ABSTRACT
If dictatorial tendencies characterized the thinking and practice of a planner like Le Corbusier, such tendencies came to full expression in the communist countries. Planners in Eastern Europe created grand city squares for the celebration of communist parties. As a spectacular example, this chapter gives a short account of the development in Nowa Huta in Poland. A poem by Adam Wazyk and a film (The Man of Marble) by Andrej Wajda serve as examples of the artistic reflections of and on the construction of Nowa Huta. As a consequence of the political seizure of public space for parades, dissenters and the disenchanted were forced to seek refuge in private quarters, “inner exiles” away from prying eyes and ears. As an example of a dissenter, Chapter 22 points at Milan Kundera, who in The Unbearable Lightness of Being presented his idea of the parade as kitsch.
