Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between socialism, post-socialism, urban aesthetics and shifting temporalities by reference to the cases of two Stalin-era 'tall buildings', or vysotkas: Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science and Moscow's (unbuilt) Zaryadye Administrative Building.

Paper long abstract:

The idea of the city dominated by a soaring landmark or a grand epicentre - whether a sacred temple or a secular monument - was allegedly buried along with utopian high modernity, sometime during the second half of the 20th century. The new urban age taking shape in its place, say politicians, planners and scholars, will be humbler, periphery-oriented, non-linear, ephemeral: winding desire paths and brownfield eco-cities instead of monumental axes and skyscraper forests; pop-up innovation hubs rather than palaces of culture; Stolpersteine and ghost bikes in place of equestrian heroes and eternal monoliths. But is this tendency towards the crooked, peripheral and impermanent really as absolute, inevitable - and desirable - as all that? How do the aesthetic and temporal manifestations of this centrifugal urban tendency relate to political and economic ones? Which forms of centrality (and monumentality, and permanence) have 21st century cities inherited from their modern (and ancient) predecessors, and which ones have been invented anew? Which forms have become obsolete, fallen into ruin, or become re-invented, re-purposed and appropriated for new uses and imaginaries? This papers explores these questions with reference to the the cases of two Stalin-era 'tall buildings', or vysotkas: Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science and Moscow's (unbuilt) Zaryadye Administrative Building.