Concrete Siberia: Soviet Landscapes of the Far North

A photographic insight into the Soviet-era architecture of one of the most extreme, little-known and vast territories on Earth. From the Ural Mountains to the Arctic Circle, the book features the extensive microrayons of Siberia’s major cities, the brutal landscapes of industrial monotowns, cosmic circuses, concrete theatres and opera houses, as well as prefabricated panel blocks, or panelki, erected on permafrost.

Divided into 6 chapters, Concrete Siberia by Zupagrafika contains over 100 photographs taken by Russian photographer Alexander Veryovkin, capturing the stark splendour of post-war modernist architecture in Novosibirsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Norilsk, Irkutsk and Yakutsk and the quotidian lives of their inhabitants.

Includes a foreword by architectural critic Konstantin Budarin, orientative maps and informative texts on the featured cities and buildings.

Concrete Siberia follows the photobook series started by Zupagrafika with the succesful ‘Eastern Blocks’.
 

‘Prefabrication and serialisation became the key premises for Soviet urban development when Khrushchev came to power. For Siberia, it meant a new wave of colonisation. ’ –  from the foreword

Authors: 

Zupagra?ka are David Navarro and Martyna Sobecka, an independent publisher, author and design studio, celebrating modernist and brutalist architecture, design and photography in a unique and playful way. Authors of  Brutal London (2016, Prestel), Brutal East (2017), Brutal Britain (2018), Eastern Blocks (2019), Panelki (2019).

 Alexander Veryovkin is a photographer born in 1987 in Leningrad, in the former USSR, currently living and working in  St. Petersburg, Russia. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics at the St. Petersburg State  University, majoring in astronomy. He has previously contributed to other photobooks of Zupagra?a, such as  Hidden Cities (2018) or Eastern Blocks (2019).