See the award-winning photos celebrating Eastern Europe’s mass housing
9th district, Rustavi, Georgia Image: Jan Chudozilov
15 July 2020
Text:
Paula Erizanu
A photo competition highlighting the uncertain future of Eastern Europe’s mass housing has announced its winners.
Initiated by the Berlin-based NGO Dekabristen e.V., the Act Up project aims to revitalise large housing estates across the New East. The photo competition they organised drew 300 applications and a total of 1,300 images from 40 countries.
Girst place went to Russian photographer Arseniy Kotov for his pic ‘Man and the portal, Yaroslavl’, while second prize was given to Czech-Swiss photographer Jan Chudozilov’s ‘9th district, Rustavi’.
“With the current decay and threatening collapse of infrastructure, as well as construction of new residential and commercial buildings, [mass housing] districts face rapid and destructive elitist densification,” Act Up says. “[These trends] endanger the social cohesion of the population and hinder sustainable urban development.”
The organisers will publish 50 of the best entries in a book.
Due to the pandemic, exhibitions of a selection of photos at CANactions International Architecture Festival, Tbilisi Architecture Biennial, as well as events in Berlin, Kyiv, and Tbilisi have been postponed until autumn.
Check out all entries on Instagram page @eastern_block.
Man and the portal, Yaroslavl, Russia. Image: Arseniy Kotov
Read our interview with Arseniy Kotov on his upcoming book SOVIET CITIES: Labour, Life & Leisure here.
