Dictators’ tastes at all times and in all countries are similar, this fact is confirmed by history. It might be politically incorrect to put Stalin, the Soviet Russian leader, on a par with Hitler or Mussolini. Nevertheless, their attitude to architecture was the same – each of them aimed at creating architecture asserting the grandeur of power.
In Italy, Mussolini ventured to erect something similar to the formidable complexes that “the Fuhrer’s architect” Albert Speer built in Germany. In Russia,Stalin personally gave architects directions what and how they must build. Instead of modern mass residential buildings and new towns, architects were ordered to design pompous state projects, like ministries, governmental palaces and theatres. For a few decades, all Soviet architects were experts in palace and temple ensembles.Architecture and art in totalitarian Italy, Germany and Russia is on the agenda of an international conference held in St. Petersburg from the 30th of June to the 2nd of July. Architects and art historians from these three countries do not care about the political aspect of this problem, says architect Rafael Dayanov from St. Petersburg.
”First of all we emphasize the necessity to preserve buildings dating from the 1930s to the 1950s. They are intellectual heritage and we must preserve our history. This is the main idea of this conference. Italy takes care of the Mussolini period architecture. Germany does not destroy buildings constructed by the Third Reich architects. I think it is time for Russia to start thinking how to protect the architecture of constructivism and the so-called Stalin-era architecture.”
It might be politically incorrect to put Stalin, the Soviet Russian leader, on a par with Hitler or Mussolini.
No, not really.
The thing I always note about these dictators is that they always fail in some capacity. Stalin failed to construct many of his great wonders save for a small handful. Kim Jong Il will likely end up taking 25 years to build a single skyscraper and a lot of people have doubts as to how inhabitable it is. The only person people think would have somehow been able to build amazingly huge things was Hitler. I think that is because his reign was cut short, so a lot of people apply a 'can't prove he couldn't do it' type logic to it, even though every other dictator couldn't do it.
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There are many things money can buy. But one thing money can't buy is your momma, she's for free and everyone knows it.
The Palace was designed and nearly completed by the Ceauşescu regime as the seat of political and administrative power. Nicolae Ceauşescu named it the House of the Republic (Casa Republicii), but many Romanians call it the People's House (Casa Poporului).[2]
At the time of Nicolae Ceauşescu's 1989 overthrow and execution, the building structure and design were complete. Subsequently, many of the furnishings were never installed (mostly evident because of the many large, empty spaces throughout the palace), while the last three basement levels and a large clock tower (that would display the official Romanian time) were never finished. During the regime change, the new leaders of Romania referred to the building as the House of Ceauşescu, to highlight the excessive luxury in which Ceauşescu would have lived, in stark contrast to the squalor and poverty endured by many people living in the surrounding neighborhoods.
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"The vapors! The fainting couch! Those heartless elitists are burning down the plantation with their logic and arithmetic!"
there's several arches in the government district of Baghdad; this one, based on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, was supposedly built to "practice marching on the real one."
Just one year after the American pop star's death, fans in the Czech Republic want to erect a statue memorializing Michael Jackson in the same park that was once home to the world's largest bust of Stalin. The city has given its approval to the project, but local resistance is growing. His hometown of Gary, Indiana, has one. London and Rio de Janeiro each have one, too. And fans in Munich have appropriated an existing statue to create their own makeshift memorial. Now a group of fans in Prague want to get into the action as well by erecting their own statue to honor Michael Jackson, the self-annointed "King of Pop."
But Prague? The deceased pop star launched his last-ever world tour in Prague in 1996 and even had a 35-foot statue of himself erected at the same location in the city's Letná Park to promote his concert there. Fourteen years after the last concert in the Eastern European city and one year after Jackson's death, local fan Helena Babická says it is time to honor the King of Pop's contributions to the Czech capital. Organizer Babická, a member of a Prague-based Michael Jackson fan club, says she wants to celebrate the performer as a good Samaritan and not merely as a pop icon. "For me he was an idol when I was young because he was nice and didn't take drugs like other stars do," the 35-year-old told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Although city officials have given their approval for the statue, many residents feel a monument to the pop star would be unfittingly chintzy for a city with as much historical beauty as Prague, which is often called the "City of 100 Spires" for its gorgeous towering edifices. "Recent Czech history had so many moments one could commemorate with a statue," but not a pop concert, gallery owner Olga Dvoáková recently told the Czech weekly Týden. And more than 2,000 people have signed up for a Facebook page opposing the memorial to the Moonwalker.
Previously, the site had been home to arguably more serious, but certainly no less controversial projects. During the early Cold War years, the Letná Park was home for a time to the world's largest statue of Stalin. But once Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev came into power seven years after the sculpture was built, the Soviet leadership wanted nothing more to do with the former leader. Removing the sculptural monstrocity, which was 50-meters tall, from the park required 800 kilograms of explosives.
I like the reality of freedom and liberty, but enjoy the atmosphere, theatre, and look of totalitarian cultural and architectural constructs. Totalitarianism has a way of producing an appearance of cultural unity which isn't as readily attainable under less centralized, structured systems.
Personally, I throw Stalin and Hitler into the same category, and I don't have a problem with either of them. I think that fascism and statist communism are far enough in our past that we should be able to acknowledge their contributions and unique elements respectively without conjuring political debate or tension. In other words, acknowledging that they had cool buildings, cool music, and cool flags doesn't make anyone a crazed monster.
They had distinctive classical and architectural tastes, and I personally think it would be fun to see a revival of some of those architectural styles. I think it would be awesome to see Hitler's proposed "Great Hall" be built today. One of the most unfortunate things about WWII is that so much cool Nazi architecture either got destroyed, defaced, or was never built at all. It is like Rome getting destroyed before it had the chance to build the coliseum.
Additionally, I think that those Commie projects that get torn down in the name of progress every so often should be left there. Russia has enough free space to afford allowing its classic (if not residentially appealing) structures to remain intact.
Saddam's vision may have been interesting, but I don't think that he ever got the kind of resources necessary to transform his country into a strong Totalitarian Empire. There were lots of people who didn't like him, and that right there is one big reason why he never succeeded in projecting a glorious image. If you look at the success that Hitler and Stalin had in rallying people together, you can immediately see how their socio-political environments were far more condusive to Empire-building than Saddam's. Given enough resources, no war, and a better grasp of propaganda however, I think that Iraq did have some significant potential.
Saddam's vision may have been interesting, but I don't think that he ever got the kind of resources necessary to transform his country into a strong Totalitarian Empire. There were lots of people who didn't like him, and that right there is one big reason why he never succeeded in projecting a glorious image. If you look at the success that Hitler and Stalin had in rallying people together, you can immediately see how their socio-political environments were far more condusive to Empire-building than Saddam's. Given enough resources, no war, and a better grasp of propaganda however, I think that Iraq did have some significant potential.
That could be because both Hitler and Stalin had a cause and ran with an ideology in countries that were homogeneous. The Baath Party was supposed to be just about Arab unity and everything revolving around Saddam, compounded by the fact that it was a fractured country under Tikriti occupation.
I don't think dictators really made livable architecture. Some of their mega-projects were really cool, but the average person lived in a really crummy apartment block made from cement bricks.
I think if you wanted to make a cool city, the government could funnel most of its resources into infrastructure and set a little aside for a few mega-projects, but leave most construction to private entities so we get diversity in housing. When it comes to infrastructure, I mean things like high-speed rail, inner-city transit, separate bike-only roads and safe pedestrian routes. Projects that target the most people. Mega-projects would consist of large parklands and central parks like in New York City. Things like the Volkshalle would be rarely built, but certainly built on a vast scale. Preferably waiting until a recession so as to make some good temporary work to help people make it through until the economy picks up.
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There are many things money can buy. But one thing money can't buy is your momma, she's for free and everyone knows it.
Just shy of 36 years old, Bjarke Ingels is, without a doubt, the most precocious contemporary architect on the international scene today. And his firm, BIG -- short for Bjarke Ingels Group -- is about to become even more prominent. After several splashy commissions in their home-base of Denmark, the firm is now opening a New York office that will work on several high-profile projects in the city, including a high-rise condo in Manhattan and other, big-time commissions that remain confidential for now.
- Ingels cut his teeth working for Rem Koolhaas at OMA and just like the master, Ingels's buildings have a severe, monolithic aesthetic. But when explained, they reveal an irresistible logic. Ingels recently sat down with Co.Design to talk about his upcoming works and what may be his most controversial commission yet, the Astana National Library, commissioned by the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who oversees an infamously dictatorial and corrupt government.
- So what are you going to be teaching up in Boston?
Between 2014 and 2016, Rio de Janiero is going to host both the World Cup and the Olympics. So we're going to be looking at ways to transform the who investment into something that Brazil can benefit from in the long-term. Because generally the Olympics have a traumatic impact on the host city. It usually creates a construction bubble that leaves behind empty spaces forever. What's funny is that right when I agreed to teach this class, The Economist had a cover with the famous Christos statue with rocket fins photoshopped onto it, with the headline "Brazil Takes Off." The economy has become an amazing locomotive for the South America -- it's bigger than all of Latin America put together -- but Rio also has tremendous social challenges. We want to see if we might solve these with investments for the Olympics.
- So how might one of those solutions work?
My girlfriend and I just went on holiday in Rio, and we stayed in a small favela of 2000 inhabitants. The reason we could stay in a hotel run by a local artist is that a decade ago the SWAT team moved their headquarters there. Having 600 armed men having coffee in the neighborhood every morning suddenly cleaned things up. But what I noticed was that with their spiraling roads and nested buildings and maze of tiny shops, the favelas have a type of architecture shared by the wealthiest parts of Italy, along the Amalfi coast. The only difference is that Italy has better plumbing and white paint. So the favelas are actually a pretty desirable type of city planning. We might be able to find ways to create some kind of positive gentrification where old and new residents could coinhabitat the area -- rather than erasing those neighborhoods. This wouldn't just be philanthropy, but sane investment at the same time.
- Let's go back to Kazakhstan. I have to ask: How is it working for a man whose political opponents have a habit of getting shot?
Well, we’re also working in China. I find that sort of salon socialism naive, where you stand against the politics while everyone is wearing Chinese sneakers. The basic criteria should be this: Are you improving conditions by intervening? And I think that just because people don’t have the right to vote doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to good buildings. The best way to maintain the proper distance is to make sure that Kazakhstan gets a great library. You know, all of the core Danish institutions were built by the monarchy. And all illumination starts with a library. That does Kazakhstan more good than a weird boycott.
[The Astana National Library, scheduled for completion in 2012]
[The 8 House, which just recently won an award as Scandinavia's best green roof]
[The so-called KUBE development, a cultural center for Copenhagen]
[BIG's most recently announced project, TED, a mixed-used building in Taiwan]
The thing I always note about these dictators is that they always fail in some capacity. Stalin failed to construct many of his great wonders save for a small handful.
No, what Stalin failed to do was not starve to death or otherwise kill 25 million of his own people...
LOL @ Victory Over America palace. They were so close to victory (80% of the way!)!
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