I love the feelings of melancholy, sadness, homesickness, tiredness invoked by images of soviet/brutalist architecture.In this thread i will post some High Res Pics of that!Feel free to post some aswell, everyone is welcome.(I will also be posting some music)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNk99-9sBYQ&list=PLkpi4OlrotP10wzwUzHVjBtYNZv9sHO1G&index=38&ab_channel=%D0%93%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BC%3F-Topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21MdSv9nRvU&ab_channel=EgorLetov-Topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNk99-9sBYQ&list=PLkpi4OlrotP10wzwUzHVjBtYNZv9sHO1G&index=38&ab_channel=%D0%93%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BC%3F-Topic
>>8003255posted same song again by accidenthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZUQDZHFQCY&ab_channel=GrazhdanskayaOborona-Topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO0FznuIOHg&list=PLkpi4OlrotP10wzwUzHVjBtYNZv9sHO1G&index=41&ab_channel=%D0%94%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9%D0%92%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%81-Topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_b3BuMNGqM&list=PLkpi4OlrotP10wzwUzHVjBtYNZv9sHO1G&index=42&ab_channel=%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8B%D0%BA%D0%B0-Topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=919zm0vkO44&list=PLkpi4OlrotP10wzwUzHVjBtYNZv9sHO1G&index=43&ab_channel=%D0%93%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BC%3F-Topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZPZHKu1KzQ&list=PLkpi4OlrotP10wzwUzHVjBtYNZv9sHO1G&index=40&ab_channel=PineOak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aajXOkdLn88&list=PLkpi4OlrotP10wzwUzHVjBtYNZv9sHO1G&index=31&ab_channel=Hande-Topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ6r_57rV3M&list=PLkpi4OlrotP10wzwUzHVjBtYNZv9sHO1G&index=29&ab_channel=TypowaDekonstrukcja
I forgot about the File size limit. i will post more after i compress some images.
:( files are still too big...
have to crop out a lot, for some of these
Half Life 2 betamaybe its not real life but the location is somewhere in the east.
ok i have run out of pics. had to crop some of these because i made them too large. mb.if this thread stays long enough, i will post more cool pics if i find any.thats it. see you.
>>8003255Zagreb
>>8003261Those buildings would have been beautiful if they had been properly maintained. I hate when people associate Soviet architecture with depression, paranoia, doomer wojak and shit like that
>>8003273Actually that image clearly shows American architecture as Half Life 2: Beta was meant to be set in an American city, very likely NY.
>>8003253Why are they so depressive but comfy at the same time?
ill post a few i managed to gather through a Russian forum long ago
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ill be posting more later
>>8005538Yeah i agree. I get a feeling of sadness when looking at commie blocks. Not because the architecture is bad, but because i grew up in a very simular enviroment. Its very nostalgic, the towering buildings housing many people surrounded by nature. its just so nice. sometimes these places can look sad in winter, or if they are decaying, abandoned or have power plants in the backround.its honestly much nicer then american suburbs.as to paranoia, i think people living in suburbs are more paranoid then city people. they seem more isolated. but idk thats just a feeling i get when i compare the boomers in east eu and west america.>>8006479theres something about them thats very comforting. especially if you know that there are lots of people living in them. you don't feel alone. its also the fact that i grew up in places like those. I remember being a kind on the playground, having fun. there were lots of trees, and the buildings gave shade from the sun. It was so peacefull and quiet.
>>8006933are these supposed to be school children playing around a spouting chimney?
>>8009199i have no clue, it could be buissnes men owning the chimney dancing around it. they know that they produce money whilst they destroy the enviroment they live in.thats just my view on the picture. i have no idea who is the artist or what the art means exactly.
>>8006933I think maybe old mate on the left of the pic has had quite enough communism for one day
Forgive me as this is technically a monument, however it was fucking freezing that day and brutalism is exposed concrete so I would argue that this fits the theme well.
>The Buzludzha monument is a stunning example of brutalist architecture that stands on a historical peak in the Balkan Mountains of Bulgaria. It was built by the communist regime in the 1970s to celebrate the socialist movement, but it has been abandoned and decaying since the 1990s.
a
>>8010637The forbidden nutsack
>>8006046No. That building on the right looks like 1:1 Pałac Kultury in Warsaw.
>>8003255My city, this is a part of my view
>>8005538nah its still cold, giving a feeling of "fakeness" and they are shit for practical use and quality
>>8012497how bad is the sound isolation in these? i lived in a 1930s cement block, could talk through the wall like there wasn't any.absolute insanity conditions.
>>8005538Hard to afford to maintain much of anything when your socialist political ideology has done its usual trick of running the national economy into the fucking ground in favor of looking after the wants of the 1% and the military at the expense of literally everyone else.but that's the REAL communist utopia for you...
>>8012759i can hear my neighbours if they scream at each other and the elavator stopping at my floor, the outside noise is negligible. Keep in mind i still have the original 1968 wood windowsIts also one of the first buildings built to "earthquake proof" standards in this part of europeThe apartment building directly in front is shit tier though
>>8012785same as any other political ideology that doesn't explicitly promote hierarchy through merit desu
>Design a bus stop? I'd much rather design a sculpture of my cat.>But what if...>Oh-ho-ho, delightfully devilish, Ceймoyp!
Saved every single picture. Thanks OP.
>>8006933i keep seeing this image on this board, any background to it?
The moral of this thread is, thank god there arent many Russian architects in the west
>>8003253awesome threadperfect music to see thishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cf9BuOegJQ
>>8020346pure Kino
>>8003268what's the size? when i get met with a file size too large to be posted, i convert back and forth from png (or jpg) to webp using imagemagickor you can use catbox
>>8012785>military at the expense of literally everyone else.I don't think the money made it to the military given Russian men are running around in MT-LBs from the 1950s to die in Ukraine.
>>8020654don't believe everything you read in mainstream and social media... all is not as is being reported, a little scepticism can be a healthy thing
VGH.. home
>>8012785>>8014941>>8020783larpers in a thread about the eastern bloc? who'd've thought
Anyone got some DPRK stuff? Bonus for phone papes
>>8023160all i've got anon, hoping for more DPRK
bump :)
>>8005538same desu, shame about all the cold warrior larpers
>>8023160
>>8005538No that building is still gross anon. In principle, it is not about the poor building materials and lack of maintenance that cause the building to fall apart and decay, though that certainly does become part of the picture, it is about the soulless brutalism of design that completely neglects or intentionally insults the natural human appreciation of classical aesthetics in form, prioritising only function, refusing to acknowledge that beauty does have a function all of it's own. They crush the human spirit and leave no room for the natural appreciation of the beauty of life, looking like they were built with robots in mind.Are some of the buildings, like the one you posted, interesting in that they pop out some novel shapes and designs that are notable from an engineering point of view, yes, but the overall Soviet Brutalism portfolio is totalitarian and anti-mankind and his spirit. Now and then they made some large and impressive ones as part of the various political dick measuring projects ideologies have and to convince others and themselves they are the cutting edge, but 99% of brutalist buildings and their decaying husks could, and should, be bulldozed and replaced with something designed with care and with people actually in mind in all their dimensions; with only some remaining as essentially open museum pieces. Your one there would probably qualify, not that I would want to live in it, in line with common opinion in Eastern European nations that viewed such habitations as a necessary evil to provide the large amount of shelter needed during the years of massive industrial expansion.
>>8003253They can't.▲▲▲
>>8026191We have people like you in Eastern Europe they bullshit about aesthetics and how old Baroque buildings are so much better than Communist flats Do you know what is the most common danger in Austro-Hungarian apartments?Gas explosions because Austro-Hungarian installations are pure SHITan apartment like that is 450,000 KM here (Bosnian marks) on average then you have to pay 300,000 for new installations.nobody truly cares about shit like muh human spirit and beauty you`re gonna be inside not outside of your own damn apartment
>>8029332Well yeah I would assume most buildings built over 100s of years ago are not exactly up to modern health, safety and energy efficiency standards. That is not at all a rebuttal to the fact that Communist brutalism is shit. The fact that you had to go back to buildings constructed by an empire with the architecture of the 17th and 18th centuries to say 'oh Communist buildings good' really says a lot, doesn't it? I wouldn't expect any building constructed in the age of pre-Victorian gas lighting and indoor plumbing to be structurally sound without major updating. Maybe if Bosnia hadn't been under shitty Communism for years they would have been able to correctly fit systems into buildings that literally were not in existence when the buildings were designed and built.Western Europe has plenty of old buildings, we have houses going back to the medieval era that are safe, but of course they take money and time to fix up for the modern world. The problem with buildings that are literally centuries old is not their poor engineering and design for the time but the fact that the amenities required for modern existence have completely changed and buildings need maintenance.Those buildings have certainly stood up to time better than Communist shite that is falling apart decades after it's construction. The point is: you can, and should, build things that are not crushing to the human spirit. Obviously if the choice is between 'death by exposure' and living in Communist blocks people would choose the latter - but so would one choose a literal cave over death.Retard-tier Bosnian take.
>>8012497Not sure which part that is (looks like Srednjaci to me). My favourite apartment blocks are in Savica and various parts of the south (Trnjani, Dugave, Sopot).I imagine living in them isn’t the best, but there’s something really cool about those conjoined areas between residential blocks.
i'm currently in armenia, photographing yerevan on 35mm film; i posted some pictures already in this thread if anyone wants some soviet brutalism and architecture >>8019957
>>8003253i dont feel sadness or the meloncholy things you feel when i see it, i imagine myself an eastern boi. What a cozy little shithole it must be. have a cheap ass apartment and get plastered on vodka with the homies 24/7
>>8003270Kino commieblock, reminds me of a Chinese Hakka tulou
>Original file: 17 MBhttps://files.catbox.moe/j6j9e5.jpg
>>8032873>cheap ass apartmentnot when you live there
OC
>>8029709Actual brainrot there exists no le natural human appreciation of classical aesthetics, in the Western world construction companies are private enterprises that intend to make profit from the apartment buildings they have built. Thus they make buildings look much nicer to ramp up the price, exterior appearance is the least significant part of what makes an apartment building good.In the East there was limited private enterprise commies didn`t have to hire marketing managers to make buildings look pretty because they didn't intend to sell them for the highest price possible a lot of these were given for free. They are quite comfortable to live in have centralized heating and hot water supply. Their concrete walls are so sturdy that in war each one is a fortress filled with snipers and machinegun nests.For every single one of your medieval era houses that were preserved twenty have been destroyed in a fire or collapsed because there was no building code. Half of my family lives in Sarajevo Old Town they spent more time in the company of craftsmen than with their relatives.
>>8036720>there exists no le natural human appreciation of classical aestheticsJust blatantly untrue.Rest of the post is Tankie talking about how everything is better under Communism because Capitalism is le evil and ruins everything. There are tons of people online complaining about how the walls are paper thin and they are falling apart etc.... The only time I see people waxing lyrical about them is either they were young and tie them to their personal narrative of life or Bolshevik simps that romantise the whole era (or backpedal saying 'oh but our shit blockhouses were good, ignore the work to death camps).Reiterates the same retard point about Communist shit beating out stuff that was built centuries ago in terms of modern amenities.
>>8003268Photographer here, don't use PNGs for your photo files, use JPEG for thosePNG is for graphical arts with distinct colours, it's what it's best at handling, for photos, which have gradients in colours and luminance, JPEG will get you better quality per Mb
>>8006933>I remember being a kind on the playground, having fun. there were lots of trees, and the buildings gave shade from the sun. It was so peacefull and quiet.There isn't much I love about Soviet Style housing blocks, but the dedication to having a lot of green space in their layouts always seemed like a positive to me.
>>8029332he right I do care>From the standpoint of Brazil,European Brutalism was an expression of melancholy, the work of acivilization that had all but destroyed itself in the Second World War,and whose use of technology was always now tainted by knowledgeof its own capacity for self-destructiveness’youre merely depressed and in your edgy phase but you'll have your paradigm shift eventually
shot this in armenia recently
>>8038964hope to visit someday
>>8039064it's a very cultural and traditional country still, a lot of history around, it hasn't removed the soviet side at all; and there's no mass immigration (yet) so it's very much still armenianthough i'm seeing a lot of indians around, which is a shame; more russians also as they flee conscription it's a very small country with not a lot to do, but it's a much slower pace of life that makes it very comfortable; i've been here for a few months now
>>8003258This is in the Druzhba district of Sofia. One day I'll get a phone with a better camera and I'll make a bunch of comfy commieblock wallpapers
>>8003257great background didn't expect music or this song but I like it
>>8010637The longer I look at it the more I take it personally
>>8012785>in favor of looking after the wants of the 1% and the militarythey literally didn't look after the needs of the 1%. stalin lived in mid living conditions, same with mao. also the 1%? the bourgeoisie? that had been eliminated in the soviet union and even china until their market economic reforms in the late 70s thru the 80sas for the military comment, no shit. it was the cold war, retard. stalin had the excuse that the state was extremely weak following the russian civil war. every other communist dictatorship had to deal with not only internal dissent, but being attacked by outside forces and third pillars.i know the whole thing here on 4chan is anticommunism bc muh freedoms, but if you're going to critique communism you should at least have some basic understanding of how the system worked and what conditions gave rise to its authoritarianism. but ofc you won't do that bc you're a bug man and any sort of understanding outside of face value is literally too complex for your under-educated insectoid brain to comprehend. L and kill yourself.
>>8003253Since OP is posting Eastern European music I'll share one I likehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5lE8OU-5aQ>>8038964I keep misreading this as "America"
https://files.catbox.moe/pxo1m9.jpg
>>8037726dumbass nazi retard
>>8043091>Don't like shit Communist buildings>Must be a supporter of HitlerDo you have to actively concentrate to breathe?
>>8037726You cannot blame a structure for getting decrepit without any maintenance. The problem isn't the buildings, it's the complete crash of the Eastern European economies after the collapse of the USSR and the intentional dismantling of state housing.
>>8043828>it's the complete crash of the Eastern European economies after the collapse of the USSRAs if those economies were in any better of a condition BEFORE the collapse during the decades of Soviet occupation...
>>8032873I agree and like seeing these images for that same reason. It's a kind of comfiness you can only find in such bleakness as an outsider to it.
>>8032873They turned to alcoholism over a feeling of inertia and failure, that their life was over before it began and there weren't any opportunities. This is like a woman romanticising depression and suicide as romantic. There was like child prostitution going on two blocks over while you are killing your liver to never have to wake up and be sober.
>>8003256i live in one of those. Still living with my parents so it's not that comfy, but I do not understand why it is so comfy to me to look at these and to look out the window and see other people living in them as well, seeing a lot of lights in the windows. At the same time it makes me feel pathetic because I go in with the "masses". Like I am a sheep, a headless chicken in this whole rat race system driven by control of the people and at the same time can you be mad at them ? They outsmart us. They see what works and use that to gain an advantage.
>>8026191I want to agree with you. For my entire life I wanted to hate them, but I have lived outside the Eastern Block for many years and I gotta tell you, at an affordable price, I still have not found a place which would satisfy all the boxes that I ticked previously in those flats. Now there is a flaw in all the apartment complexes wherever you go, and that is the noise. You can become extreamly self-concious about the sounds and noises you make even when it comes to sex. Now the one I live in has thick walls but as a musician as well I find if problematic and this created clinical levels of anxiety.
Warszawa by Bowie always hits hard for me when I browse these Soviet threadshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gy94N_mcWs
>>8052248not communist brutalismits actually a type of stripped classicism like in nazi germany (im not joking)most of the buildings built by the state since Ceausescu took office carry this vague neoclassic vibe>pic related
>>8055882this is the only piece of communist architecture in my country that I can be proud ofpersonally, I despise brutalism. not for its practicality but distinct lack thereof (despite all signs showing it should work)my father is an architect and apparently he loves this dogshit stylei'm also aiming to become an architect and if it were up to me, many of these ugly pieces of grey concrete would be remade with some proper decorum
>>8029332>WeWe? Who the fuck is we? You're either a Securitate, actual mouth-breathing retard or a goddamn puppet if you think anyone this side of Europe wants genuine communism back.I won't listen to any more of your drivel lest I suffer permanent fucking brain damage.
>>8055897honestly the only thing you need to do is paint them the same color and add some details to the outside window skirts>pic related (not a nazi) looks so much better than just concrete or just glass. it's a shame how some parts of bucharest look although on summer nights especially in places with lots of abandoned interwar buildings there is this smell in the air and a weird atmosphere makes me think of the southern us
>>8055921>>pic relatedIf the Nazis knew one thing, it was how not to look like dogshit. It doesn't take much to not make brutalism look like shit (hell I've seen art deco here in Bucharest that you need to LOOK for to distinguish from brutalism), but that's exactly the issue: it's so simple to fuck up.And it is fucked up. Repeatedly.Germany's massive projects in the thirties and forties were worth something because they were done not just with practicality in mind - they were done with the goal to inspire. If a government can make a concrete block look appealing, then is it any wonder how they can swing an entire nation into a frenzy?I'm off track. My biases are showing.Point is: brutalism does not have to be ugly. But the communists have ruined yet another thing by defining the goddamn style to be ugly, bleak, bland and ultimately not even practical due to its flimsiness. Making concrete of all things look weak is a feat in and of itself.
