Overtake and Outrun
Americanism in the Architecture of the “Socialist Bloc”
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The ambivalent image of America that took shape in the 1920s during Soviet “Americanism” also shaped the postwar architectural discourse. The Stalinist skyscraper projects – not only in Moscow but also in Poland and Romania – demonstrate the political and aesthetic aspirations of those in power. At the start of the Cold War, which was shaped by irreconcilable ideological and social systemic anti-Americanism, Communist builders and their architects oriented themselves on American models of all things when with regard to technical construction and antique-like architectural ornamentation.
(Osteuropa 1/2011, pp. 223–242)