Industrial and Human Ruins of Postcommunist Europe

With the former industrial cities of Eastern Europe in ruin—once the pillars of these economies— the attention of both investors and academics has shifted toward capital cities and their new political and economic potential fueled by the rise of new governments and new foreign direct investment. The failed attempts to privatize many of these former industrial spaces has left entire cities in ruin and despair, forgotten by all but artists and preservationists, who see these spaces not only as aesthetically inspiring but also as charged with redemptive potential. This article puts forward an alternative exploration of the Eastern European postcommunist transition through these ruined spaces, arguing that the aesthetic dimension of change is key to understanding the human impact of the transition. Focusing on two former industrial sites—the Hunedoara Ironworks in Romania and the Vitkovice Ironworks in the Czech Republic—the article seeks to understand the rhetorical and material relationship between these ruined spaces and the workers who once inhabited them as well as the effect that different practices of representation—mainly photography—and preservation have had on these spaces.