Architecture in Global Socialism

Łukasz Stanek

Published by Princeton University Press 2020

Architecture in Global Socialism

Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War

Łukasz Stanek

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691194554

Overview
Contents

About this book

How socialist architects, planners, and contractors worked collectively to urbanize and develop the Global South during the Soviet era

In the course of the Cold War, architects, planners, and construction companies from socialist Eastern Europe engaged in a vibrant collaboration with those in West Africa and the Middle East in order to bring modernization to the developing world. Architecture in Global Socialism shows how their collaboration reshaped five cities in the Global South: Accra, Lagos, Baghdad, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait City.

Łukasz Stanek describes how local authorities and professionals in these cities drew on Soviet prefabrication systems, Hungarian and Polish planning methods, Yugoslav and Bulgarian construction materials, Romanian and East German standard designs, and manual laborers from across Eastern Europe. He explores how the socialist development path was adapted to tropical conditions in Ghana in the 1960s, and how Eastern European architectural traditions were given new life in 1970s Nigeria. He looks at how the differences between socialist foreign trade and the emerging global construction market were exploited in the Middle East in the closing decades of the Cold War. Stanek demonstrates how these and other practices of global cooperation by socialist countries—what he calls socialist worldmaking—left their enduring mark on urban landscapes in the postcolonial world.

Featuring an extensive collection of previously unpublished images, Architecture in Global Socialism draws on original archival research on four continents and a wealth of in-depth interviews. This incisive book presents a new understanding of global urbanization and its architecture through the lens of socialist internationalism, challenging long-held notions about modernization and development in the Global South.

Author information

Łukasz Stanek is senior lecturer at the Manchester School of Architecture, University of Manchester, UK. He is the author of Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory and the editor of Team 10 East: Revisionist Architecture in Real Existing Modernism. Twitter @StanekLukasz

Reviews

"Architecture in Global Socialism is a major contribution. This is a brilliantly original book that fundamentally recasts our understanding of architecture in a worldwide frame. It will become a canonical reference point for scholars and students of postwar global architecture."—Neil Brenner, professor of urban theory, Harvard University

"An indispensable resource for scholars that goes beyond architecture and urban planning to engage with broader historical and political issues."—Jean-Louis Cohen, author of Architecture in Uniform and The Future of Architecture Since 1889

Topics

General Interest

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Chapter 1. Introduction: Worldmaking of Architecture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. A Global Development Path Accra, 1957–66 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
Chapter 3. Worlding Eastern Europe Lagos, 1966–79 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
Chapter 4. The World Socialist System Baghdad, 1958–90 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Chapter 5. Socialism within Globalization Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City, 1979–90 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Epilogue and Outlook Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	303
A Note on Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	308
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	336
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	347
Image Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	356