“Communist architecture” also known as “building cheap efficient affordable housing in bulk in a destroyed economy instead of a letting everyone be homeless to build a few pretty houses”
Pretty much. That wasn’t a complaint - it’s not sexy (it actually tends to liminal, with weird holdovers from multiple eras), but it works, and the healthcare received is seamless as soon as you’ve been identified as reasonably sick.
Very identical, sprawling lowrise construction, and not necessarily used as originally intended. I swear the pre-op area before my last surgery was originally a parking garage that they’d put up room dividers in. And just an absolute maze of them, backrooms style.
It’s cheap to build and maintain. It just gets called “institutional architecture” sometimes.
Some of the schools I went to were architecturally interesting, but you bet there was still a lot of cinderblock, steel and harsh lighting.
Hospitals in my Canadian province often have the same vibe, although they start getting into that communist architecture feeling a bit, too.
I’m guessing you’re talking about the post-WWII low-cost housing Khrushchevka (“commieblocks”), Soviet modernism, or the related Brutalist concrete architecture? (Because in context I assume it’s not constructivist, socialist classicism, or non-Soviet styles from around the world)
“Communist architecture” also known as “building cheap efficient affordable housing in bulk in a destroyed economy instead of a letting everyone be homeless to build a few pretty houses”
Pretty much. That wasn’t a complaint - it’s not sexy (it actually tends to liminal, with weird holdovers from multiple eras), but it works, and the healthcare received is seamless as soon as you’ve been identified as reasonably sick.
Or the old repurposed Tsarist ballrooms.
Very identical, sprawling lowrise construction, and not necessarily used as originally intended. I swear the pre-op area before my last surgery was originally a parking garage that they’d put up room dividers in. And just an absolute maze of them, backrooms style.