BCA - Brutalist Communist Architecture

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About BCA - Brutalist Communist Architecture

Londonconstant (a group admin) says:
November 2009 - Looking for people to help me administer and promote this group, any takers if so drop me a line



The Brutalist Architecture in the Communist countries did NOT fulfill the function of utilitarian housing for the poor, homeless and the destitute - they were concrete dehumanizing structures, void of ANY aesthetic or functional qualities where people could be regimented and controlled (and spied upon), stuffed like in battery chicken farms, at best allocated a 10ft by 10 ft bedroom per couple (10 square meters) with kitchen and bathroom sharing.
These buildings dehumanized the families as a result of which the degradation became more evident - these structures aged badly.
Far from learning from past mistakes the roller coaster of town planning went hand in hand with the razing of the historical monuments so that the national identity and memory vanished almost entirely.
Examples of such terrorist legacy are everywhere from Cuba to North Korea and from Vietnam to China, Russia, Poland or Germany.
Post-communism did not appear to be a panacea, as the old guard claimed instant democratic credentials carried on an even more ruthless programme of demolishing whatever was left of the historic architecture to erect instead this time steel and glass tower blocks for offices and other speculative ventures. This is tantamount to "Revanchist" and "Triumphalist" architecture - as seen in outsized cathedrals, the new-rich datchas (including the palaces of the gypsy kings) flying in the face of the country's traditions and loosing sight of the people's needs for a friendlier and greener environment, at a humane scale. The self-evident need of ordinary people to recognize old pointers from the past - an ancient church, a small residential street or corner shop, a house with a spot of garden are even now totally ignored.

Mythomaniac buildings like the Moscow University, or Hotel Rossya, The Press House (Casa Scanteii) or the Ceausescu's palace in Bucharest (second largest in the world) and sundry other people's palaces in Warsaw, Berlin, Beijing are iconic examples of BCA - brutalist communist architecture
We need pictures of old and new dormitory towns fully built or half built in whatever state they are today or have been in the recent past. Current building works in old residential areas of towns. examples of mamouth structures dwarfing the old.