Urban Planning in Communist Countries - Beginnings of Urban Planning in Communist Countries

Beginnings of Urban Planning in Communist Countries

All eastern European countries had suffered due to the war and their economies were in a very poor state. There was a need to reconstruct cities which had been severely damaged due to the war. Warsaw in Poland had practically been razed to the earth during the 1944 uprising, Dresden in Eastern Germany had been totally destroyed by a bombardment in February 1945, Stalingrad had been destroyed during the battle and few houses if any were still standing. Many other cities had to be rebuilt. The financial resources of the countries, which after nationalization of industries and of big landowners, were under total government control and all development and investment had to be financed by the state. According to communist ideology, the first priority was building a socialist industry.

Therefore, for 10–15 years, most resources were directed towards the development of industry and the rebuilding of destroyed cities. In most cases, this reconstruction was carried out without any urban planning, first of all because reconstruction had to be started immediately, without waiting for the planning exercise and also because the man-power and expertise for developing urban plans for a great number of cities was not available. However, many countries where historical centers had been badly damaged, efforts were made to restore, at least partially, the damaged historical buildings and experts worked to have this restoration made as closely as possible to the original. Examples of such exercises are the rebuilding of the old city center in Warsaw, of the Zwinger in Dresden, of many historic buildings in Budapest though there are many other examples in the zone under Soviet influence.

A notable exception is the building of the National Theatre of Bucharest, Romania, which was damaged by bombing in August 1944. Though part of the building was still standing, after taking complete power in 1947, the communist authorities decided to tear down the remains of the building.

In the late 1940s, the Soviet Union developed a new type of high-rise. The first such buildings were built in Moscow: Moscow State University, Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building, Block of flats on Kudrinskaya Square, Hotel Leningradskaya, Hotel "Ukraina", Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Heavy Industry. These were duplicated in some other countries, the main examples being the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw and the Press Palace in Bucharest. The Stalin Allee (subsequently named Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin was also flanked by buildings having the same Stalinist style, though their concept was different from the Moscow high-rises. These buildings are mainly examples of a new architectural style, but did not involve urban planning to a significant extent, and there is no visible conceptual link between these buildings and their neighborhood.

It may, however, be recalled that these buildings required the demolition of the structures which were located on their sites. The most notorious is the demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, erected in Moscow as a memorial of Napoleon's defeat. The site was required for the Palace of the Soviets, which was never built. The demolition of historic buildings, especially churches, to make place for the new communist structures is thus a general trait communist urbanism. Recent examples, such as the Demolition of historical parts of Bucharest by Nicolae Ceauşescu are just a continuation of this ideology but not an isolated case.

As in most cities, few new housing units were built; a severe shortage of housing units soon became apparent. All communist countries adopted the solution which had been applied by the Soviets after the 1917 revolution. Strict limits were set on the area to which each person was entitled and the authorities would place people who needed housing in the exceeding rooms. Generally the area allocated to which a person was entitled was about 9-10 square meters (100 square feet.) and more than one person had to share the same room. There was no area allocated to living and dining areas. Four or more families had to share the same apartments. Industrialization brought more people from rural areas to cities, and gradually, it became even impossible to house more people in these cities without starting an extensive program of new construction.