Making the Most of Tomorrow – A North Bohemian Laboratory of Socialist Modernism (Václav Havel) - Softcover

Spurnı, Matej

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8024640171 ISBN 13: 9788024640174

Publisher: Karolinum Press, Charles University, 2019

Synopsis

Most, one of the most impressive historical cities of Northern Bohemia, was destroyed in the sixties and seventies for coal mining. When plans to redevelop the city began, hope and expectations ran high; in the end, however, Most became a symbol for the heartless incompetence of Czechoslovak communism.

In this book, Matěj Spurnı explores the historical city of Most from the nineteenth century into the years following World War II, investigating the decision to destroy it as well as the negotiations concerning the spirit of the proposed new city. Situating postwar Most in the context of cultural and social shifts in Czechoslovakia and Europe as a whole, Spurnı traces the path a medieval city took to become a showcase of brutalist architecture and the regime’s technicist inhumanity.

But the book, like the city of Most itself, does not end in tragedy. Fusing architectural and political history with urban and environmental studies, Spurnı’s tale shows the progress that can be made when Czechs confront the crimes of the past―including the expulsion of local Germans and the treatment of the Romani minority―and engage with rational, contemporary European concepts of urban renewal.

About this title

About the Author

Matěj Spurnı is associate professor in the Department of Economic and Social History at Charles University, Prague, where he specializes in modern social history, Czech multiculturalism and modern European dictatorships. Derek Paton has been a translator of works of Czech history, politics, and art history for more than twenty-five years, twenty of which he has translated together with his wife Marzia Patton.

Edition details

• Publisher: Karolinum Press, Charles University
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8024640171
• ISBN 13: 9788024640174
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 330