Levente Polyak

I gave a lecture at the Politecnico di Milano, on December 14, on Socialist Architectures

Socialist architectures revisited: conceptions, evolutions and legacies

The current revival of the interest in socialist architectures is not only apparent in the field of architecture history but also in design, art and photography. Infrastructures and housing estates as well as monuments and public buildings are revisited and analyzed as materializations of a totalitarian ideology and as articulations of interactions between technology and aesthetics. Socialist architectures must be conceived in plural terms: the changing nature of socialist self-identification resulted in regular shifts in official aesthetics from Stalinist socialist realism towards International Style modernism at the scales of the interior, the building, the neighborhood and the city.

In my lecture I will look at the most important concepts of socialist architecture in their political, economic and technological context. While discussing the evolution of architectural forms, I will also talk about the ways in which the built environment was conceived in order to produce ‘socialist subjects’, the indispensable building units of a socialist society. Additionally, I will also address contemporary dilemmas of socialist architectures: the legacy of socialist buildings and its effect on contemporary evaluations of modernism.

Link to Prezi

“For now, let’s make our paper as a living magazine!”

journal for northeast issues 5-6
release: 09 December 2010, 7-9 pm
music by CARDIOPHON
hinterconti, Marktstrasse 40a, D-20357 Hamburg

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journal for northeast issues 5-6
edited by projektgruppe, hamburg
special issue: living magazine
sections: city scape – orientation – living space – cultural standards – changing neighborhoods – urban development – historical view – flora and fauna – services – sports

contributors: Gabó Bartha, KAP-HT (Budapest), Sándor Bartha, Detour Brigade (Budapest), Balázs Beöthy (Budapest), Thomas Bratzke, Zast Real Estate (Berlin), Thomas Campbell/Dmitry Vorobyev (St. Petersburg), Doro Carl (Hamburg), Susanne Cockrell/Ted Purves, Amity Works (Oakland), Salem Collo-Julin/Melinda Fries/Rob Kelly/Zena Sakowski, The Free Store (Chicago), Margit Czenki/Christoph Schäfer (Hamburg), Miklós Erhardt (Budapest), Nikolett Erőss (Budapest), Csaba Farkas/Tamás Kaszás, Intercultural Orientation (Budapest), Marc Fischer (Chicago), Tim Goldie (London), Ryan Griffis, The Temporary Travel Office (Urbana), Felix Grimm (Hamburg), Ferenc Gróf/Jean-Baptiste Naudy, Société Réaliste (Paris), Owen Hatherley (London), Emma Hedditch (London), Marc Herbst/Christina Ulke, The California Herb & Spice Company (Los Angeles), Beata Hock (Budapest), Sibylle Hofter, Büro Schwimmer (Berlin), Srećko Horvat (Zagreb), Inventory, HMJokinen (Hamburg), Lilla Khoór/Will Potter (Budapest, London), Alexandra Köhring (Hamburg), Elke Krasny (Vienna), Petra Lange-Berndt/Uwe Täubler (Hamburg, London), Ligna (Hamburg), Polonca Lovsin (Ljubljana), Frank Lüsing/Alexander Rischer (Hamburg), Josh MacPhee/Erik Reuland (New York, Minneapolis), Esther Meier (Hamburg), Attila Menesi/Christoph Rauch (Budapest, Hamburg), Anca Mihulet/Sebastian Moldovan (Sibiu), Naeem Mohaiemen (New York), Jacek Niegoda (Gdansk), Levente Polyák (Budapest), Rena Rädle (Belgrade), Right to the City (Zagreb), Sarah Ross (Urbana), Therese Roth (Hamburg), Mark Saunders (London), Benedict Seymour (London), Cornelia Sollfrank (Hamburg, Dundee), Florin Tudor/Mona Vatamanu (Bucharest), Tibor Várnagy (Budapest), Annette Wehrmann/Freundeskreis (Hamburg), Kathrin Wildner (Hamburg, Berlin), Monika Wucher (Hamburg), Olga Yegorova (St. Petersburg), Zampa di Leone.

ISBN 978-3-86895-063-2
Revolver Publishing by VVV
www.revolver-publishing.com

projektgruppe
info(at)projektgruppe.org
www.projektgruppe.org

Mental City megnyitó

After the London, Budapest and Bratislava events, the fourth Anatomy of a Street event will take place in Warsaw, on November 20, 2010.

fot. Miesto, 2010, www.miesto.pl

Program:

11.30 Meeting at Mokotowska and Hoża st. corner, Warsaw
11.30-14.00 Common walk trough Mokotowska street guided by Magda Śliwka (accompanied by Wojtek Kasperski)
14.00-16.00 Open discussion at Info Qultura at Plac Konstytucji 4. Participants:  Levente Polyak, Eszter Steierhoffer, Grzegorz Piątek, Ola Wasilkowska and Wojtek Kacperski.

Organizer: Bęc Zmiana Foundation

This Friday, the third event of the Anatomy of a Street series takes place in Bratislava. Lectures and discussions about the transformation of East-Central European cities.

November 12, 2010. – 13.30

STU in Bratislava
Institute of Management
Vazovova 5
812 43 Bratislava
Room No.: UC 301

Rákosi Péter (Technica Schweiz) - Kirakatok, leltár, 2007-2010

Art, architecture and civil initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe
November 7, 2010 – Labor, 1053 Budapest, Képíró u. 6. Map
An event by the KÉK – Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre, the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and the Budapest University of Technology

In the past decades, political, economic, social and cultural changes in Central and Eastern Europe also led to an important transformation of cities. The region’s cities have struggled with similar problems and have often faced the same challenges. However, there is no sufficient exchange of experiences between these cities; this is the gap KÉK’s event is devoted to bridge. There has been many institutional answers offered to the dilemmas raised in these cities that have become veritable battlefields of opposing political, economic and social visions. Parallel to that, reflections of post-socialist urban transformation have also began at the intersections of professional, civil and cultural spheres.Cooperations between architects, artists and activists have resulted in numerous innovative and courageous ideas, proposals, projects.

What are the new methods and tools with which the contemporary city can be approached? Where are the junctions between architecture, urbanism, art and activism? What is the role of research and intervention in cultural projects addressing the city? What are the capacities of cultural projects to make pressure on decision-making institutions? The meeting is looking for answers to these questions.

In the first part of the meeting, the results of the parallel research project “Anatomy of a Street” will be presented, where besides the presentations of Aleksandra Wasilkowska (member of the Warsaw foundation Bęc Zmiana) and Dagmar Petrikova (Slovak Institute of Technology), the project by Steierhoffer Eszter (Art Network Agency) and Levente Polyák (KÉK) prepared for the London Festival of Architecture will also be introduced. In the second part of the event, Grzegorz Piątek, representing the Warsaw organization Bęc Zmiana, will talk about how art has become a part of the debate about Warsaw. Following him, Jakob Hurrle, director of the Prague-based Multicultural Centre will present the centre’s programmes investigating urban phenomena related to international migration. Constantin Goagea, from the Bucharest group Zeppelin will talk about his organization’s approach to finding solutions for dysfunctional public spaces in Bucharest’s housing estates and about the urban report project. In the final presentation, Ivan Kucina, teacher at the Faculty of Architecture University of Belgrade and at the Parsons the New School of Design in New York, and programme director of the Belgrade International Architecture Week will talk about self-regulated urbanity in contemporary cities.

Program

14.00 Steierhoffer Eszter & Polyák Levente: Anatomy of a Street: Budapest, Pécs, London
14.30 Aleksandra Wasilkowska: Anatomy of a Street: Warsaw
15.00 Dagmar Petrikova: Anatomy of a Street: Bratislava

Q&A, coffee break

16.00 Gregorz Piatek (Bec Zmiana, Warsaw): Debating the City: Art and Cultural Organisations
16.30 Jakob Hurrle (Multicultural Centre, Prague): Cultures from Around the Block
17.00 Constantin Goagea (Zeppelin, Bucharest): Interventions in Socialist Neighborhoods + urban report project
17.30 Ivan Kucina (Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade): Conditions of Self-Regulated Urbanity

Q&A

For more information visit: http://www.anatomyofastreet.org/collaborations

Contact:
levente.polyak@kek.org.hu
+36304359002

Supporters: PATTERNS_Lectures (WUS Austria & ERSTE Stiftung), International Visegrad Fund, Polish Institute

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