Long life of the Socialist Modernism in the Baltic States

In 2016 UNESCO World Heritage Committee Session inscribed the works of Le Corbusier on the World Heritage List.1 It must have been the moment of triumph for many lovers of the Modern Movement and people who initiated preservation programs for modern architecture. With key works of Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and other masters on the World heritage list we can be sure that Modern Movement became an established cultural heritage. What about the socialist modernism? It already had its momentum few years ago with lectures, books, conferences and exhibitions. These events testify to the need to understand and consider Socialist pasts not as a “lost”, which is better ignored, but rather as a distinctive phenomenon that is still affecting us, exploring which can at least in part explain our present. And many of my colleagues ask why socialist modernism did not make it to the world heritage list. We can speculate that it might be because of the poor value of the socialist modernism, or, to put it in other words, because socialist modernism did not produce any World class architectural icons? Or maybe the reason is a less influential community, which did not make enough effort to prepare an outstanding nomination? As a good provocation I would like to mention a book Belyaevo Forever (Strelka, 2014) by Polish researcher Kuba Snopek, who tried to put a Moscow mass housing area Belyaevo on the UNESCO world heritage list and discussed the values of generic architecture. However, it is so far a research project.