There’s something about this bleak weather that makes the idea of looking at late Eastern Bloc architecture extremely appealing — kind of like listening to weepy music when it’s rainy out. French photographer Frédéric Chaubin’s forthcoming book, Cosmic Communist Constructions , documents the last two decades of the Soviet era; many of the government-commissioned buildings featured in his photographs — scattered throughout Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia — have since been destroyed. Click through to view a gallery of images.
The architecture faculty at the Polytechnic Institute of Minsk, Belarus, and its succession of overhanging lecture theatres, by V Anikin and I Yesman, 1983. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
The Georgian Ministry of Highways in Tbilisi, Georgia, by G Chakhava, Z Dzhalaganiya, T Tkhilava and V Klinberg, 1974. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
House of Soviets in Kaliningrad. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
Palace of Ceremonies in Tbilisi, Georgia, by R Dzhorbenadze and V Orbeladze, 1985. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
A children’s health resort in Adler, Russia, by Zurab Tsereteli, 1973. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
Druzhba sanatorium in Yalta, Ukraine, by I Vasilevsky and Y Stefanchuk, 1985. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
Soviet embassy in Havana, Cuba, by Alexander Rochegov, 1985. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
Ukrainian Institute of Scientific and Technological Research and Development in Kiev, Ukraine, by L Novikov and F Turiev, 1971. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
Institute of Robotics and Technical Cybernetics in St Petersburg, Russia, by S Savin and B Artiushin, 1987. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
Monument to the Battle of Bash-Aparanin Armenia by Rafael Israelyan, 1979. Photo credit: Frédéric Chaubin from Cosmic Communist Constructions
