East Central Europe: The Unhappy Heritage of Communist Mass Housing: Fid-Bau Portal

East Central Europe: The Unhappy Heritage of Communist Mass Housing

Lizon, Peter

One of the sad legacies of the totalitarian regimes of East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union is the sorry state of the numerous mass housing projects started after the World War II to combat an unending shortage of housing. The state construction companies, from the former East Germany to Russia, monopolized all aspects of residential production. Large-scale standardization, a limited number of available housing types without variety, and poor quality resulted in depressing rows of blocks of flats made out of concrete panels. The inhabitants of these socialist projects had at the time no other choice; unfortunately, they do not have any other choice even today. The continuing housing shortage does not allow a Pruitt-lgoe solution; the panel blocks cannot be demolished and replaced. Instead, solutions are sought for fixing, improving, recycling, adapting, and humanizing these drab, gray, uninspiring bedroom communities.

This article is a case study of the Petrzalka housing project in the city of Bratislava. In it, I analyze issues that are common to many of the housing developments in the former Iron Curtain bloc. The capital of Slovakia, Bratislava is located 60 kilometers from Vienna and 200 kilometers from Budapest. The monarchs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire lived in the Bratislava castle (the city at the time was called Pressburg or Pozsony) above the Danube and were crowned in St. Martin's Cathedral. The capital institutions and architecture speak a language of centuries. The southern district of the city, Petrzalka, is situated on the right bank of the Danube and is accessible by bridges and a ferry from downtown Bratislava. Presently, there are some fifty-thousand housing units placed in high-rise apartment blocks. The construction of Petrzalka began in 1974.