Description
Brutalism East: majestic concrete meets ornament and color in the revelatory world of Soviet Asian architecture
Soviet Asia explores the Soviet modernist architecture of Central Asia. Italian photographers Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego crossed the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, documenting buildings constructed from the 1950s until the fall of the USSR.
The resulting images showcase the majestic, largely unknown, modernist buildings of the region. Museums, housing complexes, universities, circuses, ritual palaces--all were constructed using a composite aesthetic. Influenced by Persian and Islamic architecture, pattern and mosaic motifs articulated a connection with Central Asia. Gray concrete slabs were juxtaposed with colourful tiling and rectilinear shapes broken by ornate curved forms: the brutal designs normally associated with Soviet-era architecture were reconstructed with Eastern characteristics. Many of the buildings shown in Soviet Asia are recorded here for the first time, making this book an important document, as, despite the recent revival of interest in Brutalist and modernist architecture, a number of them remain under threat of demolition. The publication includes two contextual essays by Alessandro De Magistris and Marco Buttino.Author: Damon Murray
Publisher: Fuel
Published: 05/21/2019
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 6.60h x 8.10w x 0.80d
ISBN13: 9780995745551
ISBN10: 0995745552
BISAC Categories:
- Photography | Subjects & Themes | Architectural & Industrial
- History | Asia | General
- History | Russia & the Former Soviet Union