Buildings still standing from the Soviet era:
The Forum Hotel, Krakow, Poland.
Resort in Ukraine.
Some of these I've featured before - here and here.
The article calls these structures "absurd", and takes it for granted that we'll share their disdain. Like Tyler Cowen (via whom), I find some of them - like our UK equivalents (the Barbican, Robin Hood Gardens, Preston Bus Station, the South Bank) - rather fine.
The Forum in Krakow is an obscenity. Mainly because the city itself is gorgeous. I don't often say thank-you to Soviet generals, but I do appreciate the fact that Koniev was able to take Krakow in '44 without turning it into a car-park.
About 19 years ago I saw a similar monstrosity in Olomouc, the Czech Republic, right in the heart of an otherwise quite pretty town.
Posted by: sackcloth and ashes | April 30, 2015 at 07:22 PM