Komarno [2.]

Komarno, Slovakia, abandoned communist-era office building; photo taken around 2000; Kodak Portra 800 negative; scan from the negative 6x9 cm; Ercona II camera.

Modernist architects - like architects in any historical era - have always been closely associated with the ruling power in a given area, whatever it was, totalitarian or democratic. It was no different in the areas that were included in Czechoslovakia after 1920, and were the subject of claims of former members of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (eg Hungary) or neighboring countries (eg Romania). As a result, modernist buildings - public utility buildings built by the state, but also private projects, such as department stores erected by the king of the footwear empire Bata - became a kind of "stamps" in the city space, placed in the name of this fragile - as it turned out - statehood. This can be seen in the photo in my previous post: Komarno [1.].

But with the advent of the communist system in 1945, it was no different, when modernism in architecture was considered "as a new paradigm, a panacea, necessarily invalidating and replacing - when necessary, by force - all traditional architecture and town planning." [quoted after Leon Krier, Community Architecture, Gdańsk 2011]. Apart from the socialist realism episode, short in Poland and longer in other Central European countries, the design was based on the famous elements of Courbusier's "international style", ie: pole structure, horizontal windows, flat roof and terraces on it, free plan and free elevation. And this is regardless of the climatic conditions, which are so different in the countries of the Soviet bloc. Unfortunately, the terrible quality materials, poor workmanship and design simplifications lead to the fact that such objects have become ugly old and, as the architects describe it, have become morally worn out.