "Battleship Potenkin".

  • @emsouemsou
    @emsouemsou Před rokem +1

    It should be mentioned that the creative alternatives to the commieblocks were seen more as exceptions rather than norms - for example, in the most popular movie the Soviet Union ever produced, The Irony of Fate (1973), the intro shows an architect being progressively constrained until all he is allowed to design are identical rectangular skyscrapers, which are then littered across every landscape. The conceit of the plot is that the protagonist accidentally finds himself in Leningrad, yet when he attempts to get to his Moscow address, everything - the neighborhood, the building, even the key to his apartment - is identical between the two cities.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem

      "The Irony of Fate" is available on CZcams, thanks to Mosfilm.

  • @ManiaMusicChannel
    @ManiaMusicChannel Před rokem +4

    This style of architecture looks modern even today

  • @maccanorton
    @maccanorton Před rokem

    Can you do a video on Soviet banks?

  • @hebneh
    @hebneh Před 7 měsíci

    Despite the narration, Brutalism was not internationally popular in the 1950s but instead in the late 1960s into the early 1980s.

  • @Basta11
    @Basta11 Před rokem +1

    Commie blocks seem dystopian looking at it with first world sensibilities. However, compared to what came before, these were actually a decent improvement.
    Many of the previous habitations of these people had no electricity, plumbing, paved walkways, horrible access to jobs, markets, institutions, and public transit.
    For example, Akon tells a story coming when he came from Senegal to the ghettos of the USA.
    To him the projects were paradise compared to his rural village in Senegal.
    He was amazed by the all appliances, refrigerator, tv, electricity, running water, toilet, parks, basketball courts, central location to buses and trains.

    • @danielhalachev4714
      @danielhalachev4714 Před 10 měsíci

      It's not just that. The buildings were meant to be a temporary solution to the housing crisis, with a planned lifespan of 50 years. The fact that today's governments cannot replace them and abuse their reliability is another topic.

    • @Basta11
      @Basta11 Před 10 měsíci +1

      @@danielhalachev4714 right.
      Because of the lack of affordable housing (such as public housing), now we have homelessness on our streets, parks, and beaches. Many live in the sewers like Ninja Turtles.
      At least before, these people would be housed in the "projects". Not great looking ones but at least it provided shelter.
      Not saying all public housing is paradise, but it definitely beats tent cities, beggars at every intersection, feces and needles on streets, and mental illness on public transport.

  • @nedj10
    @nedj10 Před rokem

    "Unlike any other building in the world" Strange but those modular apartment buildings in Tokyo built in the 70's and 80's do look very much like this building that is unlike any other building in the world.

  • @shopshop144
    @shopshop144 Před rokem

    How did the few exceptions to the rules get built? Like the Bank of Georgia building; was it entirely up to the architects to get it built, or did it also need party and bank officials to be on board with the design? Was cost a factor?

    • @annasolovyeva1013
      @annasolovyeva1013 Před 8 měsíci

      Public bulidings, in the city centres, especially huge ones, were supposed to be landmarks. Budget was allocated appropriately. The general style choice would follow the general ideology of the era. Architects would be hired and propose projects to officials.

  • @javel114
    @javel114 Před rokem

    In Finland you can find some of this style, not talked about much but most people live in block house/soviet flat style sub-urbs

    • @javel114
      @javel114 Před rokem

      The style being very brutalistic

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem

      Were they built during the time of Kekkonen?

    • @javel114
      @javel114 Před rokem

      Mostly yes. Due to Finnish countryside losing jobs, alot of people moved to cities, government was very busy building housing for everyone, result being not so pretty

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem +1

      @@javel114 but as a result, there are almost no homeless there. Still a great achievement since a lot of countries struggle with that all the time.

    • @javel114
      @javel114 Před rokem +1

      This is true. And lately most suburbs have been improved, more parks etc. But the main reason for having to build these type of suburbds is urbanisation.

  • @marcbrasse747
    @marcbrasse747 Před rokem +5

    Excellent. Also good that you actually explain the french Concrete Brute connection. I still missed one thing though: There is also a strong Sowjet historical connection. Google Sowjet Constructivism, Vladimir Tatlin, etc. 🙂

  • @raymondcasso7966
    @raymondcasso7966 Před rokem +1

    Best architectural buildings!

  • @chenyaolu5915
    @chenyaolu5915 Před rokem

    There are also a lot of this kind of buildings in China, especially in northern part.

  • @PaulZyCZ
    @PaulZyCZ Před rokem +2

    There are some buildings valued by architects. Sadly often they had to make a way for new building and it doesn't help common people see them like "that Commie building". I recall one Balkan country (FYROM?) turned their brutalist city center into a "Disneyland of Kütsch architecture", so it wouldn't look Communist.
    To be fair, Secessionist, Neo-Gothic or other older buildings often end up demolished (when minor repairs were needed) or with their ornaments removed during reconstruction. In my city we had 19th century villa being demolished to make a way for a block of apartments. The investor had to pay 500000 CZK which is less than 22000 Euro, 2-room flat costs almost 300000 Euro.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem +1

      Yep. It was sad though, since those brutalist buildings in Skopje were actually a collaboration between some of the world's greatest architects. This was because most of the city had to be rebuilt after the 1963 earthquake.

    • @danielhalachev4714
      @danielhalachev4714 Před 10 měsíci +1

      The Skopje city centre was rebuilt not just to get rid of the Soviet architecture, but also to display the country's "rich history", which was in fact, stolen from Greece and Bulgaria. The architecture is not just kutch, but lacks any historical accuracy or significance, as Alexander the Great was Greek, while Samuel was Bulgarian.

  • @leobezard5998
    @leobezard5998 Před rokem

    my great great grandfather Norbert Bezard was a friend of LeCorbusier

  • @gojo76
    @gojo76 Před rokem

    Oh wow, mid week video? Don't mind if I do :)

  • @Kaspean-sea-monster
    @Kaspean-sea-monster Před 8 měsíci

    Спасибо, приятно послушать известную историю советской архитектуры на английском языке.
    Только стоит уточнить, что вы имеете ввиду под пропагандой социалистических принципов через советскую архитектуру.
    Какие именно принципы?

  • @aoilpe
    @aoilpe Před rokem

    Brutalist-a movement in French architecture. Brut means raw/bare/ in its natural state.

  • @Astuar
    @Astuar Před rokem

    Strange no actual standard Chrushovkas were shown in this video.

  • @emjackson2289
    @emjackson2289 Před rokem +1

    Vinh, Republic of Vietnam, rebuilt by the DDR . . . . how Stalinism affects South-East Asia

  • @plotholedetective4166

    Well, those were very nifty buildings. It's to bad everything has turned into hyper efficient boxes.

  • @shatterquartz
    @shatterquartz Před rokem +15

    In at least one regard, Soviet urbanism was superior to what was being done in the US. In the USSR, residential neighborhoods were designed as self-contained small towns, with all the amenities of daily life within short walking distance. Meanwhile the US built sprawling suburbs in which there is nothing but endless rows of identical houses for miles on end, and you need to take your car just to buy groceries.

    • @englishsteel-nz6im
      @englishsteel-nz6im Před rokem +5

      Which set up spurred amazing economic growth and wealth creation? lol

    • @shatterquartz
      @shatterquartz Před rokem

      @@englishsteel-nz6im US style suburbs don't create wealth, in fact they are parasitic drains on the cities, which is where the economic activity takes place. Without massive subsidies they would all be insolvent.

    • @SincerelyFromStephen
      @SincerelyFromStephen Před rokem +5

      @@englishsteel-nz6im those same suburbs from the 20th century are now dilapidated and unable to maintain the subsidized economic “growth” they generated

    • @englishsteel-nz6im
      @englishsteel-nz6im Před rokem +3

      @SincerelyFromStephen how's the situation in the Khruschevka's lolol or other Soviet planned towns? USA still pretty rich overall.

    • @SincerelyFromStephen
      @SincerelyFromStephen Před rokem +4

      @@englishsteel-nz6im they’re both badly planned in different ways. The US is still rich, but the suburbs from the 50s are now becoming the new slums as newer suburbs replace them in endless cycles of unprofitable sprawl.

  • @healthytrout
    @healthytrout Před měsícem

    Ukrainian channel Suspilne has got an episode with interviews with Architects who build buildings on Kyiv's Khreshschatyk street in 1950s (Between the Droplets | Episode 4: Architectural Excesses) and how painful it was for the architects to follow the soviet imposed ideas vs their own vision. It wasn't "slightly less freedom", it was zero creative freedom for city contracts and a very small margin between having a job as an architect and being called "capitalist agent"=no more jobs. With random rural bus stops one could do whatever though.

    • @carkawalakhatulistiwa
      @carkawalakhatulistiwa Před měsícem

      Remembering 22 million homeless people in the Soviet Union after the second world war . Building houses was a priority during 1950-1960This results in 60 million people living in the same apartment But until now there are no homeless people in the former Soviet Union

  •  Před rokem +3

    Panelház for the win!

  • @varana
    @varana Před rokem +1

    Some of those design ideas from 5:24 forward are so very typical 30s totalitarian gigantism reminiscent of some other contemporanean regime's plans.

  • @ashleyupshall7641
    @ashleyupshall7641 Před 7 měsíci

    Constructivism produced some amazing buildings in public spaces, very unique utilitarian style and function, before Soviet Realism and anti formalism kicked in.

  • @richardque4952
    @richardque4952 Před 9 měsíci +1

    Isnt khrushev despise abstract art and archtecture.?

  • @MrTommyBoy75
    @MrTommyBoy75 Před rokem

    I went to Warsaw in 2004. It was VERY much "Flattened by the Nazi's - Rebuilt by the Communists"......However, the people were fantastic. Also have a friend in Prague who used to live in this massive apartent/flat in Letna.....Prague City Centre is anything but Soviet.

  • @zhang-boyu
    @zhang-boyu Před rokem

    During 1950s and 1960s prefabricated concrete panel apartment buildings were built across China due to both industrial(rapidly increasing industrial people), economical(relatively cheap and time-efficient), social and political reasons, until 280k perished in Tangshan, a industral city in 1976, during an earthquake in which the lack of proper seismic precaution methods in Khrushchevka-like blocks on this country sitting on tectonic plates were seemed as unfit, and most buildings turned to traditional cast-in-place concrete with properly calculated amount of rebar. It is noted that a revival of prefabricated structural element is now happening across China, this time with loads of national standards to ensure their safety during earthquakes, with the reasons of economical(again, relatively cheap and time-efficient, and also mass produceable) and environmental(meets govt's agenda of achieving Carbon-neutrality in 2060) ones.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před rokem

      Were the new standards passed into law before or after 2008? Just curious how the Sichuan earthquake had an effect on building codes.

    • @zhang-boyu
      @zhang-boyu Před rokem +1

      @@ianhomerpura8937 Prefab-related standards in China are relatively new ones, being passed since 2016. Sichuan earthquake do have an huge effect on building codes in China, including a classification standard and a partly revision of seismic design code passed immediately after the earthquake (on July 2008) targeting at special protection on children, cultural buildings and earthquake-related regions under rebuild, and a full revision of seismic design code in 2010, then an elimation of designing new buildings that don't have any structural protection on earthquake since 2015. New, harder standards as well as supervision from government(which is actually OK on this life-critical problem) are applying on new buildings every year, which is bad for me as a structural designer but good for safety of masses.