Relation to Internal Spaces
Reviewing Soviet builds thirty years on, show clear signs of material and maintainability fault and can easily now be critiqued for its heavily monotonous design. The critique of the design and its use in microrayons became quickly apparent to residents as well as architects, “The optimism of the 1960’s had been replaced with the criticism voiced in the 1970’s” (Dremaite 2017). Dremaite’s comments that this was a concern for the remaining twenty years in Soviet Lithuania, with attempts to improve individuality in housing blocks from Lithuanian architects, it never had great impact on changing that perception. These attempts included changing the visual elements, specifically the façade, it can be seen in the Klaipeda region, where the incorporation of red brick was introduced to enhance the individuality of one specific region. However, this design in particular failed in the same way the original design failed, it was repeated continuously and again became monotonous. During this period of ‘creating individuality’, Lithuanian architects still had to get approval from Moscow for the construction of these standardised designs (Dremaite 2017). Which angered many architects, as this slowed down any form of progression in the design of standardised housing. Following Dremaite’s research, she translated the Soviet views of individuality and aesthetics in architecture; “The technology of industrial construction demands simple forms and minimum variety. However, even under such conditions, the question of expressiveness in architecture should not be omitted.
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