Socialist Hotels

From Brutalism to Modernism, via Futurism―the first-ever compilation of hotels from the Soviet era

Socialist hotels were state-constructed buildings used by visiting government workers, ordinary citizens and even the occasional capitalist guest from the West. Today, they are a fascinating legacy of a Soviet architectural, social and cultural idiosyncrasy. This epic photographic project―spanning 153 hotels across 31 countries―chronicles the architecture of hospitality and leisure in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space. Many were built in imposing styles: Brutalist and Modernist structures emphasizing scale, functionality and the power of the state. Quirkier constructions used mosaics, tiles and stained glass as cultural references, to reflect the traditions of individual countries.
Collected here for the first time are an amazing range of examples, from the grand Socialist Realism and Neoclassical details of the Stalinist era (such as the Interhotel, Georgia) and the Soviet Modernism that marked a shift away from excess toward austere, concrete structures (Hotel Traian, Romania) to the futuristic and gravity defying (Sevan Writers’ House, Armenia).
As socialism waned, the hotels became privatized, increasingly undergoing modernization or even demolition, to be replaced with global brands. Socialist Hotels is a unique survey of a contemporary Soviet architectural diaspora, documenting remaining examples of this disappearing phenomenon. The volume includes an introductory essay from acclaimed food and travel author Caroline Eden, a specialist on the former Soviet Union.
Countries include: Abkhazia, Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Crimea, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Transnistria, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.