Maroš Krivý, “Greyness and Colour Desires: The Chromatic Politics of Panelák in Late-Socialist and Postsocialist Czechoslovakia,” Journal of Architecture, 20, 5 (2015), 765–802.
In all likelihood, a visitor today to one of the many housing estates in Central and Eastern Europe would be faced with a veritable concert of colours. The façades of prefabricated panel buildings (paneláky) have been given a colourful coat of paint during the last two decades, a change that is usually intepreted in binary terms of grey socialism and garish post-socialist capitalism. This article, in contrast, explores the socialist debate on colours in housing, and interprets the recent, post-socialist revival of greyness as a form of retro-utopia.
In all likelihood, a visitor today to one of the many housing estates in Central and Eastern Europe would be faced with a veritable concert of colours. The façades of prefabricated panel buildings (paneláky) have been given a colourful coat of paint during the last two decades, a change that is usually intepreted in binary terms of grey socialism and garish post-socialist capitalism. This article, in contrast, explores the socialist debate on colours in housing, and interprets the recent, post-socialist revival of greyness as a form of retro-utopia.
