Socmodernizm. Architektura w Europie Środkowej

Originally published to accompany an exhibition at the International Cultural Centre in Kraków (2024–2025), this book stands on its own as a close examination of the history and politics of Socialist Modernism architecture in the Eastern Bloc between the mid-1950s and 1991. The authors, both of whom are architects as well as academics and the curators of the above-mentioned exhibition, present a compelling overview of that period, captured in brick and stone – and concrete.

The switch from Socialist Realism to Socialist Modernism was driven, on the one hand, by the need to build substantial new residential housing on the cheap. However, it was also part of a broader communist desire to create an equivalent – or even to better

– the Western architecture of the time; to compete with it and to surpass it. The former

Eastern Bloc is usually associated with huge pre-fab estates, purely utilitarian high rises

whose concrete components were assembled like Lego blocks. But such countries have a

richer architectural legacy – new urban developments, public buildings and monuments,

which all reflect the era’s social and cultural concerns.

Socmodernism offers a welcome reappraisal of the legacy of socialist architecture, prompting the reader to reconsider established assumptions. The authors have produced a comprehensive, well-researched book, written in accessible language. Even though it is a scholarly compendium, it can be read with interest by anybody keen to learn more about architecture and society.