Rooftop ateliers: how socialist urban planners supported artists | by Kuba Snopek | Oct, 2020 | Medium
▻https://medium.com/@kuba_snopek/rooftop-ateliers-how-socialist-urban-planners-supported-artists-196b890037e1



I have always been fascinated by cities with vibrant art scenes. But how are they created? How does it happen that some neighborhoods have an artistic genius loci and some don’t? What can architects and planners do, in order to make art flourish? In my book “Belyayevo Forever” I was exploring ways how to preserve spaces rich with artistic activity. But how are such spaces made in the first place?
Quite accidentally I have discovered an approach, which seems to have been popular in the socialist countries. In many neighborhoods, planners added rooftop ateliers for artists on top of buildings. Until today, such ateliers exist in former socialist cities and preserve their original function.