Balkano survivor pt7: Socialist buildings
One of the funniest things on Balkans Peninsula is how they mixed old medieval cities with socialist architecture after the World War II.
Many people from villages came to live in the cities, so cities began to spread in identical blocks. Cities were designed by functionality, architecture and appearance of buildings did not matter. They managed to put a thousand of people to live in 250 square meters. So, these human beehives are all what is left from the age of communism.
Maybe someone could say that this apartment building is nice 40 years ago. It is definitely not nice, it looks like an angry ice giant! But it's not everything as it seems. Those have really good and solid construction and people still invest their money to renew their apartments in there. But the outfit was never renewed. I don't know why, maybe it could help to these buildings not to look so scary.
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Such buildings are characteristic for cities of Balkans and Eastern Europe.
There are many reasons why this type of architecture appeared exactly here, but I will tell you an example of my own city.
We have this factory TLM (Tvornica lakih metala - Light Metals Factory) and it first started in 1937. After World War II, the factory employed more than 30000 people. The most of these people came from the villages. Authorities had to place them somewhere and they built those blocks for them. So, people who worked together also lived together and that had strong psychological influence on the people of that time.
Factory worked fine until 1987. They produced high quality aluminium products in it. Today there is nothing. Imported products and technology killed this giant. Now, maybe a hundred people work there in some workshops and some engines are still in the use, but the most of the factory was demolished. There is nothing so scary and ugly in environment as an abandoned factory!
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Many of these blocks are identical as in other nearby cities.
There are many variations and similar ways to place a lot of people in the small area. New neighborhoods rose up and this is the place where the street life in every city on Balkans was born!
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This one building on the photo below is one of the ugliest things in my city. I was in there, once, in a visit. I expected to see an old, creepy flat, but the apartment was like a penthouse! I was really surprised!
Today, the things are different, but...
... in this country it is all about NOT INVESTING AND NOT RENEWING these parts of cities that are literally falling apart.
You can't imagine that this was a luxury hotel in the center of my city, more than forty - fifty years ago:
... and now it looks like a cursed castle.
Nobody wants to buy these buildings, nobody sees the future in them. Maybe some of you??? New age has come and the eyes of those who make decisions are looking in different directions. Who knows? Maybe we are living in the cities that will be completely abandoned in the future.
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@dumar022, thank you for sharing. Those buildings have potential, just a creative touch. How is it that all these extremely creative people can design cold boxes? When in a socialist environment, i guess you cut a lot of corners.
That's true. Some mural could add fun to it.
"Plattenbauten" called in East Germany here. But we've always had these appartment complexes too of course in West Germany, they're just being renovated/renewed more often (also the facades) and are probably architecturally more diverse, hence maybe less ugly, but only slightly.
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