Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam by Christina Schwenkel

Abstract

Reviewed by: Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam by Christina Schwenkel Katrin Bahr Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam. By Christina Schwenkel. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. Pp. vii + 403. Paper $30.95. ISBN 978-1478011064. In recent years, historians have started to increasingly immerse themselves with questions of the transnational relationships between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and their socialist allies in the Asian and African world. While there is some research on the East German experts in Africa, less is known about the relationships between Vietnam and the GDR. In her book Building Socialism, anthropologist Christina Schwenkel offers a multifaceted perspective that includes the transformation of urban spaces, architectural planning, and the everyday life of Vietnamese people living in development estates. Schwenkel examines the various stages of urban development and the longing for modernity as part of the socialist vision in the city of Vinh during the 1970s and 1980s and its resulting failure and disillusionment post-1990. In addition to an analysis of modern architecture—and its [End Page 620] planning—to explain the process of socialist nation-building, Schwenkel also stresses the importance of the subjects striving, living, and opposing the socialist model, and how this "unplanned obsolescence" influenced the understanding of the urban past and future, as well as the remembrance of socialist solidarity (5). The book is divided into three main parts: Ruination, Reconstruction, and Obsolescence. Part 1 sets the ground for the international help by socialist countries, focusing on the US invasion from 1964 to 1973 and the devastating assault on the urban landscape by air. The first chapter details the efforts of the strategic bombings by US pilots through aerial photography to construct the enemy, and in which "racialized optics" justified the killings (19). The second chapter moves from the air to the ground and exposes the lived experiences of the Vietnamese people during aerial warfare. While aerial photography distanced itself from the human aspects of destruction, photographs taken on the ground created a "moral and civil knowledge," thereby bringing to light the vast destruction of not only the urban landscape, but also of Vietnamese culture and livelihood, and the consequent exodus from urban areas (49). As the events unfolded, news of the warfare began to mobilize socialist countries to express their international solidarity with Vietnam. Relevantly, the third chapter focuses on the GDR and its justification and deployment of solidarity efforts to Vietnam. Not only did the GDR envision its engagement as a chance to claim its geopolitical space in the competition with West Germany and the Soviet Union, but also to use postwar German history as a collective and shared experience while simultaneously opposing US imperialism. The second part of the book looks at the vision of socialist modernization and Vietnam's collaboration with East German experts in the process of rebuilding the city after US destruction. Solidarity between the GDR and Vietnam had already started in the 1950s and represented one of the earliest friendship agreements the GDR signed with decolonized countries. In light of this, the special agreement between the East Germans and the Vietnamese instilled a mindset of postcolonial solidarity that allowed for "new forms of legitimacy and intimacy" (21). Chapter 4 discusses the project divisions within Vietnam among the Soviet Union, China, and other Eastern bloc countries, as well as the lack of knowledge those countries brought to Vietnam—a feature exemplified by unrealistic design proposals and a lack of skilled labor. As the chapter shows, this did not apply to GDR projects, which "succeed[ed] on account of social, political, and affective forces" and recognized the importance of housing, technology, and training the returned displaced people to achieve modernity (112). Chapter 5 then incorporates the collaboration between planners and architects from East Germany and Vietnam, and their negotiation of the "mutual cooperation" (140). Discussions included the different visions of urban development to achieve economic efficiency and to balance tradition with modernity. Chapter 6 concludes with the urban housing estates' aim to advance technology and to improve the living conditions, but [End Page 621] at the same time also provided the state the opportunity to...