Demolishing Soviet Modernism

There&#x27;s a good reason to demolish much of that. It is overwhelming [1] in scale very ugly and not even painting it would help much. This building on the photo of Elista is nothing to look at.<p>But that photo from Makhachkala looks rather pretty and on a human scale. I imagine when the trees are green it must be a nice place (judging only from this one photo, don&#x27;t know it IRL).<p>[1] The Ship <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;maps&#x2F;@55.7108903,37.6218164,3a,75y,218.85h,98.84t&#x2F;data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sr4b2vtFrhAYnDIaVzNMMAw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Dr4b2vtFrhAYnDIaVzNMMAw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D210.19855%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;maps&#x2F;@55.7108903,37.6218164,3a,75y,21...</a>

&gt; And the use of the term ‘expedition’ carries orientalist associations<p>?

I for one will be glad to witness the demise of modern architecture, and a return to human friendliness. I&#x27;m tired of being crushed by some grand architect&#x27;s great ego piece, or &quot;utilitarian&quot; philosophies of living spaces.

I don&#x27;t know if I should be disappointed by the pretty philistine reactions here. In the MDM in Warsaw I find <i>so</i> satisfying the fact that monumental reliefs show office and factory workers, mothers etc. instead of political leaders or so-called great people. I&#x27;m well aware that this is Stalinist 1950s architecture but to some extent you can enjoy art in abstraction from its historical context. I would likely agree that overt references to communism should be visibly contextualized or closed in a museum.<p>Monumental, uncompromising modernism to me expresses the desire to boldly go, as a civilization, and conquer nature both inside and outside of us. Today this desire is very controversial for pretty much all mainstream sensibilities - but I don&#x27;t think we should rob the future generations of a chance to interact with this on their own.

I&#x27;m pretty sick of modernism, having grown up in a Canadian city that made heavy use of it in he 50-70s. There are some gems, but mostly it doesn&#x27;t make for an appealing style when a lot of the office and apartment buildings bet heavily on it. Some of more luxury modernist homes and government buildings are exceptions, but you do have to have a sense of why they&#x27;re neat, because they otherwise feel very conservative.

ah we&#x27;re doing the thing where we judge photos of concrete soviet-era buildings taken during the winter, as if the rest of the northern hemisphere doesn&#x27;t look bleak without foliage as well.