Comparing Perspectives

The review compares two recent books: Holidays after the Fall. Seaside Architecture and Urbanism in Bulgaria and Croatia (edited by Elke Beyer, Anke Hagemann and Michael Zinganel, Berlin, 2013) and Enchanting Views. Romanian Black Sea Tourism Planning and Architecture of the 1960s and 1970s (edited by Kalliopi Dimou, Sorin Istudor and Alina Serban, Bucharest, 2015). They are the first comprehensive publications that focus on seaside tourism architecture and urbanism in the former communist world, in the three countries where these have been most substantially developed at the time. The two books are also part of a tendency in recent literature on the communist period, to see the brighter side of a built environment that is still generally considered to be grey and dull. The review compares the two editorial strategies and stresses their differences: Holidays after the Fall addresses both the communist and the post-communist periods, including the ‘architectural monstrosities’ of the recent liberal developments; Enchanting Views focuses strictly on the 1960s and the 1970s, with their unspoiled image of a clean and pure modernist seaside environment. Holidays after the Fall focuses more on researching and revealing objects of architecture and urbanism, while Enchanting Views looks to display as many different disciplinary perspectives and interpretations as possible. The review highlights their similarities too: both books develop comparative approaches, showing that modernist seaside developments in the communist Europe were closely similar to their Western counterparts and that seaside resorts have played a major role as instruments of lifestyle change and modernization.