Fr̩d̩ric Chaubin РCosmic Communist Constructions Photographed

“Druzhba Holiday Center (Yalta, Ukraine, 1984)

If according to Goethe, ‘Architecture is frozen music’, then what can we suppose the buildings photographed by Frédéric Chaubin would have sounded like if thawed from their modular stasis, Steve Reich mixed with Shostakovich? or Phillip Glass developing a Scriabin motif…?

French photographer Fr̩d̩ric Chaubin has spent the last 5 years photographing the extremities of sci-fi Brutalism of the former Soviet Union. CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed presents these photographs at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, on view from April 24 РMay 26, 2007.

‘Operating in a cultural context hermetically sealed from the influence of their Western counterparts, these buildings drew inspiration from sources ranging from expressionism, science fiction, early European modernism and the Russian Suprematist legacy to produce an idiosyncratic, flamboyant and often imaginative architectural ménage’

A good interview with Chaubin about these photographs can be found here.