Abstract
In Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet UnionSoviet Union, housing estatesHousing estate are often associated with inhumane architectureArchitecture, unwelcoming public space and unending repetition, outcomes that have been attributed to strict design requirements in a rigid centralised system. Due to the uniformity and standardisation of residential housing produced during socialist times, both the design process and its master—the architect—are believed to have played only minor roles in shaping townscapes. This study, situated in the large housingLarge housing estate estatesLarge housing estate of TallinnTallinn, Estonia , challenges these assumptions using analyses of archival material. The study also explains—through first-hand interviews with senior architects who were key players in building socialist cities—the relations between strict Soviet regulations and vital elements of the city building process, including creativity, power and artistry. Analysis of primary source materials highlights an oversimplification of socialist modernismModernism, which suggests more nuanced explanations for town planning outcomesOutcomes that differ from what strict adherence to Soviet guidelines would have produced. Findings also suggest that regulations issued in MoscowMoscow. See also Russia for USSRUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)-wide site planning played a less important role than previously assumed in town planning outcomesOutcomes in Estonia. International modernist city planningCity planning ideals, combined with local expertise (and a willingness to push boundaries yet remain within the political system), strongly influenced town planning practice in the Soviet ‘West’.
Highlights
Vast housing estates—residential complexes dominated by high-rise block apartment buildings—were established between the 1960s and the 1990s to respond to crushing demand for urban housing due to employment-based migration triggered by industry and military expansions
We synthesise our findings to conclude that, in undertaking these enormous challenges, architects in socialist Estonia can be considered visionary city builders who, when handed standard building designs for residential space, seized opportunities to innovate in site design and layout, embracing possibilities to create unique built environments in vast housing estates that influenced urban landscapes
Individual apartments in new Estonian housing estates had grown larger during the Soviet era, and, by the late Soviet years, Estonians enjoyed the highest living space per capita at (11.7 m2) in the Soviet Union (Bater 1989)
Summary
State socialism provided unique opportunities to experiment with new models of city planning. Vast housing estates—residential complexes dominated by high-rise block apartment buildings—were established between the 1960s and the 1990s to respond to crushing demand for urban housing due to employment-based migration triggered by industry and military expansions. They were critical components of modern, planned cities for housing socialist lives in industrial-utopian centres (Gentile et al 2012; Kovács and Herfert 2012; Power 1997; Wassenberg 2004). We synthesise the contemporaneous urban planning system and the role of socialist architects, and we conduct a detailed empirical analysis of three residential districts in a capital city in the former Soviet space. Our concluding thoughts emphasise how, contrary to conventional wisdom, architects had more power than the Soviet system suggests and were able to embrace opportunities to create unique building environments
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