Photographer Frédéric Chaubin reveals 90 buildings sited in 14 former
Soviet Republics which express what he considers to be the fourth age of
Soviet architecture. His poetic pictures reveal an unexpected rebirth of
imagination, an unknown burgeoning that took place from 1970 until 1990.
Contrary to the 1920s and 1950s, no "school" or main trend emerges here.
These buildings represent a chaotic impulse brought about by a decaying
system. Their diversity announced the end of the Soviet Union.
Taking advantage of the collapsing monolithic structure, the holes in
the widening net, architects went far beyond modernism, going back to
the roots or freely innovating. Some of the daring ones completed
projects that the Constructivists would have dreamt of (Druzhba
Sanatorium, Yalta), others expressed their imagination in an
expressionist way (Palace of Weddings, Tbilisi). A summer camp, inspired
by sketches of a prototype lunar base, lays claim to Suprematist
influence (Prometheus youth camp, Bogatyr). Then comes the "speaking
architecture" widespread in the last years of the USSR: a crematorium
adorned with concrete flames (Crematorium, Kiev), a technological
institute with a flying saucer crashed on the roof (Institute of
Scientific Research, Kiev), a political center watching you like Big
Brother (House of Soviets, Kaliningrad). This puzzle of styles testifies
to all the ideological dreams of the period, from the obsession with the
cosmos to the rebirth of identity. It also outlines the geography of the
USSR, showing how local influences made their exotic twists before the
country was brought to its end.
Frédéric Chaubin's Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed was
elected best book on architecture of the year 2010 by the International
Artbook and Film Festival in Perpignan, France (Festival International
du Livre d'Art & du Film Perpignan).
