Socialist Cities: Between the European City and the Modernist Utopia (LV / Seminar) Socialist Cities: Between the European City and the Modernist Utopia (LV / Seminar)

Socialist Cities in Eastern Europe may seem like the uncanny relatives of their Western European counterparts: familiar and at the same time unmistakable different. The imperial aesthetics of the early 1950s architecture might seem like a throwback to the pre-war times. At the same time the urban planning behind the Iron Curtain preserved the European city model, often dismissed by Western urbanists. The housing estates from the 1970s, while bearing resemblance to their counterparts in (West) Germany, France, or Sweden, raise questions about their true nature due to their staggering scale.

This course ventures beyond the surface, examining the the so-called socialist cities within the broader tapestry of European urban history. It explores different aspects of socialist cities such as urban planning, housing, and public transport. Each topic is analyzed on an example of a city from the Socialist Bloc and compares it with a case study from the Capitalist Bloc. Furthermore, it scrutinizes the applicability of the "socialist city" category itself, scrutinizing the similarities and differences among cities in Central and Eastern Europe.

The seminar will be conducted in English. Students are welcome to use either English or German language when participating in the discussion and preparing their presentations.