Łukasz Stanek: Architektura w Świecie Socjalistycznym Systemie
Galerie VI PER invites you to the lecture Architecture in the World Socialist System, which will be presented by architectural historian Łukasz Stanek.
Łukasz Stanek: Architecture in the World Socialist System
Galerie VI PER, Vítkova 2, Prague 8-Karlín
Monday, May 22, 2017, 7:00 PM
The lecture will trace the diversity of descriptions of the development of architecture globalization during the Cold War, through the socialist international and the Non-Aligned Movement. While the contemporary view of architecture globalization tends to reduce it to "Westernization," I argue that global mobility of architecture was accelerated after World War II by competing visions of international cooperation. One of the most important outcomes of these visions was the world socialist order initiated by the Soviet Union in response to Western "globalism" of the 1970s and the rift among the socialist bloc states in the previous decade. The lecture will not dissect the world socialist order as a utopian vision or ideology, but as a set of specific foreign trade tools that regulated the exchange of construction and design practices among socialist countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. We will focus on Iraq during the period between the military coup led by Abd al-Karim Qasim (1958) and the end of the First Gulf War (1991) and show how these tools of the world socialist order, namely employment contracts, currency exchange values, and trade agreements, provided various opportunities and limitations for architects, planners, and construction companies in the socialist bloc countries. To demonstrate this, we will walk through the main plans of Baghdad, designed by the Polish design office Miastoprojekt Kraków (1967, 1973); further residential neighborhoods by Romanian builders; infrastructure of Iraqi cities developed by Bulgarian, East German, and Soviet design institutes; public buildings designed by Yugoslav firms, and curricula at the Department of Architecture in Baghdad, which were also contributed to by Czechoslovak architects. Given that the outcomes of this engagement influence the conditions of urbanization in Iraq to this day, this lecture is not an archaeological exploration of failed attempts at architecture globalization but rather an alternative description of the development of these processes.
Łukasz Stanek is an assistant professor at the Manchester Architecture Research Centre at the University of Manchester. He is the author of Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory (2011) and the editor of the first Lefebvre book on architecture ever published in any language, Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment (2014). Another area of Stanek's interest is the architecture of socialist countries during the Cold War seen from a global perspective: he is the editor of the book Team 10 East: Revisionist Architecture in Real Existing Modernism (2014). In his current project, he focuses on the mobility of architectural knowledge across socialist countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East after World War II. His publications on the subject include: Miastoprojekt Goes Abroad: The Transfer of Architectural Labour from Socialist Poland to Iraq (1958–1989) (Journal of Architecture, 2012); Mobilities of Architecture in the Global Cold War: From Socialist Poland to Kuwait and Back (International Journal of Islamic Architecture, 2015); Architects from Socialist Countries in Ghana (1957–67): Modern Architecture and Mondialisation (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2015). He has taught at ETH Zurich and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and has received grants from the Canadian Center for Architecture, the Institut d’Urbanisme de Paris, and the Center for Advanced Studies in Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
The lecture will be in English.
More information >
Łukasz Stanek: Architecture in the World Socialist System
Galerie VI PER, Vítkova 2, Prague 8-Karlín
Monday, May 22, 2017, 7:00 PM
The lecture will trace the diversity of descriptions of the development of architecture globalization during the Cold War, through the socialist international and the Non-Aligned Movement. While the contemporary view of architecture globalization tends to reduce it to "Westernization," I argue that global mobility of architecture was accelerated after World War II by competing visions of international cooperation. One of the most important outcomes of these visions was the world socialist order initiated by the Soviet Union in response to Western "globalism" of the 1970s and the rift among the socialist bloc states in the previous decade. The lecture will not dissect the world socialist order as a utopian vision or ideology, but as a set of specific foreign trade tools that regulated the exchange of construction and design practices among socialist countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. We will focus on Iraq during the period between the military coup led by Abd al-Karim Qasim (1958) and the end of the First Gulf War (1991) and show how these tools of the world socialist order, namely employment contracts, currency exchange values, and trade agreements, provided various opportunities and limitations for architects, planners, and construction companies in the socialist bloc countries. To demonstrate this, we will walk through the main plans of Baghdad, designed by the Polish design office Miastoprojekt Kraków (1967, 1973); further residential neighborhoods by Romanian builders; infrastructure of Iraqi cities developed by Bulgarian, East German, and Soviet design institutes; public buildings designed by Yugoslav firms, and curricula at the Department of Architecture in Baghdad, which were also contributed to by Czechoslovak architects. Given that the outcomes of this engagement influence the conditions of urbanization in Iraq to this day, this lecture is not an archaeological exploration of failed attempts at architecture globalization but rather an alternative description of the development of these processes.
Łukasz Stanek is an assistant professor at the Manchester Architecture Research Centre at the University of Manchester. He is the author of Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory (2011) and the editor of the first Lefebvre book on architecture ever published in any language, Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment (2014). Another area of Stanek's interest is the architecture of socialist countries during the Cold War seen from a global perspective: he is the editor of the book Team 10 East: Revisionist Architecture in Real Existing Modernism (2014). In his current project, he focuses on the mobility of architectural knowledge across socialist countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East after World War II. His publications on the subject include: Miastoprojekt Goes Abroad: The Transfer of Architectural Labour from Socialist Poland to Iraq (1958–1989) (Journal of Architecture, 2012); Mobilities of Architecture in the Global Cold War: From Socialist Poland to Kuwait and Back (International Journal of Islamic Architecture, 2015); Architects from Socialist Countries in Ghana (1957–67): Modern Architecture and Mondialisation (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2015). He has taught at ETH Zurich and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and has received grants from the Canadian Center for Architecture, the Institut d’Urbanisme de Paris, and the Center for Advanced Studies in Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
The lecture will be in English.
More information >
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