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The Soviet architecture

Architecture in Global Socialism. Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War
Forfatter: Lukasz Stanek
Forlag: Princeton University Press (USA)
DIPLOMACY / The Soviet Union and the Eastern European satellite states gained influence in the world through a so-called gift diplomacy that spawned strings of architectural beauties. By Hans Henrik Fafner




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

Up through the 1950s, there were big plans for the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. At the beginning of the decade, oil revenues grew considerably. There was money to do well with, which was invested in the future. Agriculture was able to raise production, new roads were built, and the extensive destruction was secured when the Tigris River crossed its banks.

Baghdad

The capital Baghdad should also have a lift. It was to appear as a true metropolis of international stature, and for this foreign experts in urban planning were brought in. It was also the idea that the city should look better, so great architects such as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto and Walter Gropius were invited to design distinctive buildings.

Eastern European advisers became popular because they had been deployed in solidarity
service.

Only a few of these were ever built, and virtually none in the form that the famous architects had imagined. For in 1958 came the military coup that deposed King Faisal, and the new government went other ways. It was socialist-oriented and immediately turned to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc to seek support for ambitious plans for Baghdad. In Moscow, the answer was positive, because there they saw income in hard western currency, and not least it was a golden opportunity to make a cultural mark in the world.

The Africa Pavilion at the Accra Exhibition Center, Ghana, was built in 1962-67 as a gigantic prestige project. There was no money to build roads for the pavilion, which is still in use.

The Soviet design

The example is one of many where the often heavy concrete architecture of the Eastern Bloc countries was used to cement international cooperation in the name of communism, and because the overall goal was often elsewhere, the aesthetic result was in many cases poor. It took place in particular in the Middle East and West Africa, and this dubious chapter of architectural history Lukasz Stanek has now portrayed captivatingly in a beautiful book from Princeton University Press entitled Architecture in Global Socialism.

National Theater of Lagos, Nigeria, under construction.

Stanek is a professor of architectural history at the University of Manchester, and he has long been interested in how socialist thinking came to shape urbanization in enlightened parts of the world. He portrays empathetically how it went. Where the Western approach is usually a single task, the Soviet projects were large in a completely different way. They gladly undertook to reshape an entire district at once – and Baghdad is a very good example of this:

The project was top-down. The messages came from ministries in Moscow, where the motto was economics and planning, not architecture. Cooperation with the Eastern European satellite states was important, so it was typically Poles who were in charge of the city plans, while East Germans were experts in recreational areas. The concrete elements for the buildings came from Romania, and this wide-ranging collaboration often led to difficulties. In August 1963, Soviet advisers on assignment at the Iraqi Ministry of Public Works reported that the design elements were not standardized, leading to higher costs, delays, and perpetual technical problems. The Soviet-designed TV tower was never built.

Ghana

.Monument of Kwame Nkruma in Ghana. East Germany was responsible for the architecture and planning, and they placed great emphasis on the sculpture itself being made by a woman – the Polish artist Alina Slesinska.

Some of the same can be found in Ghanas capital Accra, one of the five cities that the book examines.

A few years after the country became an independent republic in 1960, President Kwame Nkrumah forged close ties with the North African states. In this connection, the Soviet Union came into the picture.

The motto was economics and planning, not architecture.

The Cold War was at its height – the Cuba crisis unfolded in October 1962 – and the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, seized every opportunity to create new alliances. The Russians stepped in immediately, and although their solutions were not always the cheapest, they were attractive because there was an acute shortage of skilled labor locally. It was part of the package deal that Comecon could offer, and the Eastern European advisers became popular because they did not come as colonial masters, but had been sent out in the service of solidarity. "I well remember the Eastern European architects because it was the first and last time a white man had an African boss in Ghana," a Ghanaian architect tells the book's author.

Just like in Baghdad, the new experts set out on magnificent projects. Russian architects had plans for a large cultural center, a hotel with 200 beds and a huge Africa Unity Tower, and from Bulgaria came plans for a casino with several cinemas and two large stadiums. None of this was listed, and local authorities complained that the many new projects did not fit the country's current needs at all.

In 1981-84, Yugoslavia led the wide boulevard of Al-Khulafa with lots of concrete construction across the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Gift diplomacy

Much else was built, however, and much of it happened under the label of gift diplomacy. Formally, these were generous gifts, but in reality it was about the Soviet Union wanting to bind the African states to itself, and as an important side benefit to provide access to key raw materials – for example bauxite.

The often heavy concrete architecture of the Eastern Bloc countries was used to cement internationally
cooperation in the name of communism.

The thought-provoking thing is that it all still characterizes the recipient countries, long after that Soviet Union has disappeared. The authorities in Baghdad still use the Polish city plans, and those parts of the city that have not been laid in ruins of war and conflict are still marked by Soviet architecture.

Africa Hall in Ghana was built in 1964-65 by Yugoslav architects and was criticized for costing the state too much money.

The same goes for Africa, where many of the prestige projects stand as a reminder of shattered illusions. A striking example is the large national theater in the Nigerian capital Lagos. It was Bulgarian architects and experts who were allowed to unfold in the years 1972–77, but the building was out of step with the Nigerian reality right from the start, and it still stands there as an ugly foreign body. And the bill, which was more than twice as large as first assumed and was infested with unclear return commissions to the Bulgarian state – it had to be paid by Nigeria.

Hans Henrik Fafner
Hans Henrik Fafner
Fafner is a regular critic in Ny Tid. Residing in Tel Aviv.

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