The Future Is Hidden in the Present Architecture and Czech Politics 1945-1989

The Czechoslovak architecture changed dramatically after WWII. It had to serve new political and social imperatives, its institutional structure transformed, and the circle of architects reformulated the critical topics and issues. The book follows the development of the definition of ‘socialist architecture’, as well as its main purposes and the structural concept of the communist ‘Future World’, from mid-1940’s to late 1980’s. It explores how this process was shaped by politicians, architects themselves, and also other stakeholders, including construction firms, and how the interested persons negotiated with each other. The authors of the individual chapters do not focus on the changing forms or construction methods or the lives of specific personalities, but rather on the architects’ responses to the varying dictates of society and their efforts to actively influence them. The book is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic as a part of the Program of Applied Research and Development of the National and Cultural Identity (NAKI II).