House of Soviets in Kaliningrad.

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What is it about the Evil Empire and their ugly-as-fuck brutalist buildings? A legacy imbued with obsessions of ‘social realism’ shows scant regard for anything ‘real’ about its constructs; concrete eyesores sticking out like sore thumbs, their centrepiece buildings merely highlight the lunacy of the ideology running the system.

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In the Kaliningrad enclave, we have this anomaly plonked there, a robot geezer built beside the rubble of Königsberg Castle. It speaks to the USSR’s fixation with technology and its precedence over the human element. A central administration building, its interior was never finished and the project ran out of cash. It did, however, receive a paint job in 2005.

Nuts.

Further reading:

https://www.archdaily.com/897382/the-house-of-soviets-why-should-this-symbolic-work-of-soviet-brutalism-be-preserved

https://failedarchitecture.com/the-rebuilding-of-a-hornets-nest/

 

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