Overview

Built in 1969, Metsamor, Armenia (then the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic), was intended as a settlement for employees of a nearby nuclear power plant to be completed between 1976 and 1980. But the power plant would never realize the ambitions of its creators. In 1988, an earthquake caused the facility to be shut down. In 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted a complete construction freeze. The symbol of the dream of a technologically advanced nation, Metsamor remained incomplete and fell into decay undiminished by the recommissioning of the power plant in 1995. Utopia and Collapse documents the rise and fall of Metsamor. The book brings together an oral history of Metsamor with essays by Sarhat Petrosyan and a team of contributors and art and photographic research by Katharina Roters, including more than one hundred photographs. Among the topics discussed are Armenia’s cultural and and architectural histories; the typology of Soviet atomograds, or atomic cities; and the phenomenon of modern ruins. Although today the power plant’s workers live in a partly built failed utopia, Metsamor stands as examples of the highly idiosyncratic Armenian variety of Soviet Modernism of the 1960s and ’70s, making this a fascinating story for anyone with an interest in Soviet-era buildings and architecture.  

Full Product Details

9783038600947

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Katharina Roters lives in Budapest where she works as an artist. Her previous book Hungarian Cubes: Subversive Ornaments in Socialism (ISBN 9783906027432, Park Books, 2014) won the DAM Architectural Book Award 2014. Sarhat Petrosyan is an architect and urbanist and founding director of Yerevan-based urbanlab, an independent research institute.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available