Resist erasure. Capture the legacy of a vanished era.
Every year, thousands of fragments of an entire civilisation disappear.
Imagine losing 15% of your country's cultural heritage each decade. The entire Renaissance would disappear in a century. This is what's happening to socialist-era monumental art. Perhaps half has already vanished since the collapse of the Soviet Union — destroyed for ideological reasons, cleared for development, or simply left to decay.
This is insanity.
Yet monumental memorials still loom over Eastern European squares, cosmic structures rise across the Caucasus, and fading mosaics continue to colour cities in Central Asia. Dismissed as ideology made concrete, these works reveal something more: artists who smuggled beauty into a system that demanded obedience. But as redevelopment and neglect accelerate, they too risk being lost forever.
This archive exists for one reason: to document and preserve the world's most endangered art before it vanishes completely.
Spotlight
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Housing Complex Romanita - Chisinau
Oleg Vronski (architect); A. Marian (engineer); in collaboration with O. Blogu; S. Crani; N. Rebenko; P. Feldman

Mosaic - "Hospitable Moldova" - Chisinau Railway Station
Mikhail Burya; Vladislav Andreevich Obukh

Fashion Center (Casa de Moda)
Victor Zakharov, Liudmila Gofman, Gennadiy Zhinkin

Mosaic - "Plowman of the Universe" - Chisinau
Aurel David
The isolation of the obsession
The archive behind the archive: the projects, books, and communities that made Concrete Wastelands possible.
Newest entries
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Bus Stop - Cimislia

Central Bank of Moldova (former State Bank Building)
Abram Vaysbein; Semyon Shoikhet; G. Kalyuszyner.

Mosaic - "Plowman of the Universe" - Chisinau
Aurel David

