Cultural Landscapes of Post-Socialist Cities: Representation of Powers and Needs

The cultural landscapes of Central European cities reflect over half acentury of socialism and are marked by the Marxists' vision of a utopianlandscape. Architecture, urban planning and the visual arts wereconsidered to be powerful means of expressing the 'people's power'.However, since the velvet revolutions of 1989, this urban sceneryhas been radically transformed by new forces and trends, infused by thefree market, democracy and liberalisation. This has led to 'landscapecleansing' and 'recycling', as these former communist nations usednew architectural, functional and social forms to transform theirurbanscapes, their meanings and uses.Comparing case studies from different post-socialist cities, this bookexamines the culturally conditional variations between local powers andstructures despite the similarities in the general processes andsystems. It considers the contemporary cultural landscapes of thesepost-socialist cities as a dynamic fusion of the old communist forms andnew free-market meanings, features and democratic practices, of globalinfluences and local icons. The book argues that these urbanscapesclearly reflect the social, cultural and political conditions andaspirations of these transitional countries and so a critical analysisof them provides important insights.