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‘Sporting Moscow’: stadia buildings and the challenging of public space in the post-war Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

ALEXANDRA KÖHRING
ALEXANDRA KÖHRING*
Affiliation:
Helmut-Schmidt-University, Universität der Bundeswehr, Hamburg, Holstenhofweg, 22403 Hamburg, Germany
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Abstract:

The Moscow Luzhniki stadia (1954–56) were constructed at the beginning of Khrushchev's reforms as a representative object to launch a rejuvenated and modernized socialism. The article seeks to situate the stadia complex in the crucial processes of urban transformation that occurred in the post-war Soviet Union; in questioning the Stalin monumental style, the planning of Luzhniki opened a more relational understanding of public space to Soviet people.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , August 2010 , pp. 253 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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5 ‘luzha’ (Russian) means ‘swamp’.

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