In May 2004, Europe was redefined. Ten countries - Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia - joined the European Union (EU). Two years on, the full impact of the forces this historical event has unleashed has yet to be understood. For not only is the expansion having an unequivocal bearing on 'old' Europe, it is also helping to change the countries of 'new Europe'. As the economic and the political balance of the enlarged EU is being redrawn, the identities of the newly joined countries is in flux - the majority of the joining states being under Communist rule less than two decades ago. Contemporary architecture in these 10 countries necessarily presents itself as a process that is anything but linear. It must deal with hybridisation, with new global trends, as well as with the permanence of structures and national heritage. Architects, mostly practising in the private rather than public sphere, are contending with the various political
