Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the general outlook of post-socialist landscape conversions and attempts to structuralize practices and procedures of landscape transformations in Central Europe. It describes properties and relations of cultural landscape to types derived from author's experiences and interpretations to formulate more general trends and inclinations based on explanations of recurring phenomenal patterns. Cultural landscape of Central Europe carries many features that correspond to communist powers, structures and procedures, represented by buildings and urban settings. The book tries to answer the question of how ideological and political discourses and disputes are reflected in architecture, spatial organization and place-making in contemporary Central and post-socialist Europe. It introduces two main themes: reinterpretation and re-contextualization of the old communist landscape icons and text, and introduction and interaction with global, contemporary process and landscape practices.