Opening next week in Vienna is the first major architecture exhibition about structures built in the non-Russian areas of the Soviet Republic during the modern period. Soviet Modernism 1955 – 1991: Unknown Stories will be on display at the Vienna Architecture Center (AzW) from 8 November, 2012. The exhibition builds upon a growing interest in these architectural examples – recorded in photographs as crumbling masterpieces by yet-unknown progenitors.
“Unknown Stories” is focused on the architectural output of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Part of the doomed romance of the photographs that circulate will be called into question as the exhibition is intended to raise awareness of these important parts of our shared modernist heritage in architecture. Though many of these countries had limited resources at the time of construction (and still may not today), it is hoped that the exhibition will help to preserve, and even encourage restoration of the sometimes fantastic, sometimes pragmatic buildings created as part of the failed utopian leanings - and dreamings - of the USSR. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in English and German editions (published by Park Books).
"Soviet Modernism 1955 – 1991: Unknown Stories"
8 November, 2012 - 25 February, 2013
Architekturzentrum Wien
Museumsplatz 1
A-1070 Vienna
