Urban Phantasmagorias: Domesticity, Production and the Politics of Modernity in Communist Bucharest

Urban Phantasmagorias explores the legacies of socialist housing in Bucharest during communist rule in Romania, focusing on the effects of the state agenda on domestic spaces and the lives of women. It utilizes Walter Benjamins concept of phantasmagoria to analyze the dynamic relationship between ideology, architecture, and everyday practices and their impact on individual subjectivity and agency. The book establishes the methodological significance of phantasmagoria as an epistemological approach to studying modern communist cityscapes.

Format: Unspecified
Length: 220 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Urban Phantasmagorias delves into the enduring legacies of socialist housing in the city of Bucharest during the communist era in Romania. The book explores the profound ways in which the socialist state reshaped the urban landscape through direct acts of demolition and construction, as well as indirectly through legal frameworks that aimed to control women's reproductive agency. It traces the consequences of this state agenda, focusing on the period between 1965 and 1989, by examining the transformations, representations, meanings, and uses of domestic spaces. Drawing on Walter Benjamin's concept of phantasmagoria, the book offers a critical framework for understanding the dynamic interplay between ideology, architecture, and everyday practices, and their impact on individual subjectivity and agency.

At the heart of Urban Phantasmagorias is the woman, who emerges as a central subject of the book. The phantasmagoric effects of the socialist state's modernizing agenda are particularly acute in the realm of lived domesticity and everyday life. Through a deep exploration of women's lived experiences, the book sheds light on the prismatic impact of the state's infrastructural and legal intentions, including the ways in which these were subverted by women's embodied experiences of the home.

The book establishes, both theoretically and through the concrete case of Bucharest, the methodological significance of Benjamin's notion of phantasmagoria as an epistemological approach to studying the modern communist cityscape. Urban Phantasmagorias makes a significant contribution to scholarship in architectural history and theory, urban and gender studies, as well as post-socialist and Eastern European studies. It offers a nuanced and empathetic understanding of the complex and multifaceted legacies of socialist housing, and its enduring impact on the lives of individuals and communities.

Weight: 600g
Dimension: 246 x 174 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367859145