| The socialists thought their architecture was beautiful as well -- both aesthetically, and because it was produced efficiently and served the needs of the people. And in fact they produced many perfectly fine and beautiful buildings, some of which are quite coveted residences today (such as the apartment complexes near Frankfurter Tor in Berlin). Meanwhile pretty much the worst architecture you'll find anywhere would have to be the strip mall architecture (and most office complexes, and much suburban housing) created in the U.S. from the mid 1970s onwards (up until then it had at least some semblance of style). And now basically copy-pasta'd all over much of the world. In my view it's arguably even uglier, because it symbolizes a system in which people thought they were more free, original and infinitely wealthier then their counterparts in the supposedly drab, miserable, totalitarian East. (It was all those things to some extent; and folks in the West were categorically more free -- just not nearly to the extent that they typically thought). In fact, so deeply threatened were the new overlords in the West by the very idea that the socialist system could also produce beautiful and vibrant public spaces that they felt they just had to destroy one of its crowning achievements (the Palast der Republik, also in Berlin), and at a stupendously great cost -- and replace it with something basically garish, entirely fake (by design), and far less inviting and useful -- just to make a point. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurter_Tor [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin |
That's like asking which is worse: pancreatic cancer or Huntington's Chorea?
both pretty bad. Wouldn't want either.