Iconic Ruins? / Shared Cities: Creative Momentum
The ICONIC RUINS? exhibition was created as part of the European project Shared Cities: Creative Momentum – an international creative platform operating at the intersection of architecture, art, urbanism, and the sharing economy, which, between 2016 and 2020, connected eleven partner organizations from seven major European cities: Belgrade, Berlin, Bratislava, Budapest, Katowice, Prague, and Warsaw. The aim of the Shared Cities project is to demonstrate to urban residents that their participation and cooperation are essential for creating a pleasant and valuable urban environment.
In recent years, post-war architecture in former socialist states has become a closely observed topic. For many years, the public perceived it with mixed feelings, often influenced by painful personal memories and human experiences shaped by the communist regime. However, recent academic studies and educational initiatives have revealed a surprisingly diverse range of architectural forms from that period, as well as parallel developments that place the former Eastern Bloc within the broader context of the history of world architecture.
The ICONIC RUINS? exhibition therefore focuses primarily on politically exposed public investments and explores the connections and conflicts between the ambitions of political power and the creative thinking of architects.
The rapid disappearance of this architecture in recent years, as a result of radical reconstructions and demolitions, has led to unprecedented engagement from professionals and the academic community. The exhibition therefore also examines the current condition of these buildings and complements historiographical comparisons, based on the methodology of Docomomo International, with student visions for the future use and transformation of similar structures. These visions were developed within the project of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (Architecture Studios II, III A3, and Virtual Studio).
The ICONIC RUINS? exhibition aims to reveal parallels in architecture within the shared socialist past of the Visegrád Four countries and to initiate a broader discussion about the near future of critically endangered cultural heritage of late modernism. The exhibition is part of the broader European project Shared Cities: Creative Momentum, through which it captures the shared history of socialist architecture in Central Europe.
The project is presented on three levels: past, present, and future.
Past
Visitors have the opportunity to become familiar with the architecture of the socialist era in the V4 countries, categorized by building typologies (government administration, administration, international representation/hotels, transport, media, healthcare, education, culture, sport, consumerism, civil engineering). The buildings are further divided into three time periods: 1945–1958, 1959–1972, and 1972–1989. The photographic panels include pictogram-based labels with basic information about each building and its current condition.
Present
The exhibition is accompanied by a panel discussion on contemporary society’s relationship to this architecture, the scope of heritage protection for these buildings, and the possibilities for their use today.
Future
As part of the Shared Cities project, students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (architecture studios) worked over six semesters on studies exploring how to approach this type of architecture. Their final works are presented within the project through models and projections of the students’ design outcomes.
Curators: Petr Vorlík (CZ), architectural historian / Henrieta Moravčíková (SK), architectural historian / Anna Cymer (PL), architectural historian / Ábel Mészáros (HU), architectural historian
Graphic Design: Side2 Studio
Partners: Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Faculty of Architecture, Czech Technical University in Prague, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Department of Architecture, Docomomo International – Czech Republic, Docomomo International – Slovakia, National Heritage Institute, A489 Company
Co-financed by the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme
