Building Socialism
Book • 2020
Building Socialism examines the material and social afterlives of East German architecture in urban Vietnam, focusing on the circulation of design technologies, planners, and built forms during socialist collaboration.
Christina Schwenkel explores how these architectural transfers shaped urban space, everyday practices, and post-socialist transformations in Vietnamese cities.
The book documents how built environments, formerly tied to socialist ideals, become sites of negotiation, adaptation, and reuse in a changing political economy.
By attending to labor mobilities, design pedagogy, and infrastructural legacies, Schwenkel reveals the entangled histories of Cold War socialist internationalism.
The study contributes to debates on transnational urbanism, heritage, and the politics of architecture.
Christina Schwenkel explores how these architectural transfers shaped urban space, everyday practices, and post-socialist transformations in Vietnamese cities.
The book documents how built environments, formerly tied to socialist ideals, become sites of negotiation, adaptation, and reuse in a changing political economy.
By attending to labor mobilities, design pedagogy, and infrastructural legacies, Schwenkel reveals the entangled histories of Cold War socialist internationalism.
The study contributes to debates on transnational urbanism, heritage, and the politics of architecture.
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Camellia (Linh) Pham
Christina Schwenkel, "Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi" (U California Press, 2025)
