IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

After the Second World War, the political system of Czechoslovakia radically changed its direction. Since the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia fully took over political power in 1948, everyday aspects of ordinary life were controlled and planned centrally. As an inherent part of the building industry and one of the main political instruments, architecture could not avoid the process of collectivization and standardization. Czechoslovak Stavoprojekt was established in 1948 as a state-run architectural planning organization and represented one of the largest architectural offices in the world. Stavoprojekt’s work encompassed a broad range of architectural and urban planning tasks. However, this post deals primarily with the impact on the landscape, which formed the essence of Stalin’s Plan for the Transformation of Nature. In the first place was the support of heavy industry, closely followed by housing construction. From the beginning, state attention was focused mainly on traditionally industrial regions in North Bohemia and North Moravia. Massive and forced transformation often occurred even before land-use plans were created. The subject of the research is how the existing settlements functioned during the period of uncertainty before the government even adopted the first spatial plans in the 1960s. Because in this interim period, there was no stagnation. Although the regions, as administrative units, lost their authority, they still grew (un)naturally. Related to this is the question of whether Stavoprojekt could restore regions to authority with its real projects, which were based on theoretical regulations of the central government.