Christopher Herwig has produced an amazing photographic journal of an utterly unique Soviet architectural art form, the bus stop. To get these photographs Herwig traveled to 14 countries including difficult to access Moldova, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan (not to mention his treks across Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus and Estonia among others). Herwig's text and the introduction by Jonathan Meades are illuminating and the essay "The Bus Pavilion: A Minor Architectural Form" by Vera Kavalkova-Halvarsson is especially insightful and explains how in a sea of ugly Brutalist architecture (particularly under Khrushchev and Brezhnev) big budget construction was tightly regulated, but smaller inexpensive projects like bus stops were not considered terribly significant and flew under the radar of the bureaucrats allowing an astonishing array of creativity from mostly young designers and architects with considerable help from local communities.
I am genuinely astonished at the creativity on display here, and Herwig's photography is more than up to the challenge. The contrast between the diverse bus stops (many of which are now unserved and abandoned) and their settings are frequently amazing and definitely helped me have a more considered appreciation of this unusual architectural form as a mode of artistic expression. My favorites in the book were concentrated in Kazakhstan (particularly the unusual installation in Astana) and Lithuania, although for sheer diversity of design and astonishing concepts, the bus stops of Abkhazia (especially in Pitsunda and Gudauta) are unbeatable.
From both a photographic and architectural viewpoint, Herwig has created a truly unique gem with "Soviet Bus Stops" and I recommend it highly.
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