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The Buzludzha Monument was constructed in 1981 to commemorate the founding of the Bulgarian Socialist movement nearly a century before, but now stands as a symbol of its failure. The concrete monolith sits atop the crest of a hill that was the site of the decisive battle in which rebels drove the occupying Ottomans from the country. Designed by Guéorguy Stoilov, the structure once served as the congregation hall for the new Bulgarian state, with officials shuffling into the UFO-shaped auditorium. Read on.

The building melds the traditions of Bulgaria’s 1,300 year old history with the international forms of modernist architecture. The structure’s once pristine white walls rub up against then vibrant, now faded mosaics depicting the country’s mythic origins. The friezes are rendered in the Socialist Realist manner, with clusters of blocky archetypal figures in dramatic pose, forging the path towards progress–here represented by the trinity of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, whose likeness has been mysteriously etched out. Scripts of large embossed lettering spell out absolutist rhetoric along the curved entrance wall.

Photo: Flickr user ERA SURA

The bricolage of mosaics contrasted with the sleek concentric hallways cohered a strange vision of an eclectic modernism, closer to the pan-global modernism of the UN building, completed in 1952, rather than to the formal mishmash of Mendelsohn’s work from the 1920s or the tropical variations of South American modernism. Fragments of Stalinist post-modernism sit comfortably nestled inside the literally alien form–the proletariat as cosmonauts.

Photo: Flickr user Nedko

Photo: Flickr user Nedko

Photo: Flickr user Nedko

After the failure of the Bulgarian totalitarian state in 1989, the building was abandoned and permanently shuttered 4 years later. Since then, the site has been thoroughly vandalized, stripped of its bronze ornament and plaster and strewn with graffiti and detritus. This past September, the Bulgarian cabinet transferred the now-decrepit property to the Bulgarian Socialist Party, which has shown little incentive to restore the monument to its radiant past.

Photo: Flickr user Nedko

Photo: Flickr user Nedko

[via kuriositas]

by Samuel Medina

posted in Uncategorized

tagged Architecture, bulgaria, photography, ruin porn, Socialism, Soviet architecture

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