# del



## the_tower (Jun 8, 2017)

del


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## wojtekbp (Mar 24, 2006)

^^ Since when Poland and Estonia are "much poorer" than Russia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita


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## the_tower (Jun 8, 2017)

so bermuda and cayman islands are richer than poland, even greece in some case. And china is poorer than poland if I follow your link as I did not explain why I said "Russia is richer than poland and estonia". You get me confusing, I just hope you had a bit of more sense to understand my question of "why russian architecture can't get off the sovietic style" but thank you to try to answer it, at least your wrote me


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## FabriFlorence (Sep 29, 2004)

I don't understand the question. In my opinion Russian architecture is not ugly at all.


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## FabriFlorence (Sep 29, 2004)

Do you really think that this is ugly?










https://vk.com/bestroofers


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

^^ Erhm, yes. But to be fair I'm not sure it is a uniquely Russian thing. Ugly is often cheap and cheap to build means higher profit margins.


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## spidey7312 (Dec 5, 2015)

To answer the question in the first post, there's this thing called value engineering (ve for short) and it seems to be running rampant in Russia atm.


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## Iluminat (Jan 16, 2008)

Actually I think Russian architecture improved a lot in the last few years, probably all former-communist countries experimented with very cheap postmodernism during their transformation, we had a period of mostly bad architecture in Poland too during the '90 (it might be a bit different in the baltics because they didn't have a lot of construction at all during that period from what I've heard :dunno but in the East it lasted longer and the scale was often bigger too so if they return back to just solid late-modernism and some Western inspirations after two decades of pseudo-historic crap then it's clearly a progress to me.

As to why the buildings are often massive and "commieblockish" I guess Russia still has cheap oil and gas so prefab construction is more affordable than it would be in Europe, they don't need as much insulation etc. so there is no reason to close down the housing factories, especially since they probably still have a huge housing shortage. You should also remember that economy in Russia is controlled by a small group of oligarhs that always like to have a big proffit without paying too much so they don't really like the idea of being competitive, it's not really a free market.


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## koolkid (Apr 17, 2006)

What I find most puzzling is that Russia only has two premier cities for such a huge and powerful country. Moscow and St Petersburg are outstanding and then there's nothing else. What happened? Why has Russia not been able to develop more world class, Premier cities? The smaller cities are quite lacking from a cultural, architectural, and economic perspective.


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## Oleg812 (Jun 13, 2017)

koolkid said:


> What I find most puzzling is that Russia only has two premier cities for such a huge and powerful country. Moscow and St Petersburg are outstanding and then there's nothing else. What happened? Why has Russia not been able to develop more world class, Premier cities? The smaller cities are quite lacking from a cultural, architectural, and economic perspective.


What time period you talk about? In Russian Empire there were many modern and beautiful cities, but more than half of them are not in Russia anymore - Riga, Odessa etc. In Soviet Union - yes, I agree with you, but there are some interesting cities if you are a fan of some architectural styles. Nowdays it is still two cities and all the others, but for example Yekaterinburg and Kazan have ambitions to be "the 3rd capital" and some others are boom cities now, like Krasnodar.
I agree that there are not so many interesting cities in Russia comparing to other European countries and the distances between them are awfully big, but anyway it is not like two cities and a desert (or taiga) betwee them even than it really looks like it when you travel from Moscow to Saint Peteersburg.


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## Saturianin (Mar 30, 2015)

This troll.


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## Saturianin (Mar 30, 2015)

Iluminat said:


> You should also remember that economy in Russia is controlled by a small group of oligarhs that always like to have a big proffit without paying too much so they don't really like the idea of being competitive, it's not really a free market.


You write about what you do not know.The competition is crazy in the construction business.


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## Avangard-55 (Mar 12, 2014)

Ugly is always a difficult term. I don't think, that russian architecture is ugly. And Imperia-tower is one of my favorite towers in Moscow.

To the point, why they are building in Russia still houses, like in the Soviet Union:

There are many reasons.

1. The houses build in the soviet-times are pretty comfortable. Those are nice new houses, with mostly an inner courtyard, with playgroungs for children. So for many families, those houses are pretty nice.

2. Russian winters can be very cold. If you build houses with fascades of glass, you have to use pretty expensive glass of heat a lot (not very efficient). Thats why houses in Russia don't have that much glass outside the windows.

3. In Russia many new flats are needed. To serve the demand, you have to build as many houses, as cheap and as quick as possible.

4. At least people from different countries have different tastes. Maybe the rusians don't think, they are ugly. I also like the "soviet-style" houses much more, than the houses, that were build in Germany in the 50's and 60's.


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## jerseygent (Jul 13, 2015)

It has improved a lot. But still far from being beautiful.


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## ILCOMEBACK (Jun 19, 2014)

The author of the post ( I guess from Eastern Europe) with an inferiority complex


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## Kozhedub (Jan 8, 2011)

Because Russia is located on the outskirts of Europe and is culturally backward? To be honest, this is also the case with many other Eastern European and post-Soviet countries.


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## jerseygent (Jul 13, 2015)

ILCOMEBACK said:


> The author of the post ( I guess from Eastern Europe) with an inferiority complex


I grew up in Eastern Europe. I that was the case with me as well.


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## GM (Feb 29, 2004)

I don't get the OP.
I love these new massive housing projects which have flourished in Russian cities.
They're cool, not ugly.


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## Acryle (Apr 8, 2008)

koolkid said:


> What I find most puzzling is that Russia only has two premier cities for such a huge and powerful country. Moscow and St Petersburg are outstanding and then there's nothing else. What happened? Why has Russia not been able to develop more world class, Premier cities? The smaller cities are quite lacking from a cultural, architectural, and economic perspective.


I can say the same about US, is there anything else besides NYC and LA? At least I'm unaware of. In case of UK I can name only London, Same for France and Germany. 

It more has to do with my and your ignorance.

From architectural perspectives in Russia you have to look at historical cities like Kazan, Nizhniy Novgorod and so. Or disneyland-like Yoshkar-Ola.

Novosibirsk - the third largest Russian city now, is little more than 100 years old. It definitely lacks in architecture as it is 90% Soviet provincial creature as it was 9th (!) in Soviet Union by the time of its collapse. Almost same story with Ekaterinburg, - the 4th in Russia and 10th in SU, - except it existed before like some provincial village in the Russian Empire with up to 40 000 residents by the time of the Civil War.

None of this (Bar Yoshka) are lacking from cultural perspective, at least within Russia. Neither both lacks in economy, sough there is more prosperous cities and towns in North-West Siberia, some of which were founded in 1960-80 (!).

Also, you have to remember, that past 400 years or so (longer than US existed, including colonial period) Russia was developing in broader perspectives with inclusion of the cities like Minsk, Kiev, Tbilisi and so on. If tomorrow California will split with US what will be the second largest city in this California-lees US? Can you name it without googling?


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## Acryle (Apr 8, 2008)

the_tower said:


> Hi!
> So I was wondering, why Russia keeps having an architecture that is not really moving up?


Would be nice of you if you would provide what is "nice" by your taste. I certainly don't find anything beautiful in Warsaw's new skyline. Palace of Culture is still best looking building there especially in contrast with fugly monstrosities they are building there now, while in Moscow the Seven Sisters are turning to rocky background for the City "crystals".


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## shayna94 (Mar 10, 2017)

This awesome work !!


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## xalexey (Feb 7, 2014)

the_tower said:


> "why russian architecture can't get off the sovietic style"



I have a feeling that you can not get rid of the "Soviet style" in your head and brains. It seems to you everywhere - even where it does not exist. The main condition is that it is made in Russia.
My advice is to get rid of stereotypes or stop trolling.

I do not see the objectivity in this topic "why Russian architecture is ugly."
I see propaganda here, trolling and stereotypes.
What does "Russian architecture" mean? Today there are all kinds of architects and many Russian projects are being developed by foreign architects.
Name the name of the bad Russian architect - then you can discuss his work. Why are you all raking in one pile?

The site administration should delete this topic. This is a discriminatory topic.

My proposal - organize the topic - "all Russian freaks and fools."


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## the_tower (Jun 8, 2017)

hi, I'm sorry if I offended you. I can't actually delete my post but I replaced the title and the text.
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, english is not my first language so yeah.

no offense


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## ArchiMos (Jan 18, 2011)

the_tower said:


> hi, I'm sorry if I offended you. I can't actually delete my post but I replaced the title and the text.
> I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, english is not my first language so yeah.
> 
> no offense


Well, really, no offense, he did not mean this, no, no


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## ArchiMos (Jan 18, 2011)

Will post some photos of recent projects of Russian architects, from time to time.

Roman Leonidov bureau cottage village 








from: https://archi.ru/russia/74946/obraz-zhizni-v-arendu#


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## ArchiMos (Jan 18, 2011)

T+T Architects, "Neo geo" business center interiors














From: https://archi.ru/russia/74491/novye-ofisnye-zemli-tt


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