Frédéric Chaubin’s Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed explores 90 buildings in 14 former Soviet Republics. Each of these structures expresses what Chaubin considers the fourth age of Soviet architecture, an unknown burgeoning that took place from 1970 until 1990. Contrary to the 1920s and 1950s, no “school” or main trend emerges here. These buildings represent a chaotic impulse brought about by a decaying system. Taking advantage of the collapsing monolithic structure, architects went far beyond modernism, going back to the roots or freely innovating. In their puzzle of styles, their outlandish strategies, these buildings are extraordinary remnants of a collapsing system.

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 urban centres, 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 capturing the stark splendour of post-war modernist architecture scattered around the cities of Novosibirsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Norilsk, Irkutsk and Yakutsk and the quotidian lives of their inhabitants.