Soviet Models: The Language of Architecture in the Early Cold War

Visegrad Lecture Series

Soviet Models: The Language of Architecture in the Early Cold War

by Richard Anderson, Professor of Architectural History and Theory, University of Edinburgh

Architectural theory acquired new functions at the start of the Cold War: debates of architectural principles turned into acts of political allegiance; analyses of precedents came to signal ideological orientations; the force of a concept—not its meaning—became tantamount. Architects working in the Soviet Union and the nascent People’s Democracies experienced a transformation of architectural discourse that was violent and destabilizing in equal measure. Keywords, invested with new content and recited in ritual fashion, structured architectural debate. This lexicon included “formalism,” “cosmopolitanism,” and, first and foremost, “socialist realism.”

This presentation presents research in progress about the role of language in the transformation of architectural culture in the early Cold War. It presents preliminary findings from the Blinken OSA Archivum and other archives in Budapest.

The presentation may be followed online on Zoom:

https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/91299097034?pwd=GuYK1oqUT8ZZRLA3amgQNQQ1KLmeE9.1

Meeting ID: 912 9909 7034 Passcode: 315067