Re:Why is the Moscow Metro so grandiose compared to other So...
by emteycz on Monday May 24, 2021 @08:39AM
(#27263636)
That was sarcasm. My bad, I know it doesn't go well over the internet.
There actually was artistic brutalism though - some architects here in Czechia (mostly Prague) tried to do their best with what was avaiblable. Some of these buildings are (post-significant rework) even nice. Some. And these were built way past Stalin - 70's and 80'.
My point was that the metro was the precious project of the bureaucrats.
Brutalism was largely rejected in the Soviet Union (Stalin offended Le Corbusier massively by rejecting his brutalist plan for Moscow, for example) until Khrushchev saw cheap and crappy construction as a viable solution to the housing crisis that was intended to be temporary (e.g. most of the housing was planned for a 20 year lifetime - of course it didn't play out that way). There was no illusion at that point at least that it would be beautiful.
Stalins focus on big ornate statement-buildings over solving housing was certainly an incredibly poor allocation of resources.