Automatic for the masses Petrov, Petre M
Automatic for the masses,
2015, 20150225, 2015, 2015-01-01, 2015-02-26
eBook
InAutomatic for the Masses, Petre M. Petrov offers a novel, theoretically informed account of the transition from modernism to Socialist Realism, tracing their connections through Modernist notions ...of agency and authorship.
Much of the literary and cultural theory developed throughout the twentieth century relied on modernist texts and artefacts as both example and paradigm. This Dictionary collects, categorises and ...intersects literary, aesthetic, political and cultural terms that in one way or another came into being through the debates, conflicts, co-operations, experiments – individual and collective – that characterised modernism. In concise entries from international experts, it presents the terms, categories, concepts, tropes, movements, forged through the modernist upheavals (at once aesthetic and political), highlighting their genealogy, their modernist ‘newness’, and their historical longevity.
Collectivisation in the Soviet Union, including the Baltic States, involved many aspects related to living conditions and architecture. One of the dominant images of village centres in Estonia and ...Latvia is that of the standardised urban forms of blocks of flats and other buildings such as schools and administrative buildings. On collectivisation, new village centres arose, promising “Urban lifestyles in a rural setting”. There are very few designs for blocks of flats – standardisation came in with Krushchev and the first generation of flats built of white brick became known as
Krushchevki
. Alongside these were buildings to serve as places where the new Soviet cultural activities could take place – the
Dom Kultura
which, in contrast to the standard flats, was often of a special one-off design. These can often be found to be abandoned and derelict nowadays, since they have no function and represented the Soviet regime. The objective of this study was to examine the plans and initial proposals for several kolkhoz centres and, using computer aided-design, to recreate 3D models of the building ensemble as it was originally planned, to compare this to what was actually built and to what remains now and the extent to which they are still used. We found that while the standard flats were built according to plan, external landscape features were often omitted. The unique designs of the culture houses often contained many interesting Modernist or even post-modernist features but changed during construction and were often built of poor materials and finishes. They were vandalised, robbed of materials and are now abandoned in many cases. Their architects often went on to make a post-Soviet career and there is considerable interest in their designs. They represent a lost legacy of the period.
Better housing for the rural population was an important part ofthe Finnish housing discussion in the 20
th
century. Between 1938 and 1969,
Bostadsföreningen för svenska Finland
(The housing ...association for the Swedish speaking areas of Finland) promoted rational housingfor the Fenno-Swedish minority. The construction of a collective identityfor a minority through dwelling ideals is the main focus of the article.Methods as identity process theory and perspectives on architecture and nationalism are used to interpret the material. Specific questions relate to how modernist architecture became a symbol when constructing an identity for a non-homogeneous minority. The housing association viewed modernist housing as a solution to a political and ideologicalproblem. With efficient homes, Fenno-Swedish farmers were less inclined to sell their homesteads to Finnish speakers and move to the cities, where they were assimilated into the Finnish culture. Mobility wasperceived as a threat to the minority, since it led to a loss of voters in areas of political importance. Modernist architecture combined with aesthetics from the vernacular building tradition were used to make thefarmers proud of their ancestral homes, willing to stay, securing theideological home of the Fenno-Swedes.