Back in the USSR : Soviet roadside architecture from Samarkand to Yerevan / Peter Ortner.

Berlin : Jovis, [2016]

109 pages : color illustrations ; 18 x 23 cm

Text in German and English.

Bus stops are normally mundane structures, standardized and replaceable and therefore scarcely paid any attention. However, on the country roads of the former Soviet republics there are many unexpected waiting zones, a wide-ranging panoply of socialist architecture. Photographer Peter Ortner shows a small selection of such bus stops in this book. The photographs were taken both in Central Asia and in Eastern Europe, from Uzbekistan to Armenia, and illuminate the imaginative variations on this vernacular architecture. His shots present us with an endless variety of forms and colors; an eclectic micro architecture, which gains a diffuse charm through neglect and weathering. Anonymous architects created special buildings for an everyday purpose: for waiting.

German; English

July 20, 2016