Sorela & Stalinist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia (History & Architecture)

« slogan encouraged by Stalin “National in form, socialist in content” was present: despite the socialist monumental architecture, Sorela architects wanted people to have their own national feeling… Architecture took a leading part in the Socialist Realism that was practiced for years in USSR, unlike in Czechoslovakia.

Indeed, Sorela architecture lasted less than 6 years: it ended after the Khrushchev discourse on the excess of Stalinism in 1955.

This fact could bring an argument to the theory that describes Sorela as an absolute obligation given to Stavoprojekt by USSR.

Nova Ostrava has been the only “big new communist town” constructed during the Sorela era, although few cities were expanded or transformed… And yet, if everybody tends to categorize Socialist realist architecture as soulless, too monumental, (…), the Sorela buildings were really popular and considered as an important progress, as the testimony of a Czech woman on the Virtual European Cultural Center 2 (VECC) website shows us: “Sorela inspired me in my own life, particularly because I spent my youth in the city of Havírov.

I was fascinated not just by Sorela’s interesting architecture, but also by its functionality, fully corresponding to the standard of living of that time.

Housing in this interesting environment was, what’s more, accompanied by the necessary transport services, shopping facilities and adequate preschool and school facilities so essential to a large community made up of a relatively young population.“ All those things show the central place of Architecture in the process of the Socialist realism wanted by Stalin to “build’ socialism and sovieticized Central Europe.

Policies and architecture are linked, more than we firstly could believe.

Czechoslovakia was also the place of those architectural changes only for six years, and today, we are able to observe the Sorela’s marks in a lot of Czech towns, such as Prague (with the International Hostel of Dejvice) or in Nova Ostrava and Havirov.

To conclude with a short sentence, architecture is an original way to study Czechoslovakia and other countries under Stalinism. 1)Za recor, K i mberly, Manufactu r i ng a Socia l ist Modern i ty, p.74, 2011 2 ) http://vecu.efos-europa.eu/no_cache/cultural-centre/single/pointer/0/theme/housing- culture/document/69/. »