Socialist Architecture

Berlin, Karl Marx Allee by krystian kolbe, on Flickr
Hello everyone,
When most people think of socialist architecture, they think of blocs upon blocs of monotone, grey buildings stretching into the horizon. Although, that was undeniably part of the socialist legacy, it was certainly not unique to the socialist states; reference for example the public housing in the capitalist West, or even hyper-capitalist, consumerist suburban monotone architecture. What I want to do in this thread to go beyond the base ideological conflicts and biases, for and against capitalism and socialism, we should be still be able to elucidate successes of socialist architecture. The failures of socialist planning, and architecture are well known, disproportionate to their successes imo. I think one of the most successful examples of socialist architecture was Red Vienna during the 1920s and early 1930s before the proto-fascist coup d'etat. The city was ruled by rather radical socialists at the time, more information can be read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Vienna
I am hoping others can highlight what they see as positive developments in the socialist bloc architecturally.

Berlin, Karl Marx Allee by krystian kolbe, on Flickr
Hello everyone,
When most people think of socialist architecture, they think of blocs upon blocs of monotone, grey buildings stretching into the horizon. Although, that was undeniably part of the socialist legacy, it was certainly not unique to the socialist states; reference for example the public housing in the capitalist West, or even hyper-capitalist, consumerist suburban monotone architecture. What I want to do in this thread to go beyond the base ideological conflicts and biases, for and against capitalism and socialism, we should be still be able to elucidate successes of socialist architecture. The failures of socialist planning, and architecture are well known, disproportionate to their successes imo. I think one of the most successful examples of socialist architecture was Red Vienna during the 1920s and early 1930s before the proto-fascist coup d'etat. The city was ruled by rather radical socialists at the time, more information can be read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Vienna
I am hoping others can highlight what they see as positive developments in the socialist bloc architecturally.