The Gift - by Lukasz Stanek (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The gifting of architecture during the Cold War was a spectacular means for socialist countries to manifest a new vision of international relations for the decolonizing world. Soviet, Eastern European, Chinese, and Cuban institutions donated factories, schools, hospitals, and housing to newly independent states in Africa and Asia, transforming cities and landscapes in Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Mongolia, Vietnam, and elsewhere. This book shows how the moral, temporal, and racial dynamics of gift-giving conditioned the design, construction, and afterlives of these buildings. It debates how the generosity and violence specific to gift exchange, and the social bonds that it creates, shaped and continue to shape everyday urbanism across Africa and Asia. By rereading these encounters, The Gift offers a uniquely differentiated genealogy of global urbanization and its architecture.

With contributions by Fantahun Ayele, Darisuren Azbayar, Boris Chukhovich, Yanjinlkham Dashtseren, David Kojo Derban, Alice Korkor Ebeheakey, Claudia Gastrow, Ana Ivanovska Deskova, Damjan Kokalevski, Vladimir Kulic, Ksenia Litvinenko, Ye Liu, Kulshat Medeuova, Thục Linh Nguyễn Vũ, Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh, Jennifer Robinson, Uurtsaikh Sangi, Christina Schwenkel, Alevtina Solovyeva, Setiadi Sopandi, Ke Song, Paul Sprute, and Miruna Stroe

• Explains global urbanization through a focus on architectural mobilities beyond Western Europe and North America
• Offers an innovative perspective on the long lives of buildings across Africa and Asia: from design and construction to their everyday use by inhabitants
• Features a wealth of unpublished contemporary and archival images

About the Author

Lukasz Stanek is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Michigan, USA. He is the author of Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (2020).