Architecture of a more prosperous USSR

Spinning off from the 'Palace of the Soviets' thread, let's assume that through more competenant leadership or through better luck the Soviet Union does better than it did IRL, lasting until the present day. Would we see any Stalinist abominations rise up, and would we still see the drab grey blocks that infest many Eastern European cities? How would a present day Soviet Moscow look like?
 

Thande

Donor
Western Europe and the UK were quite capable of erecting dismal grey blocks even when we were doing quite well (in the case of my hometown, cheerfully demolishing fine old architecture in order to do so). So I don't think a more prosperous USSR will have qualitatively different architecture, just quantitatively so.
 
Western Europe and the UK were quite capable of erecting dismal grey blocks even when we were doing quite well (in the case of my hometown, cheerfully demolishing fine old architecture in order to do so). So I don't think a more prosperous USSR will have qualitatively different architecture, just quantitatively so.

Of course, if this more better-off USSR can manage it, they could well try throwing up monstrous constructs to moon the West, using similar principles that the superpowers did anyway OTL with the space programme and all...
 
Western Europe and the UK were quite capable of erecting dismal grey blocks even when we were doing quite well (in the case of my hometown, cheerfully demolishing fine old architecture in order to do so). So I don't think a more prosperous USSR will have qualitatively different architecture, just quantitatively so.

They would build dismal grey blocks and then hide them behind dismal grey classical columns as they did between the 30's and 60's, only they would continue doing it for decades instead of renouncing that style as they did under Khruschev.

Unfortunately, and more so seeing how soviet architecture and urbanism were among the world's most advanced and interesting in the 20's; Stalin's cultural repression led to several generations of soviet architects that could only do either drab featureless blocks or horrid pseudoclassical pasticcios, but nothing inbetween. The problem with soviet architecture is not prosperity, but Stalin imposing his tastes in an entire generation of artists.
 
Unfortunately, and more so seeing how soviet architecture and urbanism were among the world's most advanced and interesting in the 20's; Stalin's cultural repression led to several generations of soviet architects that could only do either drab featureless blocks or horrid pseudoclassical pasticcios, but nothing inbetween. The problem with soviet architecture is not prosperity, but Stalin imposing his tastes in an entire generation of artists.

Absolutely spot on definition.
 
They would build dismal grey blocks and then hide them behind dismal grey classical columns as they did between the 30's and 60's, only they would continue doing it for decades instead of renouncing that style as they did under Khruschev.

Unfortunately, and more so seeing how soviet architecture and urbanism were among the world's most advanced and interesting in the 20's; Stalin's cultural repression led to several generations of soviet architects that could only do either drab featureless blocks or horrid pseudoclassical pasticcios, but nothing inbetween. The problem with soviet architecture is not prosperity, but Stalin imposing his tastes in an entire generation of artists.

Well, if you feel discounting Stalin would result in this more prosperous USSR, feel free. Otherwise, how about this alternative Soviet Union of the present, which may see the engineering projects of Dubai and the like springing up?
 
Western Europe and the UK were quite capable of erecting dismal grey blocks even when we were doing quite well (in the case of my hometown, cheerfully demolishing fine old architecture in order to do so). So I don't think a more prosperous USSR will have qualitatively different architecture, just quantitatively so.

Madison Square Garden is proof of this
 
The National Theatre on South Bank in London is proof that prosperity does not equal architectural merit.
 
Unfortunately, and more so seeing how soviet architecture and urbanism were among the world's most advanced and interesting in the 20's; Stalin's cultural repression led to several generations of soviet architects that could only do either drab featureless blocks or horrid pseudoclassical pasticcios, but nothing inbetween. The problem with soviet architecture is not prosperity, but Stalin imposing his tastes in an entire generation of artists.

It's funny that you mention the neo-classical pastiche buildings. I've noticed that too in lots of ex-Soviet cities. Buildings that appear almost as if they were built in the early 19th century, but the architects just didn't get it quite right.
 
with or without Stalin ?

because Stalin dictated the official soviet sitle of Architecture
wat give us this
688px-Moskau_Uni.jpg


without Stalin soviet Architecture would the the Constructivist style
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_architecture
wat had give us this
Nktp_vesn_3.jpg


Soviet union without ultra conservative Brezhnev
the Architecture had also went a other way

2084656014_d16875a8c5_o.jpg

2083866943_72cd0e3592.jpg

1967 mega city proposal
 

NothingNow

Banned
It'd stay in the Official Soviet style along with the Dismal grey Towers, Some variations on Internationalist, Modernist and possibly Postmodernist vocabulary, and maybe some experiments with Googie and Art Deco asthetics, leading to some of the Ugliest, and yet most enchanting buildings ever made.

Unless some Dictator with bizarre tastes came in and shook things up again.
 
Otherwise, how about this alternative Soviet Union of the present, which may see the engineering projects of Dubai and the like springing up?

Well, I am of the opinion that, aesthetically, Dubai is today's Soviet Union. :D

Prior to the 30's there were plenty of fascinating experiments, from constructivism such as Ivan Leonidov:

Leonidov_commisariat.jpg

Heavy Industry Commissariat, 1932

to very advanced experiments in collective dwelling that searched a new way of living for the soviet man such as the Narkomfin Building from 1929:

Narkomfin%20elevation%20perspective%281%29.jpg


and other experiments in new architectural typologies for the soviet era such as Konstantin Melnikov's workers clubs in Moscow:

SC-Rusakovs_club_melnikov.JPG


In urbanism, there were also investigations about how the soviet city should be, most important those of the disurbanists who theorized about the disappeareance of the traditional dity in favor of a network of decentralized cities that would cover the Soviet Union. Their most important contribution was Stalingrad's urban plan, which caused the city to extend through more than 50 km of riverside -one wonders what would have achieved the germans had the city had a more conventional plan.
 
Top