Photobook Set #3

Eastern Blocks

Concrete Landscapes of the Former Eastern Bloc

Author: Zupagrafika

ISBN: 9788395057434

Publisher: Zupagrafika

Hardcover

144 Pages

Size: 17 x 24 cm

Language: English

Released: 2019

# Photography # Eastern Bloc # Architecture

‘Sleeping districts’ of Moscow, Plattenbauten of East Berlin, modernist estates of Warsaw, Kyiv`s Brezhnevki: although these are home to the vast majority of city dwellers, post-war suburbs of central and eastern Europe have been invisible for decades.

Eastern Blocks by Zupagrafika is a photographic journey through the cityscapes the former Eastern Bloc, inviting readers to explore the districts and peripheries that became a playground for mass housing development after WW2, including objects like Soviet ‘flying saucers’, houses ‘on chicken legs’ or hammer-shaped tower blocks.

Showcasing modernist and brutalist architecture scattered around the cities of Moscow, (East) Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, Kyiv and Saint Petersburg, the book contains over 100 photographs taken by Zupagrafika throughout the last decade as a reference archive for their illustrated kits and books, with special contributions by local photographers. Divided into 6 chapters, Eastern Blocks includes a foreword by writer and journalist Christopher Beanland, informative maps, index of architects and informative texts on the featured cities and constructions.

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Author: Zupagrafika (David Navarro & Martyna Sobecka)

Contributors:
David Navarro & Martyna Sobecka (Zupagrafika): photography, texts and edition
Alexander Veryovkin: commissioned photography
Balázs Csizik: commissioned photography
Christopher Beanland: foreword

Zupagrafika © 2019. All rights reserved

Berlin Lichtenberg, as featured in the book Eastern Blocks: Concrete Landscapes of the Former Eastern Bloc by Zupagrafika.
Housing estate in Yasenevo district (Moscow) as  featured in the book Eastern Blocks: Concrete Landscapes of the Former Eastern Bloc by Zupagrafika.
Plattenbauten in Lichtenberg and Ernst-Thälmann-Park, (East) Berlin, as featured in the book Eastern Blocks: Concrete Landscapes of the Former Eastern Bloc by Zupagrafika.
The Faculty of Physics of Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv (Ukraine). ‍
Eastern Blocks features  photographs of crayons and microrayons (districts and microdistricts) taken in the former Soviet bloc cities.
Socialist modernism in Warsaw, as featured in the book Eastern Blocks: Concrete Landscapes of the Former Eastern Bloc by Zupagrafika.
The 'White Tulip' of the Russian State Scientific Center for Robotics and Technical Cybernetics (designed by B. I. Artiushin & S. V. Savin), St. Petersburg. As featured in 'Eastern Blocks' by Zupagrafika
Modernist housing estates in Warsaw
Panelház (prefab panel block) and water tower in Csepel, the XXI district of Budapest (Hungary)
Post-war modernist housing estate in Marzahn, East Berlin
Soviet landscapes of Moscow. Panelki blocks in the suburbs of the Russian capital. Eastern Blocks by Zupagrafika.
Wielka plyta hotel in Warsaw
‘The House on Chicken Legs’. Soviet modernist housing estate in Moscow
‘Bublik’ residential complex in Moscow
Lichtenberg housing estate in Berlin
Eastern Blocks by Zupagrafika

‘Zupagrafika photographed postwar estates across central and eastern Europe, finding strange, stark beauty in these concrete giants’

– THE GUARDIAN

‘Many dismiss them as eyesores, Zupagrafika find them stunning. Their new book features 100 images of modernist housing estates and other unusual Soviet-era structures.’

– WIRED

‘The Iron Curtain was understood in the West as The Concrete Curtain. Everything behind it was perceived as mass produced and grey'

– from the foreword by Christopher Beanland

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