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The panopticon of social modernism - in thrall to ignorance about the legacy of the Cold War

13 of January '25

For many of us, architecture built in Central Europe before the collapse of the Eastern Bloc is still associated only with gray concrete, the monotony of giant apartment blocks and the political overtones of the projects built at the time. The legacy of socmodernism surrounds us from all sides, yet we still know little about it. We are even less aware of the fact that the architecture among which we have to function on a daily basis is part of a much broader phenomenon, separate from Western modernism. A recent exhibition at the International Cultural Center in Krakow contributes to changing this perplexing state of affairs. We talk about a new look at the post-war architecture of our region with Lukasz Galusek and Michal Wisniewski, authors of the concept for the exhibition "Socmodernizm. Architecture in Central Europe during the Cold War".

dr Łukasz Galusek

Dr. Lukasz GALUSEK - program director of the ICC, architectural historian. He works on the culture and art of Central Europe, especially the relationship between space, memory and identity. He is the author of more than one hundred and fifty scientific publications on the cultural heritage of Central Europe. Co-author and curator of exhibitions introducing the art and heritage of Central European cultures. He is a member of the Presidential College for International Policy, the Program Council of the Polish-Czech Forum at the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Social Committee for Renovation of Krakow Monuments, the Working Group of Experts on Cultural Heritage of the Visegrad Group Countries, the European Network of Museums of Urban History and Urban History Research Centers, and the Council of the Borussia Foundation.

dr Michał Wiśniewski

Dr. Michal WIŚNIEWSKI - architectural historian, graduate of art history and architecture. Employee of the University of Economics in Cracow, at the ICRC he heads the Education Center - Academy of Heritage. Fulbright scholar. Author of many scientific and popularizing publications devoted to the architecture of Cracow and Poland of the 19th and 20th centuries, among others monographs of Cracow architects Ludwik Wojtyczka, Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz and Tomasz Mankowski. Member of the board of directors of the Institute of Architecture Foundation. Co-author of exhibitions and publications created by the Institute of Architecture team.


Przemyslaw Ciępka
: The title of the exhibition reveals roughly what we can expect - socmodernist architecture in Central European countries. However, the topic, as it turns out when viewing the exhibition, is very broad and largely unrecognized. What assumptions accompanied the preparation of the concept of this exhibition?


Lukasz Galusek: First of all, we wanted to show post-war architecture in our part of Europe. We felt that, apart from a few exhibitions, so far there has been no panoramic view of the heritage of architecture of the socialist period in Central Europe.


Michal Wisniewski: I get the impression that we have a bit of a problem discussing the postwar period. Despite the gigantic resources that are allocated in Poland to research and education about the second half of the 20th century, as a society we actually still know very little about what was happening in our country at that time and who ruled the country. I think many people get confused by the names of the first party secretaries. We live in a certain idea of the reality that was created after World War II, including on the level of architecture. The language we use to describe this reality is still very negative. This makes it difficult for us to take a bird's eye view of our country's cultural landscape and to think about its further evolution. One of our intentions in preparing the exhibition, therefore, was to show that the architecture of that era was not just gray apartment blocks, not just failed projects. It was often very valuable and attractive architecture that had very strong public support at the time of its creation. We should remind ourselves of this, tell ourselves about it, but also try to put this Polish reality after '56 in a broader perspective - the perspective of our region.

fragment ekspozycji w Międzynarodowym Centrum Kultury w Krakowie

Excerpt from the exhibition at the International Cultural Center in Cracow

photo: Paweł Mazur



Łukasz Galusek: Michael focuses on Poland, but I want to emphasize that the exhibition covers a huge area: from Estonia to Macedonia, from Berlin to Romania and from Ljubljana to Kyiv. This is an extremely diverse and interesting time. We want to show how much creativity architects showed in our part of Europe, how different they were. Interesting threads of the pre-war avant-garde revived just after 1945 in Czechoslovakia, for example. The same was true in Hungary, not to mention Yugoslavia, where Socialist Realism was almost non-existent. Nevertheless, the openness to experimentation, abstract great modernity as the language of Yugoslav architecture was underestimated for a very long time. We want to show such phenomena properly, too.


Przemyslaw Ciępka: Some time ago, the International Cultural Center hosted the exhibition "Unwanted Capitalism," which presented the architecture and urban planning of Krakow during the occupation. This is undeniably a difficult heritage - is the same way you think about the architecture of socmodernism?

Lukasz Galusek: Socmodernism became a troublesome heritage right after '89. We tend to tie architecture too much to politics, ideology and history. This is nothing unusual, as we went through such phases several times in the 20th century - after all, the architecture of historicism was seen as an emanation of a bourgeois, inhumane society, and it was just as readily parted with in favor of more egalitarian and equitable construction. Social modernism was treated similarly, such is human nature. In the 1990s, a negative language was formed to describe socialist architecture. Certain terms clung to it for a long time. Terms such as "blockhouse" became almost synonymous with this architecture. For example, one can point to a particular issue of Gazeta Wyborcza, which published a report for the first time using the word "blockers" - describing socially marginalized people, drug addicts, who are supposedly the product of this type of housing, not another. This is, of course, absurd. I hope that three and a half decades later, with the arrival of a new generation, we can look at this architecture with an unprejudiced eye and try to tell the story in new ways.

dzielnica Jižní Město, Praga (Czechosłowacja)

Jižní Město district, Prague (Czechoslovakia) - proj.: Jiří Lasovský, Jan Zelený, Vítězslava Rothbauerová, 1976-1988

© Národní galerie Praha



Michal Wisniewski: Regarding the question - you cited an exhibition from two years ago that dealt with the time of the occupation, an extremely tragic, but nevertheless very short period in the history of this city and the history of Poland. This was purely propaganda architecture, remaining at the service of the authorities and following the political needs of those who ruled Krakow at the time. I would not so easily juxtapose this heritage with what was created after the war - buildings designed by at least two generations of architects, the architecture of a country that was going through a fundamental phase of urbanization of its territory at that time. Before the war, almost 4/5 of Poland's population lived in the countryside. It was only after World War II that we settled in the city. This is a period that greatly affects what kind of society we are today, what language we speak and what values we hold. Negating modern, post-war architecture, looking at it only through the prism of the historical and political events of that time, seemed to us something senseless and even a certain cognitive error from which we should get away.

budynek administracyjny firmy Škoda, Praga (Czechosłowacja)

Administrative building of the Škoda company, Prague (Czechoslovakia) - proj.: Věra Machoninová, Vladimír Machonin, 1971 (unrealized project), ink, carbon paper

© Muzeum umění Olomouc


Przemyslaw Ciępka: We're talking about a very wide geographic area and quite a long time, so there were probably a lot of examples to use in the exhibition. Was there any key that you used to guide the selection of objects?

Lukasz Galusek: We are dealing with the heritage of the most recent date and, consequently, the most numerous. We therefore had to adopt very strict rules. However, we tried first and foremost to treat architecture as art - the art of space operating in its own language. The architects of the time were incredibly confident in their formal language, and were not afraid to build in the vicinity of outstanding monuments from previous eras.

sauna w kołchozie Linda nad jeziorem Boose, Võrumaa (Estonia/ZSRR)

The sauna at Kolkhoz Linda on Lake Boose, Võrumaa (Estonia/Soviet Union) - designed by Toomas Rein, 1983

© Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum (Tallinn)


Przemyslaw Ciępka: The exhibition begins by showing the contact zones between Central Europe and Western countries, the Berlin Wall and the train station in Nova Gorica appear. Was this Iron Curtain really so tight when it came to architectural issues? Were there more examples like Skopje, which was designed by Kenzo Tange after the earthquake?

Michal Wisniewski: Many years ago we published a text by David Crowley, who used the notion of a nylon curtain, that is, one through which you can nevertheless see something, you can cut and tear it, and even walk through it to the other side. She was tight only in certain specific places. Berlin was such a place where crossing the wall was rather impossible, but we often forget that the Berlin Wall was built not in 1945, but sixteen years later. It should be remembered that a group of employees of Miastoprojekt Kraków went to West Berlin in 1957 to watch the Interbau exhibition and the designs of Western architects, Oscar Niemeyer or Le Corbusier. A huge number of Poles had been working in France since the mid-1950s, several went to the United States on student exchanges. The same was true in Yugoslavia, where trips to Italy and contacts with the Polytechnic University of Venice were common. However, it was not only student and labor exchanges - there were many places of confrontation, such as the World Expositions, the Olympics, including sports competitions in this part of the world, such as the Moscow or Sarajevo Games, the Nordic Ski World Championships in Zakopane.

pomnik ofiar obozu koncentracyjnego, Jasenovac (Jugosławia)

Monument to the victims of the concentration camp, Jasenovac (Yugoslavia) - design: Bogdan Bogdanović, 1959-1966

© Architekturzentrum Wien



Lukasz Galusek: I very much dislike the notion according to which the greatest dream of Central European architects was to be in a Western university. Yugoslavia had two excellent architecture academies, its native school of modernity. Yes, many went and learned something new, but upon their return this knowledge was thoroughly modified, resulting in really high-quality architecture, because our architects were confident in their language. In postwar Berlin, architects could choose where they wanted to work. Hans Scharoun initially designed in both Berlin, but at some point chose West Berlin. Hermann Henselmann, on the other hand, who created the concept for the TV tower and many other iconic Berlin buildings, decided that his career would develop on the eastern side of the city. It was a matter of conscious choice, dictated by very different considerations. The stereotype according to which the totalitarian system made a single person a mere cog in the machine is not entirely true. I'm glad you mentioned Kenzu Tangem - he is a perfect example of an architect who felt limited in the capitalist system. He did not possess himself with happiness when he got an offer to rebuild Skopje in a socialist country, because he believed that only such system conditions gave an architect the opportunity to realize a complete project. He was happy to be able to work in a system that allows building a harmonious city, which is absolutely impossible under capitalist conditions.

Słowacki Uniwersytet Rolniczy, Nitra (Czechosłowacja)

Slovak Agricultural University, Nitra (Czechoslovakia) - proj.: Vladimír Dedeček, 1961-1966

Photo: Pavel Mazur


Przemyslaw Ciępka: It may sound infantile, but while viewing the exhibition, my imagination was most strongly stirred by the second room, showing the "cosmic" face of social modernism.

Lukasz Galusek: That's the right reaction, because it touched everyone's imagination, no matter where they were on the globe!

Michal Wisniewski: No wonder, after all, we showed there an event completely unprecedented. Today we already know that in our lifetime we probably won't be able to fly outside the solar system or colonize an alien planet. In the 1960s, these plans seemed as realistic as possible, it was thought that a flight to the Moon was only the beginning, and that later would come other space missions, farther and bolder. All these intentions did not ultimately come to fruition, but we wanted to show a certain horizon, which at the time provided an important context for the entire world. Both sides of the Cold War conflict were competing, using the language of "space" propaganda, which at some point began to take on a life of its own.

wieża telewizyjna, Berlin (Niemiecka Republika Demokratyczna)

TV tower, Berlin (German Democratic Republic) - designed by Hermann Henselmann and his team, 1965-1969

Photo: Pawel Mazur



Lukasz Galusek:"The cosmonaut is the new poet," according to Eduardas Mieželaitis, quoted by us in the exhibition, in his poem. For entire generations of children in the Soviet Union, cosmonauts were great idols. There was an unheard-of charge of optimism in all this. Modernism was also characterized by a similar charge of optimism. It seemed that designer-demiurgists had succeeded in finding the architectural philosopher's stone, that is, the recipe for creating a good world for people. Such ideas had already been born in the interwar period, while technology did not allow them to be realized on a large scale - it was only after 1945 that entire cities began to be built in this way.

hotel i nadajnik TV na górze Ještěd (Czechosłowacja)

Hotel and TV transmitter on Mount Ještěd (Czechoslovakia) - designed by Karel Hubáček with a team from the SIAL studio, construction by Zdeněk Patrman, 1966-1973

© Muzeum umění Olomouc


Przemyslaw Ciępka: Well, that's right - futuristic aesthetics is certainly one of the important themes. But were the technologies used in the architecture also "cosmic"?

Lukasz Galusek: As a young boy I learned from Edward Charytonov's book "Outline of the History of Architecture". The cover of the Polish edition juxtaposed the Parthenon, the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and the Spodek in Katowice. At the time I was amused by the comparison, but today my perspective has completely changed - I see the Spodek's skylight as an architectural solution as bold as Michelangelo's Vatican dome or Brunelleschi's Florentine one.

model schroniska na Śnieżce (Czechosłowacja)

Model of the chalet on Sněžka (Czechoslovakia) - designed by Dalibor Vokáč, Zdeněk Zavřel, Jan Suchánek, 1975-1978 (unrealized project).

© Muzeum umění Olomouc


Przemysław Ciępka: Spodek is undoubtedly an important example of Polish engineering thought of that period, not the only one, by the way. However, there are not many objects from our country in the exhibition. Why such a decision?

Michal Wisniewski: There are several reasons - we did not want to enter the area of certain important historical events, such as the reconstruction of Warsaw, Gdansk or Wroclaw, and we also avoided over-saturation with the issue of the construction of gigantic housing complexes, which were being built in our country at that time. Rather, we wanted to inspire a new look at our immediate surroundings by showing the broader context. To discover that - for example - Cracow was still a relatively small city after World War II, and that its modern size is largely the result of the transformation that took place with the construction of Nowa Huta. Realize that on the north side of Krakow we have basically a quarter-million-dollar linear city with a coherent urban concept. These are facts that still elude us very easily, and perhaps the mirror in which we see the architecture of other countries from our region will allow us to take a fresh look at our heritage of the time.

Wschodnia Brama, Nowy Belgrad (Jugosławia)

Eastern Gate, New Belgrade (Yugoslavia) - designed by Dragoljub Mićović, Vera Ćirković, Milutin Jerotijević, 1973-1976

photo: Pawel Mazur



Lukasz Galusek:The consequence of embracing a broad perspective was that we had to select those most shining phenomena from the Central European area, avoiding favoring Poland. Thus, we showed the transformation of Bratislava into a "cosmic" capital, Yugoslavian memorial architecture, the phenomenon of Estonian kolkhozes or the construction of Brutalist Skopje. Against this background, Upper Silesia is a phenomenon on the scale of Central Europe - there is no other region so meticulously and comprehensively designed, full of great examples of modernist architecture. I'm not just talking about the Spodek here, as Jerzy Gottfried's experimental constructions at the Center for Technical Progress or gigantic urban plans like the New Town of Tychy were created in parallel. Upper Silesia is an example of an overall work of art and at the same time an emanation of what we lack in architecture and urban planning today, namely good urban planning.


Przemyslaw Ciępka: What does the exhibition at the International Cultural Center bring to the discussion of the architecture of social modernism?

Michal Wisniewski: The title of each room is a key to a coherent reading of one of the phenomena that were common to this very diverse region. We wanted to point out phenomena that show some ideas analogous to this part of Europe that arose in response to similar needs. We propose a holistic approach to describing this region not from the perspective of geography, but rather in a problem-based manner.

budynek administracyjny kołchozu KEK (obecnie Okta Centrum), Rapla (Estonia/ZSRR)

Administrative building of kolkhoz KEK (now Okta Centrum), Rapla (Estonia/Soviet Union) - design: Toomas Rein, 1977

© Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum (Tallinn)



Lukasz Galusek: The coherent display of our region is absolutely a new research perspective that we haven't encountered before. I have read a lot of books on European art, where Western countries - Portugal, Great Britain, Italy, Germany or France - were mentioned in one breath, while mentioning examples from Poland. On the other hand, I have never found a book that discussed Romania, Serbia, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Poland on an equal footing. We have been formed with the feeling that there is a certain coherence in the art of Western European countries, and that our region is such a bag of diversity. And yet it's easy to question this perspective by taking Gothic architecture, for example. In theory it is coherent, while in practice Gothic buildings in Italy, Portugal and the Hanseatic countries are as much alike as they are distinct. Another important perspective is to take into account the divisions we discussed earlier - due to the existence of barriers between our part of Europe and the West, we do not use the concept of influence, which is fundamental to art history. The phenomena shown in the exhibition are so interesting, among other reasons, because Central European designers came to these solutions on their own, even though they are similar to what was being built in the West at the time. This was the case, for example, with postmodernism, which did not come to us from the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Wojciech Fangor „Pałac Kultury”, 1953

Wojciech Fangor "Palace of Culture," 1953

© Wojciech Fangor archive (Warsaw)


Przemyslaw Ciępka: What could contemporaries involved in architectural design learn from the socmodernists?

Łukasz Galusek: In preparing this exhibition, we talked with David Crowley, who asked us this question: Is there anything that distinguishes socmodernism from other modernisms? We found that it was basically impossible to distinguish it "by eye," because socmodernism was intended to be this Western modernism, only that it was improved. A good illustration of such an improvement can be found in Warsaw's Supersam - in the West, the self-service store would not have been built with the involvement of a prominent designer, with an experimental body and mosaics of great artists in the interiors. The situation was similar in the case of the Czechoslovakia pavilion at the World Exhibition in Brussels, which was created through the close cooperation of many artists and designers. This building, all its furnishings and decor were the socialist countries' response to what they called the "Western cult of the individual." The pavilion that Le Corbusier designed for Philips, the construction haute couture created by the idol of architecture, was pointed out as a contrast. The Czechoslovakia pavilion, on the other hand, was an example of collective work.

Michal Wisniewski: I would add that architects during the communist period were able to develop a relatively strong position. That state, especially in the 1950s, cared a lot about architects, as evidenced, for example, by the donation of the palace on Foksal Street in Warsaw to the SARP. Not every professional organization was gifted in this way.

miasteczko olimpijskie w Tatrach (Czechosłowacja)

Olympic town in the Tatra Mountains (Czechoslovakia) - proj.: VAL Group - Alex Mlynárčik, Viera Mecková, Ľudovít Kupkovič, 1968-1974, photomontage, (unrealized project)

© Muzeum umění Olomouc



Lukasz Galusek: Before 1989, we could accuse architects of allowing themselves to be dragged into the cogs of the system machine. In Czechoslovakia, party decision-makers invited architects and designers to work together, setting them the task of providing cheap but quality housing and furnishings to the public. They made it clear that it was the architects who were necessary to make the leap in civilization that was promised to the people, and which would differentiate Czechoslovakia from the capitalist countries. Today, I would like to see such an agreement between the state, designers and investors on what standards we want to live in and what we can do to achieve it.

fragment ekspozycji w Międzynarodowym Centrum Kultury w Krakowie

Excerpt from the exhibition at the International Cultural Center in Krakow

Photo: Paweł Mazur



Michal Wisniewski: Looking at the architecture of the last quarter of a century in Cracow, I have a problem finding outstanding buildings, and we should remember that this is the time when almost half of the entire residential development of this city was built. Today we are witnessing the emergence of very low-quality architecture, and perhaps leaning into the buildings of the era that we so easily come to criticize, dismiss and reduce to a bag of gray concrete will be an additional voice in the discussion of what we are doing today with our cultural landscape and the cities we live in.

Przemysław Ciępka: Thank you for the interview!

kuratorzy wystawy, od lewej: dr Łukasz Galusek, Natalia Żak, dr Michał Wiśniewski

Curators of the exhibition, from left: Dr. Łukasz Galusek, Natalia Żak, Dr. Michał Wiśniewski

photo: Paweł Mazur


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Illustrations provided courtesy of the International Cultural Center in Krakow.

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