Has socialist architecture left us legacy other than large-panel housing estates? Yes, indeed! Flying saucers, rocket towers, UFO bridges, pyramid hotels, corn skyscrapers and star skyscrapers, Sun Gates, brutalist buildings and sculptural buildings, tent churches and telescope mosques. A new exhibition at the International Cultural Centre tells their amazing story.

With more than 400 exhibits on display, the exhibition takes visitors on an architectural journey from Estonia to Macedonia, from Tallin to Skopje, through Berlin, Prague, Bratislava, Vilnius, Kyiv, Budapest, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Bucharest. We show not only public buildings, theatres, museums and sports halls, skyscrapers and department stores, but also socialist collective houses, ultramodern kolkhozes, wedding palaces and funeral homes. We showcase almost perfect cities! Everything that proudly represents the recent past, yet at the same time has been mocked as an architectural failure since the 1990s.

”Socmodernism. Architecture in Central Europe during the Cold War” is the first overview exhibition of the post-war architectural achievements of our part of the continent. It is the result of cooperation between the ICC and leading architectural institutions in the region. The designs, models, and works of art come from the collections of institutions such as: the Architecture Museum in Vienna, the Croatian Museum of Architecture and the Museum of Arts in Zagreb, the National Gallery in Prague, the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana, the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, the Estonian Museum of Architecture and the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, the Olomouc Museum of Art, the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava, the Municipal Museum in Tychy, the Institute for Documentation of Architecture of the Silesian Library, Museum of Katowice History,  SS. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje., as well as from many private collections.

The exhibition is available from October 3, 2024 to January 19, 2025.

Read more: https://mck.krakow.pl/socmodernizm-architektura-w-europie-srodkowej-czasu-zimnej-wojny