• Vreyan31@reddthat.com
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    1 month ago

    When I visited Berlin, I heard a theory that these Soviet era units were why the cost of living was still accessible to creative-types so a big part of why the city is culturally thriving.

  • hayvan@piefed.world
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    1 month ago

    It’s called city planning. I don’t know where this is but the commie blocks where I was born were within walking distance of shops, cafes, schools, had cheap central heating, all had children’s parks and green areas between buildings, and public transport to the city center. All at dirt cheap prices since they were not built for profit, and could only be owned by people living in them or rented from the state.

    • SlurpingPus@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      https://bankfoto.info/zdjecia/petrzalka-3/

      Not the best example: Eastern-European countries tend to overcompensate and overdo the painting, making the result too noisy. Nordic cities look much better, precisely because they choose muted and coordinated colors, and usually paint the whole house instead of making patchy blobs. It so happens that khrushchyovkas are again better at it too, because they were built smaller and painted in one color, often muted orange or brown.

      • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        The bottom image is heavily tuned to have more vibrant colors. No place in real life has such strong hues. I’d suspect that place in real life looks very much like the above image

        • SlurpingPus@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Could be, but it’s still not the patchy mess that Soviet blocks tend to be colored into. New builds in Russia are often painted those very strong hues that apparently no place has. It’s horrible.

          • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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            1 month ago

            Agreed, that looks pretty horrible. It’s more due to the lack of any color harmony than the strong hues. There are places with strong hues that look good imo, like Burano

      • Jiral@lemmy.org
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        1 month ago

        I did not say that I would consider those buildings in Petrzalka the height of all taste and beauty but the issue with it is not the colour of the buildings. It is the urban layout on ground level and the rundown horrendously car centric design. That is really dragging the area down. On the plus side, there is so much greenery even with all of that, that it is not looking grey there, certainly not during Spring-Autumn.

        PS: Bratislava is west of Stockholm, has nothing to do with Orthodox Europe and Slovakia stopped being part of the East block almost as long ago as it was ever part of it.

        • SlurpingPus@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          It’s always funny how everyone between Germany and Russia say that they’re in Western Europe. Yeah keep telling that to yourself bud, Slovakia is certified Eastern Europe.

          • Jiral@lemmy.org
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            1 month ago

            I am not Slovak, heck, I am not even with your expansive idea of “Eastern Europe” Eastern European. I also did not say that Slovaks are Western European. Calling them “Eastern European” is as ridiculous as calling them “Western European”.

            Tell me, is Dresden also Eastern European and how about Vienna?

            Does that look like “Eastern Europe” to you?

            • SlurpingPus@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              What I wrote above: “Eastern-European countries tend to overcompensate and overdo the painting, making the result too noisy”. Just like in your above pic from Slovakia. But not in this one.

              No need to inform me that some Western-European countries and even the US did housing of this style, as I’m perfectly aware that it was peddled by Le Corbusier at the same time as the USSR developed its approach, likely with cross-pollination at least in the west-east direction.

              Also, Dresden will remain East-European in spirit until the former East Germany stop trying to recreate GDR with their conservative voting.

              • Jiral@lemmy.org
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                1 month ago

                You misunderstand my argument. My argument was not that Western Europe also has commie block type neighbhourhoods, my argument was that you lack to point out what it is that turned a part of Europe into “Eastern Europe” that has little in common with Moscow and much more with Vienna, just because it was forced into a geopolitic block for roughly 40 years, until almost 40 years ago.

                But then, you also appear to believe that Dresden is Eastern Europe, so at least you are consistent. Could it be that you are confusing “Eastern European” with “post communist”. Those two things are not the same.

                • SlurpingPus@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Indeed I am. Because what I’m saying is that folks who got their aesthetic sense botched by decades of Soviet doctrine, don’t do well at dressing up the high-rises, even though buildings of a similar kind in the Nordics do splendidly.

                  And, as I mentioned in the thread, one can look at Stalinist housing and Khrushchevkas for examples of Soviet-type housing that didn’t need gaudy paint to look decent, because they were built at smaller sizes and with the last remainder of the sense of beauty. Russians also never bastardized the old districts in Moscow and SPb, because those had established aethetics (except for new buildings inserted here and there, which predictably look shitty for the most part).

    • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Corpo housing isn’t mcmansions. They’re factory built homes shipped to site and dropped on locally poured foundations, sometimes with basements.

      Sure, they can be decent sized, but the mcmansion is overly large and aimed at a different crowd, a crowd that’s increasingly unable to afford them.

      Source; I grew up in a corpo housing development from the 60s or 70s. The houses all looked identical from the outside, but had a few different floor plans, one down the street was actually two of the wrong halves put together, which meant that one of the closets didn’t have a door and could only be accessed by someone crawling in through a gap near the ceiling.

      Thankfully there was no HOA, so the houses quickly picked up some individuality.

  • AlexLost@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I don’t see a problem? State funded infrastructure has a place and purpose in our society. It’s built for function over form. Wonderful architecture is incredibly expensive and amounts to mostly fluff. If you would try to build civic infrastructure focusing on pomp and grandeur over functionality, you would not last long in the public sphere.

    • Narauko@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Yes, but as much as we all like the Brutalism style, would the cost difference really not be worth it for Art Deco or anything a bit more psychologically welcoming or uplifting combined with generous green spacing and walkability.

      • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Yes it would be worth it. But is that money also available? Or do you have the breathing room to build less for the same money, or wait for that money to become available?

  • homes@piefed.world
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    1 month ago

    This architectural style is called, no kidding, Soviet Brutalism, and was the primary architectural style featured in the Soviet Union from the 1950s to the 1980s.

    It’s a divergence from Western brutalism, focusing more on utopian and futuristic themes.

    So, no, it’s not anything political. It’s a cultural thing.

    Boston City Hall, for example:

    The campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology, a.k.a. “Brick City”:

    • Sem@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      I would say “socialist modernism”, not " soviet brutalism". Because there are a lot of examples not from ex USSR.

      This is Belgrade, Serbia (ex-Yugoslavia):

      Museum of Modern Arts:

      Hotel “Yugoslavija”:

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        You should check the link I posted. Honolulu has a crapton of brutalism, so I wouldn’t associate it necessarily with any political movement.

        I think where brutalism exists now is more a function of when an area was being developed, and it just happens that those areas underwent substantial development while brutalism was en vogue (late 50’s - late 1970s).

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    What’s right wing architecture?

    Blue tarps? But they’re blue! haha, you wings are so silly with your flapping about

    But seriously, have they not seen an apartment building or strip mall before? The architecture where I live is far from inspiring, it’s just strip mall after strip mall for miles, then some big block office buildings. Yippee

    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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      1 month ago

      Once you notice hostile design, you see it everywhere.

      My favorite is the bench with no shade. It’s a giant fuck you. You could sit here however you are going to sit in the full force of the sun.

  • wpb@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I love this kind of thread. It always attracts some guy who finds it necessary to point out that in the USSR people had to endure the absolute horrors of having roommates. I think I saw him phrase it as them having “survived” roommates once.

    • NannerBanner@literature.cafe
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      1 month ago

      I mean, roommates are definitely a form of horror. For every well adjusted person out there, several exist that never learned to clean up after themselves or think of how what they do impacts another person.

      Hell, there are a lot of people who actually take delight in the suffering of others. Imagine trying to convince your roommate to do the dishes more than once a month and they’re laughing at you.

  • Dimi Fisher@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    That’s communist dude not left, I m sure Denmark which is a socialistic country is left for you too, anyway do some traveling and stop spreading bollocks

    • fuck_u_spez_in_particular@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It’s not even communist. Western Propaganda really created a false impression on this term…

      I don’t think we really had communism yet on the world.

      • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        We’ve really had communism in the world.

        You just don’t agree that it’s communism.

        Reality is real, your idealistic purity is an impossibility. Deal with how things are, not how you wish them to be

      • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        We never had communism in the same way we never had a person fly by flapping their arms after jumping of a roof. It’s not that we did not try, it just does not end with a flying person.

        To have communism, you have to concentrate all the wealth and power in some sort of government so that people don’t own “the means of production”. And when you concentrate all power in the government, human nature produces some sort of dictatorship.

        • MrEff@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Disagree. You and so many others throw around the word communism as if it is a specific type, rather than a general type. Not only that, communism and capitalism as not mutually exclusive. We have communism in capitalist societies and there was capitalism inside the USSR’s communism.

          We have fully functioning communes within the USA. Those are communists living happily inside a communist community, with communist leadership, and communist ideals, all as a sub community within normal American cities. And it is successful.

          The US has communism/socialism even within its own government. We have communist firefighters. There was a time all fire brigades were private and sold memberships and private insurance. It was communism that made it a public service. Even the socialist healthcare in the military was not always that way. Up until the Civil War it was private healthcare and the medics were for the battlefield only. All after care was out of pocket. Even for a time after the Civil War large amounts were not covered by the military.

          And even looking at the previous poster’s comment about not seeing true communism- that is a category- are they referring to Lennonist communism? Maoist? Marxist? It’s like saying all capitalist governments are the same, as if the EU and the US, and Nigeria are all the same types of government.

          • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            If you consider firefighters communist, you have extremely weird (broad) definition of communism.

            PS: Also, in the context of

            I don’t think we really had communism yet on the world.

            arguing about broad definition of the word when we are clearly talking about a very narrow definition just muddles and confuses the discussion.

        • insurrection@mstdn.social
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          1 month ago

          human nature is not an explanation, it is hand waiving. and communism is a stateless society. no one should believe anything you’ve said here.

          there is a cure for political illiteracy.

          • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            human nature is not an explanation

            Yes, it is handwaving, because I ain’t spending time writing paragraphs of shit anyone with two brain cells to rub together can easily figure out on their own.

            communism is a stateless society

            Just because you string words together does not mean they mean something. If people don’t own/control the means of production, someone else does. Either you have private capital or a governing body. Calling it “stateless society” means nothing. That is actual handwaving of real issues.

            • insurrection@mstdn.social
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              1 month ago

              “Just because you string words together does not mean they mean something. If people don’t own/control the means of production, someone else does. Either you have private capital or a governing body. Calling it “stateless society” means nothing. That is actual handwaving of real issues.”

              communism is a stateless classless moneyless society. your semantic game doesn’t change the facts

              • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                communism is a stateless classless moneyless society

                So it’s a fantasy where everyone magically knows what to do, how and when. Then does it with no incentive or punishment. No coordinators, police, or anything else required. Ok, clear. Now can we get back to real world ideas?

                Because if there is anyone who has the ability to order people to do something and punish them for not doing it or decide distribution of incentives, that is called a government. No matter how you try to rename it or handwave it.