{"product_id":"frederic-chaubin-cccp-cosmic-communist-constructions-photographed-40th-ed","title":"Frédéric Chaubin. CCCP. Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed. 45th Ed.","description":"Elected the architectural book of the year by the International Artbook and Film Festival in Perpignan, France, Frédéric Chaubin's Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed explores \u003cb\u003e90 buildings in 14 former Soviet Republics\u003c\/b\u003e. Each of these structures expresses what Chaubin considers the \u003cb\u003efourth age of Soviet architecture\u003c\/b\u003e, an unknown burgeoning that took place \u003cb\u003efrom 1970 until 1990\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Contrary to the 1920s and 1950s, no \"school\" or main trend emerges here. These buildings represent a\u003cb\u003e chaotic impulse brought about by a decaying system\u003c\/b\u003e. Taking advantage of the collapsing monolithic structure, \u003cb\u003earchitects went far beyond modernism, \u003c\/b\u003egoing back to the roots or freely innovating. Some of the daring ones completed projects that the \u003cb\u003eConstructivists\u003c\/b\u003e would have dreamt of (Druzhba Sanatorium, Yalta), others expressed their imagination in an \u003cb\u003eexpressionist \u003c\/b\u003eway (Palace of Weddings, Tbilisi). \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA summer camp, inspired by sketches of a prototype lunar base, lays claim to Suprematist influence (Prometheus youth camp, Bogatyr). Then comes the \u003cb\u003e\"speaking architecture\"\u003c\/b\u003e widespread in the last years of the USSR: a crematorium adorned with concrete flames (Crematorium, Kiev), a technological institute with a flying saucer crashed on the roof (Institute of Scientific Research, Kiev), a political center watching you like Big Brother (House of Soviets, Kaliningrad).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In their puzzle of styles, their outlandish strategies, these buildings are \u003cb\u003eextraordinary remnants of a collapsing system\u003c\/b\u003e. In their diversity and local exoticism, they testify both to the \u003cb\u003evast geography of the USSR \u003c\/b\u003eand its encroaching end of the Soviet Union, the holes in a widening net. At the same time, they immortalize many of the \u003cb\u003eideological dreams of the country and its time\u003c\/b\u003e, from an obsession with the cosmos to the rebirth of identity.","brand":"TASCHEN","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42523589017636,"sku":"9783836587792","price":54.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0725\/9734\/0196\/files\/9783836587792.jpg?v=1774843512","url":"https:\/\/thamesandhudson.com.au\/products\/frederic-chaubin-cccp-cosmic-communist-constructions-photographed-40th-ed","provider":"Thames \u0026 Hudson Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}