From the author
This is not a tower
A common story: iconic objects turn to dust or selfie backgrounds at best. But this story still surprises with the degree of metamorphosis of perception. The transition from the tower - the city dominant, the symbol of modernist superiority over man - to the "gray concrete box". From an icon to an index, practically, a gesture that denotes itself. But not entirely true. Behind the modernist towers in the post-Soviet space, there is a trail of memory and trauma of a Soviet person. Some buildings of the "sovmod" epoch received popular names: "Denture", "Titanic", "House of Active Sex", "Centipede". The rest are just "gray concrete boxes". Through the method of Bernd and Hilla Becher's typology, the towers are combined into the same folk image of the gray box. They become as faceless as strictly functional industrial architecture. The landmark transition is psychological compensation - that which is difficult to forget is depreciated and not noticed. A bright future is still being built, and what is now, in the light of this approaching future, becomes gray and impersonal, unimportant.
