ABSTRACT
Part 2 looks at the two interrelated but different imperatives of standardization and typification of architecture. Usually believed to have originated in Khrushchev’s speech at the All-Union Conference of Builders, Architects, and Construction Workers in December 1954, typification, this part argues, has a much longer and richer history and constitutes, perhaps, socialist architecture’s most specific trait. The part also draws distinctions between the standardization of building components and the typification of design solutions, and argues that while the former was a technical and technological concern, the latter recognized and appealed to architecture’s promise to produce social and cultural transformation.
