For years, the Detroit solution was to board buildings up and “consider alternatives”- which meant wait a couple decades until trees were growing out of the roof and then declare them unsalvageable.
You can't restore all of them. Look at Italy it keeps almost everything (still not everything), but so many buildings are in disrepair, crumbling, even palaces are loosing their unique details.
@@GermanTopGameTV When communism tries to make everyone equal, it does so by lowering the top down to the bottom, not by raising the bottom up to the top.
My grandmother was expelled from Aussig after the war. When she returned decades later to visit her home city again, she could not recognize anything. I guess now I know why.
I have to admit, I'm Czech and didn't know all of this. Another city, not so far from Ústí, has a similar and more widely known story: Most. It was a beautiful city with a historic center. The problem? There was coal under it. So in 1965 the government just blasted the city to hell and built a new one next to it, in the same vein as the new buildings in Ústí. Although such mass atrocities stopped after 1989, acts of barbarism against architecture are still way too common, sadly.
I can understand the city planners of a European city largely flattened by bombing during the war wanting to rebuild the whole place in a relatively cheap, quick and egalitarian Modernist style. But to start with an almost intact city and demolish it themselves - and then replace it with either some awful monstrosities, or plain old, nothing - is just criminal.
That's what the US and Canada did with their cities as well, which is really sad. Regular, functional buildings in their downtowns, which were then very walkable, were demolished to make room for parking spots.
@@namenamename390 idk what you are talking about lol, Canadian cities are great, yes stuff gets torn down to increase density. Old North American builds hardly compare to old European ones that are much older
@@therealbuba all major Canadian cities were built before the automobile age. Look at London, Ontario. It had a downtown like any other city, be it Europe, America, Asia or whatever. This meant big buildings with shops, apartments and other jobs in walking distance. After the 2nd world war, the US and Canada decided that everyone should drive everywhere all the time, so they built suburbs around the city that require a car to do anything. The new amount of cars on the road required a lot of parking space, so they tore down the existing buildings in the downtown, either for outright parking lots/garages or to build big box stores with bigger parking spaces than retail space. This happened in London, Ontario, as well as pretty much all other cities in the US and Canada from the end of WW2 to around the 60s to 80s, sometimes even longer, until people realized that having everyone drive everywhere is a bad idea. Some cities have tried to reverse the damage done, which I assume is the "demolition to increase density" you mentioned. That's in modern times, I was referring to the decades gone by. The demolition of downtowns also included the removal of a lot of public transportation options on many occasions. Toronto and Vancouver are rare exceptions in that regard, as in you can actually use it, but many cities in Canada are just as car dependant as the US. I'm not saying that there are no great places to live in North America, but a lot of formerly great places were destroyed to make room for the car.
@@namenamename390 You're right. I have an uncle in Canada, he lives in the suburbs of Edmonton. I find it discouraging how necessary a car there is. Empty streets, all in cars. As if only homeless people are walking. I live in Prague and I really don't need a car here, because a very reliable public transport system works. People are used to walking more on the streets, sitting in cafes and beer gardens, parents go to the parks with their children, to the playground...
"destruction of historic buildings on this scale outside the US" reminds me of when i went looking for a building of historic importance in my city (in the US) that was built in the 1890s only to realise that not only was the street it was on completely being wiped off the map, the building site itself now lies under a highway, and there are current political actors trying to destroy more of that area to widen the highway instead of expand the train into that area. i think the closest train station is about a 25 minute bus ride away, despite being about a mile out of downtown, and the area is effectively ghettoised by just building three separate mega highways around it. oh, and the new building that was built to replace the original building i was looking for is also demolished, under super luxury apartments. hate it here
I'm always impressed how city-planner types heap praise on Japanese cities (usually for the transport system) but never mention how hard it is to find even one building more than 60 years old. Even in Kyoto, the only truly old buildings are preserved national treasures. However, this is nothing new; it's basically how the system has always worked.
@@casperl8408 Yes and while it's true that not an insignificant number of historical buildings might still be in place if it weren't for that, it's already getting harder and harder to find buildings in major cities built as late as the sixties.
Japan is kind of a different beast, I would gladly take a modern white box instead of an intricate old building if the former is way more likely to not kill me during an earthquake
Well, the Japanese contracted a US based firm, USAAF, to assist in urban rejuvenation during the mid 1940's due to their exceptional demolition skills...
Yikes. Those old buildings looked really good too. Perfectly usable too. If you're going to build a city from scratch, then build one from scratch. Or do what Nowa Huta in Poland did. Build a new district, entirely from nothing on the edge of the city.
Socialists and communists always want to take things. Even the freaking names of streets. They never build anything new, they just leave their mark on the things others built.
@@ChadDidNothingWrong they have built most housing, most hospitals, most roads, most schools. Haven't you seen how many soviet apartments buildings there are. Even in this video he showed whole districts.
well, entire Miensk city ( which was and is capital of Belarus) was Destroyed by Moscow Marxist occupiers after WW2 , the only one European capital , we will never forgive Moscow empire for this
After moving to Czechia from Belarus, I must speak in its defense. Czechs did an astonishing job preserving architecture compared to ex-USSR. Just look at Kaliningrad.
Kaliningrad might be an extrem example, since Königsberg was almost completely destroyed during WW2 and the Soviet Union, with its plan to establish the area as a military base with resettled citizens form the USSR, had no interest in rebuilding anything of the old city.
Interesting. For decades the Soviets boasted how they captured Kraków without any major destruction (unlike other Polish cities) labelling it as a "strategic genius of Marshal Ivan Konev", however modern historians consider it more of a lucky coincidence resulting from a pre-planned Nazi German retreat and lack of major resistance - unlike in Wrocław a.k.a "Festung Breslau" i.e. "the Fortress".
Given how bad I perceive the politics here to be (in my media bubble at least), it's so reassuring to see people still moving to here. (Although from a country like Belarus it's understandable.) Welcome!
Same thing in Bratislava. Part of the old town (including a Sinagogue) was destroyed to build a highway just below the castle, dividing the city centre in half.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen destruction of historical buildings on this scale outside the US” then you didn't see what Ceausescu has done to Bucharest, Ploiesti and Barlad...
I was thinking more along the lines of we don't really have very many historic buildings in the US we usually don't let them stick around for that long.
My city demolished its medieval quarter in the 60s and replaced it with a grey box of a shopping mall. Which only lasted 30 years before being replaced
My city had a few empty blocks available. Guess what is being built there... That's right... *A L I D L* Edit: The Lidl is now done and I love those pastries.
My village next to Prague had a few empty blocks and a lot of traffic issues, so they decided to build a shit ton of warehouses, to worsen the traffic problem. When that plan didn't go through, they build Lidl instead.
Great video. Speaking of urban planning, one of my friends in Prague told me a crazy story about the unusually tall apartment building she used to live in, which was also built right next to a major areterial road heading into Prague. According to rumours, this building was constructed for the Czechoslovakian military during the 70s for the purpose of housing soldiers. All 21 floors of it, which is unusually tall for the city. Apparently it was constructed next to the arterial so that in the event of an invasion from capitalist scum, the building could be demolished and toppled over onto the arterial road (They would of course evacuate everyone prior to the kaboom. Probably), blocking a major route into the city. How is that for planning! The building is still standing to this day and continues to be ugly as shit.
@@ondrejsedlak4935 Sure, I have to be wary of the phrase "government projects" though, many people throw the baby out with the bathwater when they talk about government so generally.
You go visit towns like Regensburg and the story is similar - the city was preserved mostly because it went into decline, then when they finally had money again (post-war) they started rebuilding the center.... then they're like "Wait, this old town is worth money" so they kept it and are now living off it basically
It has been like this all throughout the history. Even nowadays some brutalist building will survive and will be preserved due to lack of money to build a new glass box. Most of what we have was preserved by pure luck and not some strict policies. Especially if we are talking about pre 1900s period. Back then if people didn't have money they simply reused most of old building, at least its walls, and then improved a bit, expanded by building some extra floors on top.
@@m.m.511 at least that played a very large role in shattering Soviet Union. But if economy succeed maybe communism wouldn't be so bad after all and other countries would have also joined. But now we know this is a failed system.
@@ligametis yeah that's true but only partially. Chinese "communism" (more like state capitalism) is indeed bringing wealth and that's great but I wouldn't want their way of governing in Europe. Of course if communism could have bringed wealth, equality and freedom than yeah it would be great.
Yeah, but not due to urban planning but due to mining. And making a video titled: "How the hunger after coal destroyed several cities" would be about a different topic
But to be honest, its destruction was done during communism era but it had been discussed for a long time. Coal was so valuable and close to surface there that even before the WWI this discussion had been taken place.
Try Žďár nad Sázavou, it"s another one of those socialist model cities and it wasn't thanks to mining. Also it's not unique to communist planners, see cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pra%C5%BEsk%C3%A1_asanace for large scale demolition and rebuilding of Prague's Jewish quarter in the very city center at the end of 19th century.
just blow up all CCP building, move to a western country you need! forget this trash! If the economy is good again, 3021? rebuild the old building again!
To be honest, the lidl conspiracy is totally possible, everybody here just loves Lidl and so noone even questions why are there so many, it just makes sense
Hi Adam, First off; I love your channel and I love Czech too. I’m from the Netherlands and visited Czech for the seventh time in 23 years this year and I’ll sure come back for more when possible. It intrigues me how you can literally see change in Czech from visiting one time to another. I’m a semi professional photographer and from a photography point of view Czech cities and villages are fascinating for me. There is just so much going on. I’m in love with Prague with (or for) all of its beauty ànd all of its flaws. This year was the first time I visited the northern part of Czech (Swiss Bohemian) and as we drove from Prague to our house in nature we drove through Ústi had Labem. It immediately became clear that this was something special. I noticed some other cities and villages with similar looks and ‘vibes’ around. Can you point me to some sources (books/movies) with more info about this region? I might want to visit again for a photography project sometime.
Good video, thank you for sharing. A couple of years ago I bicycled the Vltava/Elbe from Prague to Hamburg. I spent a night in Usti Nad Labem, near the Church of Assumption. A very strange sight. A huge, beautiful church almost completely enveloped by a modern mall/parking garage.
The city of Most, near Ústí nad Labem, has been blown up and moved a few kilometers away, so the communists had better access to a coal mine. They even moved the old church on rails lmao
The film The Bridge at Remagen was shot there for precisely that reason. UA was like, "You mean they're gonna level that whole town? Lets shoot our WWII film there. PRODUCTION VALUE!!$$"
1000 years old famous city with big medieval churches and houses completely demolished. Coal excavated after few decades. And now there is a lake named...Most
Reminds me of the Palace of the Parliament of Bucharest... They demolished an old city centre to construct a building so vast, that, up to this day, despite housing several government institutions, most of the palace remained unused and even incomplete.
We here in the Czech republic have this everywhere. There is a lot of nice buildings right next to old panel houses and factories that look untouched since the 70s
Recently in my town two 1930 stone homes were torn down to make way for a fast food bldg made out of shipping containers. This was after they tore down a 1800s School house to make room for a drive way to a new business. This was done late at night.
So glad i discovered this channel !! The Ceausescu's in Romania also had the passion for destroying old historical buildings. For e.g. the parliament building in Bucharest was built on a whole historical neighbourhood called Uranus that was completely destroyed.
Greetings from Taipei, Taiwan! Taiwanese cities were largely planned and laid the foundation during Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) by Japanese. But after Nationalist Chinese (KMT) took over in 1945, they just totally neglected local history and context of the cities. If you come to Taiwan, you will see historic neighborhood and buildings ran down/mixed with weird post-war architecture or simply torn down or burnt. I'd say Asian countries really had some world-class stupid and ignorant urban planning :P Anyway, nice video you've made!
Interesting that this happened in Taiwan as well. I think in (mainland) China, it's still happening on a large scale, though, with the city authorities throwing people out to demolish and rebuild for a better (more money) purpose.
First thought I have is that the decades plus of sheer japanese brutality and wars of conquest of China probably didn't make them want to appreciate the Japanese empires culture and heritage.
@@Gerwulf97 That’s true. They think tearing down Japanese-built stuffs means “decolonization ”. On the other hand, the KMT dictatorship was also incompetent, lack of resources and political will to do proper urban planning. Because they were preoccupied with their struggle for keeping their power. Basically they just had some American trained architects working with American experts to built a car-centric cities, regardless of local context and well-being of the residents. It turned out… not too well, I guess you know what I mean😅
Hatred towards Germans and cities they left is one of the most potent fuels for polish conservatives as well. I don't think they demolished whole city because of it though
@@DacLMK No, it wasn't. People didn't maintain it because they didn't care about these places. Why? Because these places (aesthetically) do not care about them and have no relation to them. Furthermore, it destroyed the main components of what makes a city a city. You should really read "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs - one of the most influential urban planning books that explains why this type of planning is bad visually, socially, and economically.
@@andro7862 Of course the economy has to do with it, too. But why do you think historic buildings are usually maintained well? Because people love them. Build something that most people like, and they will be more likely to take care of it.
Same thing here. I was raised in a nice city, then one day they just went and blew it all up. Made their depressing new buildings. These days the old buildings are mostly marked as historical, while the new buildings which are old themselves now have a knocked over tombstone quality to them. It was a coordinated event. That's for sure. From Australians to Eskimos in Northern Canada and everything in between - destroy, rebuild, reeducate and resettle.
For me as an European is such a strange way or doing things , in my country there are buildings really old and if u can’t repair them u can remake them in almost the same way , sometimes they are historical buildings ,or made in an arquitectonic style no longer used
Greetings directly from Ústí nad Labem! :) Thanks for a great video. The only thing I want to say is that it is not a basic case in Czechia, it is more like one of the worst cases in the whole country.
I think that apart from Most, Usti got it worst, no? Most is a true horror story where the commies even praise themselves for moving the church. One church in a city that had the most gothic buildings after Prague...
On a trip from Prague to Bohemian Switzerland, we drove through Usti nad Labem and the first word we had in mind was "industrial". It felt rather depressing, as it was a rather cloudy day in April. (nevertheless, I still highly recommand you a small walk in Bohemian Switzerald)
I absolutely love those old soviet trams, we still have them running on certain routs here although they've been getting replaced by new shiny modern trams lately. Trams are absolutely lovely and are pretty much my favorite mode of public transport.
@@petergecse3550 By "Czech", I referred to the nation in which they are presently situated, not the ethnicity of their founders or current majority populations. Besides, during the monarchy, even places _without_ notable German populations were given German names (alongside the native ones) because of the multilingual nature of the empire.
Can you do a video about the destruction of historic buildings in Winnipeg Canada in favour of brutalist architecture? We had the most amount of British architecture outside of great Britain in the world but then our mayor tore them all down in like the 60s/70s in an attempt to modernize. :(
Bucharest is a balkan city, and it was very small in the early 20th cenury, in 1910 it had only 300 000 inhabitants. The cheap communist ferro-concrete block-of-flat building project made it bigger city.
This channel has made me think so much about urban planning and transportation and how important it is despite it being so disguised in everyday ordinary life. Thank you!
This did end up happening in Romania. Nearly the entire old center of Bucharest was leveled by an earthquake, and Nicolae Ceaucescu ordered that the remaining buildings be demolished or moved to make way for the monstrosity known today as the Palace of Parliament. It was a building which bankrupted Romania and even nearly half a century later is still not finished.
i live in the nearby area of that city (on the german side) and always wondered why that city looked so ugly whenever i drove through it. Thanks for the explanation
Aussig massacre was part of complete expulsion of all 3 millions of Germans from Czechoslovakia after WW2. This was Sudetenland and Germans lived there of hundreds of year and majority of them were Hitler supporters, but there was about 300.000 of social democrats and thousands of Germans loyal to Czechoslovakia. German expulsion was agreed with both western allies and Soviets but Czech government intentionally left it up to angry mob and paramilitary units who was looking for revenge. Awful stain on Czech history. Obviously after kicking out 90% of inhabitants of Sudetenland, there was massive influx of Czechoslovaks who took over all what was left after the Germans but it was big no win. Even today region is poorest with highest unemployment rate. And of course this god awful urban planning with total disrespect for anything of any cultural value...
Somewhat situation with large scale expulsion happened in Poland. Though it went with 2 waves with Polish people being kicked out of land given to Ukraine and Germans kicked out of now Polish Silesia. My home village/town was about 5k tiny German community with its own sub-culture that even had a specific costume, after the war German farms were given to people who signed up to farm it, like my grandfather who moved from the East (not all the way from Lviv, but halfway from Lublin). My other grandfather moved to the nearby city from Zamosc. So those 2 families were parts of the big migration west even though they were not expelled themselves and did not cross nation borders. Until about 2000 there was a yearly trip of the Shunwald oldies visiting the village they were kicked out of, when I was a kid they used 2 buses, than 1 bus, I don't live there but I think they stopped organizing it before I moved out. Similarly for Polish oldies from Lviv there was a lot of nostalgia including a radio station dedicated to Kresy, but with so many years now passed for their children and grand children that's a line on the map. Here economic impact is mixed. There were areas that were hard hit after expulsion of Germans but by now region is doing pretty good. Fortunately a lot of the architecture survived. The biggest destroyer of townhouses was having unknown or absent foreign owners. Sometimes very well placed and highly valued building would just rot until demolition because a few people living there were squatting and it was impossible to pin down ownership. Sometimes with similar townhouse on its left and right being renovated and fully rented as there was demand for that space. Disputes over post-war ownership were still going on in this decade, but it seems they're almost all closed by now. I live now in Katowice and vast majority of German-built buildings are in good shape, with the few that were still recently neglected being renovated now, so it seems they sorted it barely in time to save that architecture.
The 60s were a bad time for this sort of thing in Europe. In my city, mulitiple medieval and Tudor structures were demolished during that decade to make way for new developments
If you haven't seen destruction of historical buildings on this scale, outside the USA, then you haven't really looked. What about Shanghai in China? Or Mecca in Saudi Arabia? Totalitarian regimes have a rather strong tendency to do this sort of thing.
We must have had a totalitarian regime then in the city where I lived in Maryland. They replaced the old town center with a big concrete shopping mall that no businesses wanted to move into and it’s sat empty for the next 40 years. Bad planning and architecture is everywhere, no need to mix it up with politics.
China surely is expert on that. Notably what we've seen in Xinjiang. But it isn't the only example in the region. Shanghai, Chongqing, and even Beijing would qualify as well.
Love the video. Agree on all points. And would add that all of it was not just a waste of scarce resources, it was an active destruction of those scarce resources. Even just a principle of requiring the new building to both be already funded and be have least 3 times as many apartments/office space/... as the original building would have gone a long way to make sure money wasn't just spent on destroying the very valuable resource that is already existing housing.
Your comments on how modernist concrete buildings do not age well unless properly maintained reminded me of an architecture book of mine. The author was praising the genius of Le Corbusier whose misshapen and ugly concrete structures are a reminder of his arrogant egotism. The writer praised the extensive use of concrete (as opposed to stone and brick) and added that concrete ages to a pleasant, soft grey. No, it does not. Concrete when new looks cold and shabby and as it ages it looks even shabbier, as you pointed out. It is such a breath of fresh air to hear someone speak the truth about the horrors of modern concrete monstrosities. Thank you.
thank you for making a video about ustí! I was born there, and lived there for 8 years. Now i live in austria and have forgotten my czech language skills. to je skoda!
Its the same S*** hole like it was before. I dont live there anymore but I sometimes go there to see my relatives and its still ugly, gross and poor city. I was born in Děčín though, Its not any better, maybe even worse.
@@filipkohout4704 That part of the country is incredibly ugly. I consider Ústí to be the ugliest city in Czechia, rivaled only by Most, Děčín and maybe Kralupy.
Here in Kysucke Nove Mesto, only half of the city was demolished with synagogue and one church. South from town square is old medieval mail road, to the north... blocks.
chechia is great, when i went to prague for vacation i felt a strong connection to the country and its people. you guys even seem to have a government that does not hate you, in contrast to the one here in germany. there needs to be more transnational friendship between our peoples, and old grievances need to be burried.
Greetings from Frýdek-Místek, another ruined town in Czech republic where we have almost a highway leading through historical centre. It's nice that someone finally explained this in english.
They are going to fix it in the next few years. The main road is going around the city now, so the main road in the middle will be remodeled into something more human scale.
Mindless demolition? Read about the demolitions in Bucharest during the communist regime during the 1960-1990. About 1/3 of the city was razed and blocks were built. Good material for a video. :)
Pedestrians should be separated from cars by being forced to go into cars themselves because cars have made it too dangerous to go anywhere not protected by a 2 ton metal shell.for Lidel read car park with a Lidel attached.
or cars could be engineered to stop killing more people than firearms. That's like saying a rape victim should just submit to it because the rapist is stronger
also, it's actually more dangerous to drive still. more likely than not, if you die while operating a motor vehicle it will be in a one person accident, like hitting a pole or driving off a cliff according to stats anyways.
I find myself a car guy, and my idea to make roads safer is to take cars AWAY from people. Car's where design to be a luxury items, and they should stay that way, why? Because people are to dumb to drive, 80% are selfish behind the wheel and drive not according to the situation but by they will to get from point A to B as fast as possible. And you might say, okey so how I am supposed to move around. Simple you can still use a car but it should be the least realible option (that way it will be used extensively like it should be in the first place) while buses, trams and bike lanes should be the fastest and the cheapest option. And Yt Chanels like: Not just Bikes or City beautiful, can tell you why. And the funny part about that is that the Soviets actually build cities in the way we all should now 50/60 years ago. Great job all of us :)
@@cutieb00tie as a car guy myself I agree, cars need to be deemphasized. There should be a resurgence in passenger rail in the US in my eyes. Too many tracks were pulled up in the 60s and 70s, and too many highways paved. As well as that, a shrinking of the majority of peoples' daily commutes should occur, so you don't have 20 minute or longer drives you have to make every day.
You've probably heard of it, but you might be interested in how the town of Most was almost completely demolished to allow for coal mining, and a local gothic church was moved to the new one.
In Tallinn Estonia, no demolitions were needed, since the red army bombed the capitol on March 1942 so bad, that 30% of the city was destroyed, including 50+% of the historic parts of the city. Although by nowadays standards all of the destroyed parts would be historic.
@@pochtet they are very anti Soviet. I don't blame them tho, but every Estonian I have talked too hates everything about the Soviet Union, it's not any hatred, it's a deep scathing hatred. But yet again the Soviets did so terrible shit to them.
@@pochtet not to forget that Estonians and Germans fought side by side to drive out the Soviets. :) Yeah, it wasn't all happy dancing afterwards, but we Germans were way nicer to them then the soviets, and that"s a fact.
I've been visiting Usti nad Labem periodically and unaware of any of this as I was traveling through Czechia to Germany by car. I still remember the sinking feeling I was experiencing when I was driving through bridge over Labe towards city as my brain was struggling to make sense of the scenery and road network. So much stuff happening on such a small space.
"I have never seen such destruction outside the US" Oh boy, luck at the "Entstuckung" here in germany, so horrible. It is not specifically destruction, but it made beautiful houses ugly nevertheless.
Since there doesn't even seem to be an English wikipedia article on this topic: Entstuckung (literally de-stucco-ing) was a bizarre phenomenon in German architecture that really took off after WW2, where depressed architects would ruin buildings by destroying the stucco of the historical fassades and instead plastering them flat. They mostly did this because they were morons, and to overcompensate their shame over WW2 and their resulting hate of everything romantic and old. Many thousands(!) of buildings were mutilated like this, across the whole country. They end up looking similar to soviet-style dwellings, even though they're actually mostly Gründerzeit. For example, the district of Kreuzberg in Berlin suffered greatly from this. There alone, over 1400 buildings were entstuckt until the 80s. And that is West Berlin, i.e. no communists involved.
@@LOLERXP Nonsense, the entstuckung began a long time before WW2 or even Nazis existed. It was advocated by people who thought the stucco was dishonest in making cheap shitty buildings look like they were made of expensive materials.
@@kyle8952 Right. Before architects that were depressed by WW2 came along and did entstuckung on an enormous scale, the concept was invented and began being practiced by other architecs who were depressed by poverty and overpopulation. These geniuses thought that beautiful buildings are dishonest if there are questionable living conditions inside. So they began making the buildings of poor people ugly. Very smart. But: My comment says _it took off_ after WW2, which is a fact... Today, the people who live in those apartments aren't poor anymore, either. Neither are they inhabited as densely. They do, however, remain ugly. I'd say Entstuckung was an early and particularly ridiculous example of intellectual virtue signaling that totally misses the point.
@@LOLERXP It started a couple decades before ww2. Those old facades felt tasteless and overcrowded for some people. They were tired of same old thing and wanted something new and modern (it is no longer 19th century, it is now 20th century). Nowadays we are similar, we want glass towers, and concrete ones feel so 20th century.
From the point of view of architecture, this is wrong. By doing this, you are deceiving a person, trying to present a new building in the form of a historical building. It is better to build up an empty place with a new and modern architecture of the same number of floors
@@danielgeller7629 That's an opinion, and nothing more. Why does it necessarily need to be "new" architecture and not that of an older style? Why the consistent bias among architects against anything but what's trendy (and often doesn't age well) in the now? I don't think people are being deceived into believing a new building built in an older style is "historic" in the same way, though plenty view it as recovering a semblance of something that was lost.
@@Littlegoatpaws cause u r stupid. this is not an opinion, but an architectural fact. After World War 2, it was forbidden to build in classical styles. All architects who are suspected of creating projects in classical styles will never be hired to work in large companies. Have you noticed that after the war, empty places were built up with concrete shit in the cities? So this is precisely because of the convention. Don't write if you don't know. And so, your comment is a fart
If i'm correct... this Usti nad Lubanem town/city... and the area is in DayZ Standalone... the city is called Chernogorsk... and the map is called Chernarus... pretty interesting xd
I actually heard that it had some other smarter reasons. The city had struggled with terrible smogs especially during winters due to its industrial center which is low leveled by the rivers. They had to move people up the hills up to the smog (that wasn’t a big problem because Usti is surrounded by hills all around except the city center). My grand parents say that the air was so bad that sometimes during winters snow was little orange colour (but not because of a sand from Sahara). And what should they do with the empty buildings? Maybe turn them to something modern. Which it was at that time. Not sure about this theory. I’am in this city everyday and it is quiet sad that people are disappointed by the city government since the revolution. Young people finish the university (which is quiet nice and modern and like the only progressive thing in whole Usti) and leave. Sad, but whatever. We live and we are good. What else do we need when we have our beer. Have nice day ✌️😁✌️
Interesting video. However, the subtitle is slightly misleading. We must not forget two important decades of the "Czechoslovakian urban planning" before the WW2, when Czechoslovakia was a modern democratic state (in contrary to its neighbors) and some great things happened during that period (1920s and 1930s) in Czech/Czechoslovak architecture (I'm not talking here just about some isolated examples of prominent functionalist villas in Prague or Brno respectively, but some entirely new residential districts were built or whole new city parts like in Hradec Králové, for example, mostly consisting of great architecture). Even the four shitty (=socialist/communist) decades of the post WWII "Czechoslovakian urban planning", which you're obviously referring to, had some bright moments, especially when compared to the situation in other socialist/communist countries. Anyway, one of the most bizzare relics of the socialist urban plannig that still exists till this very day is the Prior department store/shopping mall in Jihlava, right in the historic town square. Nobody wants it there (nor residents nor the municipality), but the company that owns the building (Le Cygne Sportif) refuses to deal with the situation.
Yeah, we fortunately stopped similar plans in Amsterdam: ruclips.net/video/vI5pbDFDZyI/видео.html Every time I go to the USA, I also wonder what beautiful city centres they destroyed. The only North American city that I think has done it right is Quebec.
@Adam Something there was a more or less similar case here in Portugal. The High City of Coimbra (Alta de Coimbra). Coimbra was and still is the city of learning and culture in the country, the oldest University is there (like Oxford or Cambridge in the UK). In the early fascist regime times (Salazar's Estado Novo) he, a former student of Coimbra, ordered the demolition of 1/3 of the historical center to make room for the modernistic buildings of the university. Starting in 1936 it would last up to the 1960s. At the end, from romanesque churches, barroque palaces and an astronomical observatory to 19th century offices and university faculties and libraries, were demolished and near 15 thousand people evicted to miserable pre-fabricated houses outside the city to this day. Nowadays only the historical University Palace and tge boxy modern faculties are there and near 1500 year of social history and relatiinships ended due to extreme urban planing ideias. The other universities at the time, Lisbon and Porto, had new Campus, but on then empty lands and not by huge demolition..😉
@@aspid6546 Well not really thanks to the western tankies defending communism like the holy grail, touting communism as the best thing ever and how communist countries are light years ahead of capitalist ones but then getting angry when you ask them why they didn't move to China yet.
FELICITATION ! Not one single swear word or disgusting blasphemy. A construction specialist with a warm regard for Europe and Humanity in general. Thank You.
This is equivalent to pausing your City: Skylines game and mass-demolishing low residential blocks to make way for other zoning. Except buildings don't magically construct themselves after a few seconds of resuming time!
Over here the issue of old buildings got compounded by the fact that they could be reclaimed in nature by former owners or their heirs (from before the nationalization of property), many of who want to get them demolished since then they can use the land for new developments or just sell their rights to developers who also let the buildings rot away so that they can be legally demolished. Is something similar happening over there as well?
Well the buildings werent demolished to prevent possible privatisation in the future, as socialism was meant to last till the end of time, but after it did fall, the surviving buildings all across the country were, if possible, returned to their former owners, and if those werent found, sold to the people currently living there. But many buildings did end up in the hands of "developers" who did exactly that, let the buildings rot away so they can legally demolish them and build some boxy glass-steel super expensive luxury condos or shopping centres.
It's cool on paper, but a nightmare to live in. Even when buildings aren't crumbling it's very depressing. It's inhuman in nature, like architectural torture device. Makes people feel insignificant, useless, drives self destructive behavior up. Every day walking around you are thinking what a sick joke to force people to live in this ugliness. There is literally 0 reasons to build ugly inhumane buildings, yet they are everywhere. I lived in Russia for 27 years, that' enough brutalism for me. It's not cool, it's sick.
I just found your channel. Interesting point of view i dont get often. Im gonna keep watching your videos and see where they go. Anyways, thanks for the work you put into them.
saw your channel today for the first time and watch it for 3 hours straight not only have to say your trolling at Elon Musk is really funny, but also your historical content is really good presented also really refreshing idea of you with the historical "lets play" keep it up
the lidls are being build so that germany can reclaim the land lidl by lidl ;)
real estate ladies and gentlemen 😎
Truly a horrific time we live in where German global supremacy is growing again
Too bad Germany can’t reclaim itself😂
isn't that an Oasis tune? "Lidl buy Lidl, I gave everything you ever dreamed of..." or something like that
ba dum tss...
- What should we do with the historic buildings? I mean, we could restore them like in Prague or Warsaw
- Yeah... so anyway, I started blasting...
Gotta make room for those 10,000-lane highways and parking lots the size of 5 football fields. It's the way of the future don't you know?
For years, the Detroit solution was to board buildings up and “consider alternatives”- which meant wait a couple decades until trees were growing out of the roof and then declare them unsalvageable.
- Dynamite goes boom
@@generalaccount6531 Highways were needed in many places, just maybe not 10,000 lane ones.
You can't restore all of them. Look at Italy it keeps almost everything (still not everything), but so many buildings are in disrepair, crumbling, even palaces are loosing their unique details.
"Oh wow, the war spared this city!"
*Bombs it to oblivion.*
afaik it was bombed more than most Czech cities, that church he spoke about is tilted to this day from the bombing
@@lukebruce5234 Correct, it was bombed by mistake though, they thought it was Dresden
@@MarekMottl false
Well, under communism every city must be equal. can't have a non destroyed city when there are cities like Stalingrad.
@@GermanTopGameTV When communism tries to make everyone equal, it does so by lowering the top down to the bottom, not by raising the bottom up to the top.
My grandmother was expelled from Aussig after the war. When she returned decades later to visit her home city again, she could not recognize anything. I guess now I know why.
I have to admit, I'm Czech and didn't know all of this. Another city, not so far from Ústí, has a similar and more widely known story: Most. It was a beautiful city with a historic center. The problem? There was coal under it. So in 1965 the government just blasted the city to hell and built a new one next to it, in the same vein as the new buildings in Ústí. Although such mass atrocities stopped after 1989, acts of barbarism against architecture are still way too common, sadly.
They saved the cathedral, though. That's a cool story.
I can understand the city planners of a European city largely flattened by bombing during the war wanting to rebuild the whole place in a relatively cheap, quick and egalitarian Modernist style.
But to start with an almost intact city and demolish it themselves - and then replace it with either some awful monstrosities, or plain old, nothing - is just criminal.
That's what the US and Canada did with their cities as well, which is really sad. Regular, functional buildings in their downtowns, which were then very walkable, were demolished to make room for parking spots.
@@namenamename390 idk what you are talking about lol, Canadian cities are great, yes stuff gets torn down to increase density. Old North American builds hardly compare to old European ones that are much older
@@therealbuba all major Canadian cities were built before the automobile age. Look at London, Ontario. It had a downtown like any other city, be it Europe, America, Asia or whatever. This meant big buildings with shops, apartments and other jobs in walking distance. After the 2nd world war, the US and Canada decided that everyone should drive everywhere all the time, so they built suburbs around the city that require a car to do anything. The new amount of cars on the road required a lot of parking space, so they tore down the existing buildings in the downtown, either for outright parking lots/garages or to build big box stores with bigger parking spaces than retail space. This happened in London, Ontario, as well as pretty much all other cities in the US and Canada from the end of WW2 to around the 60s to 80s, sometimes even longer, until people realized that having everyone drive everywhere is a bad idea. Some cities have tried to reverse the damage done, which I assume is the "demolition to increase density" you mentioned. That's in modern times, I was referring to the decades gone by.
The demolition of downtowns also included the removal of a lot of public transportation options on many occasions. Toronto and Vancouver are rare exceptions in that regard, as in you can actually use it, but many cities in Canada are just as car dependant as the US. I'm not saying that there are no great places to live in North America, but a lot of formerly great places were destroyed to make room for the car.
@@namenamename390 You're right. I have an uncle in Canada, he lives in the suburbs of Edmonton. I find it discouraging how necessary a car there is. Empty streets, all in cars. As if only homeless people are walking. I live in Prague and I really don't need a car here, because a very reliable public transport system works. People are used to walking more on the streets, sitting in cafes and beer gardens, parents go to the parks with their children, to the playground...
This process is called brusselization
imagine surviving the Nazis only to watch your city get blown up for like no reason holy shit
Going from the National Socialists to the Soviet Socialists wasn't that different lol
@@Gerwulf97 while demolishing historical buildings isn't great, it definitely isn't as bad as trying to exterminate the jewish and roma minorities
Expelling the germans only for one day a german brand of supermarkets to take over.
@@kim2894 expelling them was right decision. Ah yes I will rather buy from Lidl than any other store with shitty products from Poland.
@@Gerwulf97
it was worse.
its like if you loaded somebody else's City's Skylines save and didn't like what they did.
And those empty fields where there should be blocks of housing is like when you don’t zone in 3 fields because there is no demand for housing.
"destruction of historic buildings on this scale outside the US" reminds me of when i went looking for a building of historic importance in my city (in the US) that was built in the 1890s only to realise that not only was the street it was on completely being wiped off the map, the building site itself now lies under a highway, and there are current political actors trying to destroy more of that area to widen the highway instead of expand the train into that area. i think the closest train station is about a 25 minute bus ride away, despite being about a mile out of downtown, and the area is effectively ghettoised by just building three separate mega highways around it. oh, and the new building that was built to replace the original building i was looking for is also demolished, under super luxury apartments. hate it here
Which city is this?
@@howtoappearincompletely9739 The wonderful part about this anecdote is that it can be ANY American city!
Just one more lane bro, that will fix traffic forever
I'm always impressed how city-planner types heap praise on Japanese cities (usually for the transport system) but never mention how hard it is to find even one building more than 60 years old. Even in Kyoto, the only truly old buildings are preserved national treasures. However, this is nothing new; it's basically how the system has always worked.
don't forget that ALOT of historical buildings were destroyed by the US in the firebombings
@@casperl8408 Yes and while it's true that not an insignificant number of historical buildings might still be in place if it weren't for that, it's already getting harder and harder to find buildings in major cities built as late as the sixties.
Japan is kind of a different beast, I would gladly take a modern white box instead of an intricate old building if the former is way more likely to not kill me during an earthquake
Americans burned every almost single Japanese city to the ground, of course no old building will be left
Well, the Japanese contracted a US based firm, USAAF, to assist in urban rejuvenation during the mid 1940's due to their exceptional demolition skills...
Yikes. Those old buildings looked really good too. Perfectly usable too. If you're going to build a city from scratch, then build one from scratch. Or do what Nowa Huta in Poland did. Build a new district, entirely from nothing on the edge of the city.
They looked like ruins or slums. I wouldn't say they look good.
@@ligametis Now. That's from decades of neglect. Back when they were built, it was a shiny new city. You have to maintain your infrastructure.
Socialists and communists always want to take things. Even the freaking names of streets. They never build anything new, they just leave their mark on the things others built.
@@ChadDidNothingWrong You know Warsaw was rebuilt on the ruins of a pre-war city right? "Why are all the streets the same name?"
@@ChadDidNothingWrong they have built most housing, most hospitals, most roads, most schools. Haven't you seen how many soviet apartments buildings there are. Even in this video he showed whole districts.
Finally someone with an European point of view on things. Fresh air!
well, entire Miensk city ( which was and is capital of Belarus) was Destroyed by Moscow Marxist occupiers after WW2 , the only one European capital , we will never forgive Moscow empire for this
@@hybridarmyofthegdl2193 85% of misnk's infrastructure was destroyed via bombing during world war II
@@pequenoperezoso3743 Ivan´s poodle, whats about Warszawa? check out pictures from 1944
@@hybridarmyofthegdl2193 ok but what is the context of that in regards to a video about communist urban planning?
@@ryhanzfx1641 this Ethnocide Moscow Marxist occupiers called "communist urban planning"
After moving to Czechia from Belarus, I must speak in its defense. Czechs did an astonishing job preserving architecture compared to ex-USSR. Just look at Kaliningrad.
Kaliningrad might be an extrem example, since Königsberg was almost completely destroyed during WW2 and the Soviet Union, with its plan to establish the area as a military base with resettled citizens form the USSR, had no interest in rebuilding anything of the old city.
Interesting. For decades the Soviets boasted how they captured Kraków without any major destruction (unlike other Polish cities) labelling it as a "strategic genius of Marshal Ivan Konev", however modern historians consider it more of a lucky coincidence resulting from a pre-planned Nazi German retreat and lack of major resistance - unlike in Wrocław a.k.a "Festung Breslau" i.e. "the Fortress".
@@KonradofKrakow lol
Given how bad I perceive the politics here to be (in my media bubble at least), it's so reassuring to see people still moving to here. (Although from a country like Belarus it's understandable.) Welcome!
The USSR intentionally destroyed any vestiges of German culture in East Prussia, so that naturally includes the architecture.
Same thing in Bratislava. Part of the old town (including a Sinagogue) was destroyed to build a highway just below the castle, dividing the city centre in half.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen destruction of historical buildings on this scale outside the US” then you didn't see what Ceausescu has done to Bucharest, Ploiesti and Barlad...
I was thinking more along the lines of we don't really have very many historic buildings in the US we usually don't let them stick around for that long.
The Communists did nothing wrong.
My city demolished its medieval quarter in the 60s and replaced it with a grey box of a shopping mall. Which only lasted 30 years before being replaced
Disgusting.
Wich city?
@@dd3715 Dundee
sad
In Berlin our historic core was replaced with awful socialist style "Neo-historical" concrete gibberish (Nikolaiviertel)
Population: LIDL
Return of the Germans
My city had a few empty blocks available. Guess what is being built there...
That's right...
*A L I D L*
Edit: The Lidl is now done and I love those pastries.
what a bless to find you here
In my "city" too (the Netherlands)
It's not "they are building it". The put the property "for sale", and Lidl applies.
My village next to Prague had a few empty blocks and a lot of traffic issues, so they decided to build a shit ton of warehouses, to worsen the traffic problem. When that plan didn't go through, they build Lidl instead.
A Lidl what?
Great video.
Speaking of urban planning, one of my friends in Prague told me a crazy story about the unusually tall apartment building she used to live in, which was also built right next to a major areterial road heading into Prague.
According to rumours, this building was constructed for the Czechoslovakian military during the 70s for the purpose of housing soldiers. All 21 floors of it, which is unusually tall for the city.
Apparently it was constructed next to the arterial so that in the event of an invasion from capitalist scum, the building could be demolished and toppled over onto the arterial road (They would of course evacuate everyone prior to the kaboom. Probably), blocking a major route into the city. How is that for planning!
The building is still standing to this day and continues to be ugly as shit.
Who cares if it's ugly as long as it's effective?
@@thewhitefalcon8539 It’s effectively ugly and does it’s job at giving everyone motion sickness above the 12th floor.
@@ondrejsedlak4935 Oh, that must be why they invented tuned mass dampers!
@@thewhitefalcon8539 Exactly.
But seriously that building used to sway like a ship at sea, probably still does. Gotta love government projects.
@@ondrejsedlak4935 Sure, I have to be wary of the phrase "government projects" though, many people throw the baby out with the bathwater when they talk about government so generally.
You go visit towns like Regensburg and the story is similar - the city was preserved mostly because it went into decline, then when they finally had money again (post-war) they started rebuilding the center.... then they're like "Wait, this old town is worth money" so they kept it and are now living off it basically
Imagine the irony of beautiful classical building blocks being saved from the communists by "a lack of money".
It has been like this all throughout the history. Even nowadays some brutalist building will survive and will be preserved due to lack of money to build a new glass box.
Most of what we have was preserved by pure luck and not some strict policies. Especially if we are talking about pre 1900s period. Back then if people didn't have money they simply reused most of old building, at least its walls, and then improved a bit, expanded by building some extra floors on top.
@@ligametis If this is the way we are going architects may at smome point do away with walls altogether and just build steel skeletons.
Someone might argue that Europe was saved from communism by communism's lack of money (or better, poor economy) :)
@@m.m.511 at least that played a very large role in shattering Soviet Union. But if economy succeed maybe communism wouldn't be so bad after all and other countries would have also joined. But now we know this is a failed system.
@@ligametis yeah that's true but only partially. Chinese "communism" (more like state capitalism) is indeed bringing wealth and that's great but I wouldn't want their way of governing in Europe. Of course if communism could have bringed wealth, equality and freedom than yeah it would be great.
The worst city in Czechia is Most, ALL of the historic parts were destroyed.
Yeah, but not due to urban planning but due to mining. And making a video titled: "How the hunger after coal destroyed several cities" would be about a different topic
But to be honest, its destruction was done during communism era but it had been discussed for a long time. Coal was so valuable and close to surface there that even before the WWI this discussion had been taken place.
Try Žďár nad Sázavou, it"s another one of those socialist model cities and it wasn't thanks to mining. Also it's not unique to communist planners, see cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pra%C5%BEsk%C3%A1_asanace for large scale demolition and rebuilding of Prague's Jewish quarter in the very city center at the end of 19th century.
just blow up all CCP building, move to a western country you need!
forget this trash!
If the economy is good again, 3021? rebuild the old building again!
Also used to be a German-inhabited city. Seems to be a pattern...
To be honest, the lidl conspiracy is totally possible, everybody here just loves Lidl and so noone even questions why are there so many, it just makes sense
You also have Aldis or only Lidls?
@@Tobi-ln9xr I guess both , cz we have both in Spain and Iv seen lidls in Portugal and France too
Lidl is awsome honestly
@@Tobi-ln9xr No Aldi in Czechia, we have Lidl, Albert, Tesco, Penny Market, Kaufland, Norma, Billa and some others
WTF did I do to you?
Hi Adam,
First off; I love your channel and I love Czech too. I’m from the Netherlands and visited Czech for the seventh time in 23 years this year and I’ll sure come back for more when possible. It intrigues me how you can literally see change in Czech from visiting one time to another. I’m a semi professional photographer and from a photography point of view Czech cities and villages are fascinating for me. There is just so much going on. I’m in love with Prague with (or for) all of its beauty ànd all of its flaws.
This year was the first time I visited the northern part of Czech (Swiss Bohemian) and as we drove from Prague to our house in nature we drove through Ústi had Labem. It immediately became clear that this was something special. I noticed some other cities and villages with similar looks and ‘vibes’ around. Can you point me to some sources (books/movies) with more info about this region? I might want to visit again for a photography project sometime.
Good video, thank you for sharing. A couple of years ago I bicycled the Vltava/Elbe from Prague to Hamburg. I spent a night in Usti Nad Labem, near the Church of Assumption. A very strange sight. A huge, beautiful church almost completely enveloped by a modern mall/parking garage.
The city of Most, near Ústí nad Labem, has been blown up and moved a few kilometers away, so the communists had better access to a coal mine. They even moved the old church on rails lmao
They also rotated the church wrong lmao
The film The Bridge at Remagen was shot there for precisely that reason. UA was like, "You mean they're gonna level that whole town? Lets shoot our WWII film there. PRODUCTION VALUE!!$$"
1000 years old famous city with big medieval churches and houses completely demolished. Coal excavated after few decades. And now there is a lake named...Most
@@PareliusC same thing for the War for the Moscow
That would have made a crazy Massive Moves episode, wouldn't it? haha. All that for a coal mine...
"If you have a historic city center please don't blow it up"
(drops the detonator for all of Los Angeles)
Fiiiiiiine! If I have tooooo. 😢
Los angeles has a historic city center?
@@kristijanpavlovic I didn't notice. *blows entire city to kingdom come*
@@kristijanpavlovic It doesn't if you're European. It was built between 1907 and 1931, so it's... kinda new, really.
@@cooperised exactly, im European so historic to me would mean something at least pre 20th century.
@@kristijanpavlovic Yup, my house was built around 1750 and it's not considered an interesting building.
"I don't think I've ever seen destruction of historical buildings of this scale outside of the US"
_laughs in Belgian_
Lmao rly? what happened in Belgium? y'all got amazing arhitecture, especially the Palace of Justice in Brussells and many others.
@@royale7620 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselization
I think someone in the west europe really doesn't get a scale of the problem.
@@retro2103 thanks, thats so sad though 😪
I didn't know the Americans had historical buildings.
Reminds me of the Palace of the Parliament of Bucharest...
They demolished an old city centre to construct a building so vast, that, up to this day, despite housing several government institutions, most of the palace remained unused and even incomplete.
Disgusting. Here in America, we only demolish historical buildings to make room for Amazon Facilities.
We here in the Czech republic have this everywhere. There is a lot of nice buildings right next to old panel houses and factories that look untouched since the 70s
Really? Everywhere? I live in Czechia, too and don´t have that feeling:)
Czechia… you must be czechian
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen destruction of historical buildings on this scale outside the US” god damn.
Check England out, every town and city has had massive demolition to make way for garbage looking buildings.
Recently in my town two 1930 stone homes were torn down to make way for a fast food bldg made out of shipping containers. This was after they tore down a 1800s School house to make room for a drive way to a new business. This was done late at night.
Why with this inferiority complex the european have with the US.. Just admit it US is much more advanced and modern than europe..
@@alnash1433 lol if it makes you feel good then by all means. Countries are just countries, with good sides and bad.
@@alnash1433 oh right, more modern with shittier healthcare, transport and wealth distribution.
Lol at the lidl conspiracy ...
Lidls sprouted up all over the UK i the span of a few short years too, they must have some very persuasive people.
@@Tuberuser187 glory to the lidl empire
Lidl is recolonizing Georgia-US too.. not long before their war with Ikea starts
Usti nad Lidl
They legit few months ago demolished an big building here in lithuania city i live in to build lidl
So glad i discovered this channel !! The Ceausescu's in Romania also had the passion for destroying old historical buildings. For e.g. the parliament building in Bucharest was built on a whole historical neighbourhood called Uranus that was completely destroyed.
atleast that guy got what he deserved. lead
In Slovakia, historical streets are being commonly destroyed to this day, churches, graveyards, synagogues, rectory buildings, palaces, everything
The people living in Ústí before the war were not Russians but Rusyns. BIG difference.
A difference for sure, but not a huge one, they are pretty similiar peoples
@@evzenvarga9707 if they could even understand each others language 🙃
Really ? There settlements are more known, east and south of the Tatra, not as far west as Usti.
@@gamermapper About as similar as Germans and Americans but ok
@@gamermapper there are actually a lot of Germans in the USA tho. Granted they are only ethnically so.
Greetings from Taipei, Taiwan! Taiwanese cities were largely planned and laid the foundation during Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) by Japanese. But after Nationalist Chinese (KMT) took over in 1945, they just totally neglected local history and context of the cities. If you come to Taiwan, you will see historic neighborhood and buildings ran down/mixed with weird post-war architecture or simply torn down or burnt. I'd say Asian countries really had some world-class stupid and ignorant urban planning :P Anyway, nice video you've made!
Interesting that this happened in Taiwan as well. I think in (mainland) China, it's still happening on a large scale, though, with the city authorities throwing people out to demolish and rebuild for a better (more money) purpose.
@@DesertsOfHighfleet yes it's VERY good efficiency, but everything else is uhh.....
First thought I have is that the decades plus of sheer japanese brutality and wars of conquest of China probably didn't make them want to appreciate the Japanese empires culture and heritage.
I have heard Tokyo was never thought out well. Because all the houses are SO FAR from where people work.
@@Gerwulf97 That’s true. They think tearing down Japanese-built stuffs means “decolonization ”. On the other hand, the KMT dictatorship was also incompetent, lack of resources and political will to do proper urban planning. Because they were preoccupied with their struggle for keeping their power. Basically they just had some American trained architects working with American experts to built a car-centric cities, regardless of local context and well-being of the residents. It turned out… not too well, I guess you know what I mean😅
Alternative title: Lidl destroys Czech town to build stores.
The Germans need to rebuild it, they need to rebuild every damage, finish that war now!
In my town in the 1970s, they took down two entire city blocks of medieval houses and built a shopping center there.
Hatred towards Germans and cities they left is one of the most potent fuels for polish conservatives as well. I don't think they demolished whole city because of it though
Don't give them ideas
Modernist urban planning has been incredibly destructive. Thanks for explaining that!
The soviet one was great though, but people just didn't maintain it and that's why it looks ugly today.
@@DacLMK No, it wasn't. People didn't maintain it because they didn't care about these places. Why? Because these places (aesthetically) do not care about them and have no relation to them. Furthermore, it destroyed the main components of what makes a city a city. You should really read "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs - one of the most influential urban planning books that explains why this type of planning is bad visually, socially, and economically.
@@Daniel-jv1ku instead of naming the book, cant you just quote the argument?
@@Daniel-jv1ku People didn't maintain it because the economy collapsed in the 1990s, not because of aesthetics lmao.
@@andro7862 Of course the economy has to do with it, too. But why do you think historic buildings are usually maintained well? Because people love them. Build something that most people like, and they will be more likely to take care of it.
Same thing here. I was raised in a nice city, then one day they just went and blew it all up. Made their depressing new buildings. These days the old buildings are mostly marked as historical, while the new buildings which are old themselves now have a knocked over tombstone quality to them. It was a coordinated event. That's for sure. From Australians to Eskimos in Northern Canada and everything in between - destroy, rebuild, reeducate and resettle.
For me as an European is such a strange way or doing things , in my country there are buildings really old and if u can’t repair them u can remake them in almost the same way , sometimes they are historical buildings ,or made in an arquitectonic style no longer used
Want to know something more depressing than communist architecture? Homelessness
@@JDG-hq8gy How to help the depressed homeless? Build them depressing buildings. Brilliant.
@@tommyhatcher3399 Would you rather live in a depressing home or have no home at all?
@@JDG-hq8gy Would you rather eat rat meat or not eat at all?
Greetings directly from Ústí nad Labem! :) Thanks for a great video. The only thing I want to say is that it is not a basic case in Czechia, it is more like one of the worst cases in the whole country.
I think that apart from Most, Usti got it worst, no? Most is a true horror story where the commies even praise themselves for moving the church. One church in a city that had the most gothic buildings after Prague...
On a trip from Prague to Bohemian Switzerland, we drove through Usti nad Labem and the first word we had in mind was "industrial". It felt rather depressing, as it was a rather cloudy day in April. (nevertheless, I still highly recommand you a small walk in Bohemian Switzerald)
The saxonian switzerland on the German side of the mountains is also really beautiful!
I absolutely love those old soviet trams, we still have them running on certain routs here although they've been getting replaced by new shiny modern trams lately. Trams are absolutely lovely and are pretty much my favorite mode of public transport.
2:20 - To be fair, _every_ major Czech city has a German name of its own, because monarchy.
Prag, Karlsbad, Budweis, Brünn...
@@petergecse3550
By "Czech", I referred to the nation in which they are presently situated, not the ethnicity of their founders or current majority populations.
Besides, during the monarchy, even places _without_ notable German populations were given German names (alongside the native ones) because of the multilingual nature of the empire.
@@fds7476 You are right, but you exclusivly brought up places with formerly notable german populatins
@@Getahin
True.
And most of those cities were ethnically predominantly German up until WW2.
It's vice versa, most of cities in eastern Germany have slavic origin names.
Can you do a video about the destruction of historic buildings in Winnipeg Canada in favour of brutalist architecture? We had the most amount of British architecture outside of great Britain in the world but then our mayor tore them all down in like the 60s/70s in an attempt to modernize. :(
I think you should ask someone who actually lives there to do that, it is a pain doing research remotely :)
The loss of Bucharest is just sad
Bucharest is a balkan city, and it was very small in the early 20th cenury, in 1910 it had only 300 000 inhabitants. The cheap communist ferro-concrete block-of-flat building project made it bigger city.
This channel has made me think so much about urban planning and transportation and how important it is despite it being so disguised in everyday ordinary life. Thank you!
This did end up happening in Romania. Nearly the entire old center of Bucharest was leveled by an earthquake, and Nicolae Ceaucescu ordered that the remaining buildings be demolished or moved to make way for the monstrosity known today as the Palace of Parliament. It was a building which bankrupted Romania and even nearly half a century later is still not finished.
"If you have a historic city center, please don't blow it up" 😂😂😂
I think this is super relatable for most eastern european ex-comunist countries.
Him: this is the worst case of demoliting historic buildings I have ever seen
Brüx/Most: I shall be forgotten
i live in the nearby area of that city (on the german side) and always wondered why that city looked so ugly whenever i drove through it. Thanks for the explanation
Aussig massacre was part of complete expulsion of all 3 millions of Germans from Czechoslovakia after WW2. This was Sudetenland and Germans lived there of hundreds of year and majority of them were Hitler supporters, but there was about 300.000 of social democrats and thousands of Germans loyal to Czechoslovakia. German expulsion was agreed with both western allies and Soviets but Czech government intentionally left it up to angry mob and paramilitary units who was looking for revenge. Awful stain on Czech history.
Obviously after kicking out 90% of inhabitants of Sudetenland, there was massive influx of Czechoslovaks who took over all what was left after the Germans but it was big no win. Even today region is poorest with highest unemployment rate. And of course this god awful urban planning with total disrespect for anything of any cultural value...
just because they supported Hitler doesnt mean they cant live there
Somewhat situation with large scale expulsion happened in Poland. Though it went with 2 waves with Polish people being kicked out of land given to Ukraine and Germans kicked out of now Polish Silesia. My home village/town was about 5k tiny German community with its own sub-culture that even had a specific costume, after the war German farms were given to people who signed up to farm it, like my grandfather who moved from the East (not all the way from Lviv, but halfway from Lublin). My other grandfather moved to the nearby city from Zamosc. So those 2 families were parts of the big migration west even though they were not expelled themselves and did not cross nation borders. Until about 2000 there was a yearly trip of the Shunwald oldies visiting the village they were kicked out of, when I was a kid they used 2 buses, than 1 bus, I don't live there but I think they stopped organizing it before I moved out. Similarly for Polish oldies from Lviv there was a lot of nostalgia including a radio station dedicated to Kresy, but with so many years now passed for their children and grand children that's a line on the map.
Here economic impact is mixed. There were areas that were hard hit after expulsion of Germans but by now region is doing pretty good. Fortunately a lot of the architecture survived. The biggest destroyer of townhouses was having unknown or absent foreign owners. Sometimes very well placed and highly valued building would just rot until demolition because a few people living there were squatting and it was impossible to pin down ownership. Sometimes with similar townhouse on its left and right being renovated and fully rented as there was demand for that space. Disputes over post-war ownership were still going on in this decade, but it seems they're almost all closed by now. I live now in Katowice and vast majority of German-built buildings are in good shape, with the few that were still recently neglected being renovated now, so it seems they sorted it barely in time to save that architecture.
Parts of Sweden went through similar processes in the 1960s and the early 1970s. Not in the same scale as some eastern European countries but still.
Som Malmöbo kan jag bara instämma. Kanske det värsta exemplet i Sverige.
Well fortunately Czechia is not in Eastern Europe, so all safe here!
Wow and I thought that only communist were such idiots. Good to hear
Malmö and Stockholm was raped before recognition
The 60s were a bad time for this sort of thing in Europe. In my city, mulitiple medieval and Tudor structures were demolished during that decade to make way for new developments
If you haven't seen destruction of historical buildings on this scale, outside the USA, then you haven't really looked. What about Shanghai in China? Or Mecca in Saudi Arabia? Totalitarian regimes have a rather strong tendency to do this sort of thing.
We must have had a totalitarian regime then in the city where I lived in Maryland. They replaced the old town center with a big concrete shopping mall that no businesses wanted to move into and it’s sat empty for the next 40 years. Bad planning and architecture is everywhere, no need to mix it up with politics.
China surely is expert on that. Notably what we've seen in Xinjiang. But it isn't the only example in the region. Shanghai, Chongqing, and even Beijing would qualify as well.
Love the video. Agree on all points.
And would add that all of it was not just a waste of scarce resources, it was an active destruction of those scarce resources. Even just a principle of requiring the new building to both be already funded and be have least 3 times as many apartments/office space/... as the original building would have gone a long way to make sure money wasn't just spent on destroying the very valuable resource that is already existing housing.
Your comments on how modernist concrete buildings do not age well unless properly maintained reminded me of an architecture book of mine. The author was praising the genius of Le Corbusier whose misshapen and ugly concrete structures are a reminder of his arrogant egotism. The writer praised the extensive use of concrete (as opposed to stone and brick) and added that concrete ages to a pleasant, soft grey. No, it does not. Concrete when new looks cold and shabby and as it ages it looks even shabbier, as you pointed out. It is such a breath of fresh air to hear someone speak the truth about the horrors of modern concrete monstrosities. Thank you.
thank you for making a video about ustí! I was born there, and lived there for 8 years. Now i live in austria and have forgotten my czech language skills.
to je skoda!
Its the same S*** hole like it was before. I dont live there anymore but I sometimes go there to see my relatives and its still ugly, gross and poor city. I was born in Děčín though, Its not any better, maybe even worse.
You can relearn it..I came back from abroad..
@@filipkohout4704 That part of the country is incredibly ugly. I consider Ústí to be the ugliest city in Czechia, rivaled only by Most, Děčín and maybe Kralupy.
Here in Kysucke Nove Mesto, only half of the city was demolished with synagogue and one church. South from town square is old medieval mail road, to the north... blocks.
As a proud Czech, i thought i could make it, but i had to stop watching for all the tears in my eyes. :'(
chechia is great, when i went to prague for vacation i felt a strong connection to the country and its people.
you guys even seem to have a government that does not hate you, in contrast to the one here in germany.
there needs to be more transnational friendship between our peoples, and old grievances need to be burried.
@@fritzkuhne2055 you wouldnt live in czechia over germany
@@anon2916 why
"Impressive plans, but a city was in the way"
That sentence scared me when I read it
It always pains me to see old buildings being destroyed and replaced with mass produced general things.
Greetings from Frýdek-Místek, another ruined town in Czech republic where we have almost a highway leading through historical centre. It's nice that someone finally explained this in english.
They are going to fix it in the next few years. The main road is going around the city now, so the main road in the middle will be remodeled into something more human scale.
Mindless demolition? Read about the demolitions in Bucharest during the communist regime during the 1960-1990. About 1/3 of the city was razed and blocks were built. Good material for a video. :)
But they invented a special building relocation technique in order to save a church.
@@andro7862 yes, several churches and some block of flats, but still, the destruction was massive...
The city of Ploiesti had the same fate.Its beautiful old city center was razed to the ground to make room for the model socialist city.
This is already covered in Adam’s Dubai video to some extent
And it was completely justified. The old and decrepit needs to go to make way for the modern and efficient. Communist Romania was best Romania.
Pedestrians should be separated from cars by being forced to go into cars themselves because cars have made it too dangerous to go anywhere not protected by a 2 ton metal shell.for Lidel read car park with a Lidel attached.
or cars could be engineered to stop killing more people than firearms. That's like saying a rape victim should just submit to it because the rapist is stronger
also, it's actually more dangerous to drive still. more likely than not, if you die while operating a motor vehicle it will be in a one person accident, like hitting a pole or driving off a cliff according to stats anyways.
I find myself a car guy, and my idea to make roads safer is to take cars AWAY from people. Car's where design to be a luxury items, and they should stay that way, why? Because people are to dumb to drive, 80% are selfish behind the wheel and drive not according to the situation but by they will to get from point A to B as fast as possible. And you might say, okey so how I am supposed to move around. Simple you can still use a car but it should be the least realible option (that way it will be used extensively like it should be in the first place) while buses, trams and bike lanes should be the fastest and the cheapest option. And Yt Chanels like: Not just Bikes or City beautiful, can tell you why. And the funny part about that is that the Soviets actually build cities in the way we all should now 50/60 years ago. Great job all of us :)
@@cutieb00tie as a car guy myself I agree, cars need to be deemphasized. There should be a resurgence in passenger rail in the US in my eyes. Too many tracks were pulled up in the 60s and 70s, and too many highways paved. As well as that, a shrinking of the majority of peoples' daily commutes should occur, so you don't have 20 minute or longer drives you have to make every day.
@@cutieb00tie Fuck you, I'm not getting up for work an hour earlier and arriving home another hour later.
"Politician/businessman" And this is where it all falls down.
0:40.... my heart sunk with that building ....
Don`t you know what song is that ?
@@volkem7985 ?
@@volkem7985 Karel Gott srdce nehasnou
@@patrikuschungus4713 thank you a lot man
You've probably heard of it, but you might be interested in how the town of Most was almost completely demolished to allow for coal mining, and a local gothic church was moved to the new one.
In Tallinn Estonia, no demolitions were needed, since the red army bombed the capitol on March 1942 so bad, that 30% of the city was destroyed, including 50+% of the historic parts of the city. Although by nowadays standards all of the destroyed parts would be historic.
How about bombardments by nazis in june 41? Estonians don't study that in school any more, do they?
@@pochtet they are very anti Soviet. I don't blame them tho, but every Estonian I have talked too hates everything about the Soviet Union, it's not any hatred, it's a deep scathing hatred. But yet again the Soviets did so terrible shit to them.
@@pochtet The bomarding wasn't THAT severe, though. It also focused more on strategic targets, where as the soviets fired grenades in blind rage.
@@pochtet not to forget that Estonians and Germans fought side by side to drive out the Soviets. :) Yeah, it wasn't all happy dancing afterwards, but we Germans were way nicer to them then the soviets, and that"s a fact.
Wanna see leveled city? Warsaw and Dresden is for you (and of course Tokyo and Hiroshima,...)
I've been visiting Usti nad Labem periodically and unaware of any of this as I was traveling through Czechia to Germany by car. I still remember the sinking feeling I was experiencing when I was driving through bridge over Labe towards city as my brain was struggling to make sense of the scenery and road network. So much stuff happening on such a small space.
Outstanding video, give us more like this.
"I have never seen such destruction outside the US" Oh boy, luck at the "Entstuckung" here in germany, so horrible.
It is not specifically destruction, but it made beautiful houses ugly nevertheless.
Since there doesn't even seem to be an English wikipedia article on this topic:
Entstuckung (literally de-stucco-ing) was a bizarre phenomenon in German architecture that really took off after WW2, where depressed architects would ruin buildings by destroying the stucco of the historical fassades and instead plastering them flat. They mostly did this because they were morons, and to overcompensate their shame over WW2 and their resulting hate of everything romantic and old. Many thousands(!) of buildings were mutilated like this, across the whole country. They end up looking similar to soviet-style dwellings, even though they're actually mostly Gründerzeit. For example, the district of Kreuzberg in Berlin suffered greatly from this. There alone, over 1400 buildings were entstuckt until the 80s. And that is West Berlin, i.e. no communists involved.
Brutalism
The i want to be different for the rest
@@LOLERXP Nonsense, the entstuckung began a long time before WW2 or even Nazis existed. It was advocated by people who thought the stucco was dishonest in making cheap shitty buildings look like they were made of expensive materials.
@@kyle8952 Right. Before architects that were depressed by WW2 came along and did entstuckung on an enormous scale, the concept was invented and began being practiced by other architecs who were depressed by poverty and overpopulation. These geniuses thought that beautiful buildings are dishonest if there are questionable living conditions inside. So they began making the buildings of poor people ugly. Very smart.
But: My comment says _it took off_ after WW2, which is a fact...
Today, the people who live in those apartments aren't poor anymore, either. Neither are they inhabited as densely. They do, however, remain ugly.
I'd say Entstuckung was an early and particularly ridiculous example of intellectual virtue signaling that totally misses the point.
@@LOLERXP It started a couple decades before ww2. Those old facades felt tasteless and overcrowded for some people. They were tired of same old thing and wanted something new and modern (it is no longer 19th century, it is now 20th century). Nowadays we are similar, we want glass towers, and concrete ones feel so 20th century.
Czechia should do what Hungary is doing right now rebuild most of their pre World War II buildings
From the point of view of architecture, this is wrong. By doing this, you are deceiving a person, trying to present a new building in the form of a historical building. It is better to build up an empty place with a new and modern architecture of the same number of floors
@@danielgeller7629 That's an opinion, and nothing more. Why does it necessarily need to be "new" architecture and not that of an older style? Why the consistent bias among architects against anything but what's trendy (and often doesn't age well) in the now? I don't think people are being deceived into believing a new building built in an older style is "historic" in the same way, though plenty view it as recovering a semblance of something that was lost.
@@Littlegoatpaws cause u r stupid. this is not an opinion, but an architectural fact. After World War 2, it was forbidden to build in classical styles. All architects who are suspected of creating projects in classical styles will never be hired to work in large companies. Have you noticed that after the war, empty places were built up with concrete shit in the cities? So this is precisely because of the convention. Don't write if you don't know. And so, your comment is a fart
@@danielgeller7629 Your communication skills are sorely lacking.
@@Littlegoatpaws I absolutely have to agree with you, what he voiced is nothing more than his own taste, and a quite revolting one at that.
If i'm correct... this Usti nad Lubanem town/city... and the area is in DayZ Standalone... the city is called Chernogorsk... and the map is called Chernarus... pretty interesting xd
Glad I found this channel, genuinely such great videos to binge
same
I actually heard that it had some other smarter reasons. The city had struggled with terrible smogs especially during winters due to its industrial center which is low leveled by the rivers. They had to move people up the hills up to the smog (that wasn’t a big problem because Usti is surrounded by hills all around except the city center). My grand parents say that the air was so bad that sometimes during winters snow was little orange colour (but not because of a sand from Sahara). And what should they do with the empty buildings? Maybe turn them to something modern. Which it was at that time. Not sure about this theory. I’am in this city everyday and it is quiet sad that people are disappointed by the city government since the revolution. Young people finish the university (which is quiet nice and modern and like the only progressive thing in whole Usti) and leave. Sad, but whatever. We live and we are good. What else do we need when we have our beer. Have nice day ✌️😁✌️
Interesting video. However, the subtitle is slightly misleading. We must not forget two important decades of the "Czechoslovakian urban planning" before the WW2, when Czechoslovakia was a modern democratic state (in contrary to its neighbors) and some great things happened during that period (1920s and 1930s) in Czech/Czechoslovak architecture (I'm not talking here just about some isolated examples of prominent functionalist villas in Prague or Brno respectively, but some entirely new residential districts were built or whole new city parts like in Hradec Králové, for example, mostly consisting of great architecture). Even the four shitty (=socialist/communist) decades of the post WWII "Czechoslovakian urban planning", which you're obviously referring to, had some bright moments, especially when compared to the situation in other socialist/communist countries. Anyway, one of the most bizzare relics of the socialist urban plannig that still exists till this very day is the Prior department store/shopping mall in Jihlava, right in the historic town square. Nobody wants it there (nor residents nor the municipality), but the company that owns the building (Le Cygne Sportif) refuses to deal with the situation.
What an incredibly depressing story!
I always go to sleep in the living room when my bedroom is on fire.
Fun fact the Usti nad Labem area is the basis that was used to model the fictional country of Chernarus, featured in games like ArmA 2 and DayZ.
Another terrific video. Excellent selection of supporting music assets! Bravo!
Yeah, we fortunately stopped similar plans in Amsterdam:
ruclips.net/video/vI5pbDFDZyI/видео.html
Every time I go to the USA, I also wonder what beautiful city centres they destroyed.
The only North American city that I think has done it right is Quebec.
@Adam Something there was a more or less similar case here in Portugal. The High City of Coimbra (Alta de Coimbra). Coimbra was and still is the city of learning and culture in the country, the oldest University is there (like Oxford or Cambridge in the UK). In the early fascist regime times (Salazar's Estado Novo) he, a former student of Coimbra, ordered the demolition of 1/3 of the historical center to make room for the modernistic buildings of the university. Starting in 1936 it would last up to the 1960s. At the end, from romanesque churches, barroque palaces and an astronomical observatory to 19th century offices and university faculties and libraries, were demolished and near 15 thousand people evicted to miserable pre-fabricated houses outside the city to this day. Nowadays only the historical University Palace and tge boxy modern faculties are there and near 1500 year of social history and relatiinships ended due to extreme urban planing ideias. The other universities at the time, Lisbon and Porto, had new Campus, but on then empty lands and not by huge demolition..😉
At least someone's talking about the post war soviet atrocities.
I thought everybody's doing that 24/7
Their housing projects were quite great. So much space and green zones.
@@aspid6546 Well not really thanks to the western tankies defending communism like the holy grail, touting communism as the best thing ever and how communist countries are light years ahead of capitalist ones but then getting angry when you ask them why they didn't move to China yet.
Informative, interesting, a little sad and comical as always. Keep up the good work! Watching from England.
FELICITATION ! Not one single swear word or disgusting blasphemy. A construction specialist with a warm regard for Europe and Humanity in general. Thank You.
This is equivalent to pausing your City: Skylines game and mass-demolishing low residential blocks to make way for other zoning. Except buildings don't magically construct themselves after a few seconds of resuming time!
Over here the issue of old buildings got compounded by the fact that they could be reclaimed in nature by former owners or their heirs (from before the nationalization of property), many of who want to get them demolished since then they can use the land for new developments or just sell their rights to developers who also let the buildings rot away so that they can be legally demolished. Is something similar happening over there as well?
Also omigosh they did the wall thing in Baia Mare as well.
Well the buildings werent demolished to prevent possible privatisation in the future, as socialism was meant to last till the end of time, but after it did fall, the surviving buildings all across the country were, if possible, returned to their former owners, and if those werent found, sold to the people currently living there. But many buildings did end up in the hands of "developers" who did exactly that, let the buildings rot away so they can legally demolish them and build some boxy glass-steel super expensive luxury condos or shopping centres.
I love the old world architecture, but I'm not gonna lie... I actually do have a soft spot for brutalist architecture as well.
It's cool on paper, but a nightmare to live in. Even when buildings aren't crumbling it's very depressing. It's inhuman in nature, like architectural torture device. Makes people feel insignificant, useless, drives self destructive behavior up. Every day walking around you are thinking what a sick joke to force people to live in this ugliness. There is literally 0 reasons to build ugly inhumane buildings, yet they are everywhere. I lived in Russia for 27 years, that' enough brutalism for me. It's not cool, it's sick.
Many Merkel Stasi fanboys!
Same breh, some brutalist stuff looks super cool.
@@lucasrem do you need help? 🤔
@@friendlylaser Complete and utter bullshit. Brutalist architecture is the most beautiful in the world.
I just found your channel. Interesting point of view i dont get often. Im gonna keep watching your videos and see where they go. Anyways, thanks for the work you put into them.
Drinking game:
Take a shot everytime he says "ehh"
In Prague part of Žižkov was also blasted for blocks. Luckily not very large area.
saw your channel today for the first time and watch it for 3 hours straight
not only have to say your trolling at Elon Musk is really funny, but also your historical content is really good presented
also really refreshing idea of you with the historical "lets play"
keep it up
Why do I watch these videos when I know that any memory of Prague makes me miss living there 😭
I'm glad I found your channel. It really should be known to a much broader audience, like on television between 18:00 and 20:00.
Amazing videos man. Thanks for your work!
"I have never seen destruction of historical buildings at this scale out of the US..."
Stockholm: Hold my beer!