Stanek’s new book traces the impact of Cold War architectural gifts across Africa and Asia
A new book edited by Taubman College professor Łukasz Stanek explores the continuing impact of architecture donated by socialist countries to newly independent nations during the Cold War.
The Gift: Spaces of Global Socialism and Their Afterlives, published by Berlin-based JOVIS, examines how the moral, temporal, and racial dynamics of gift exchange shaped the design, construction, and subsequent use of buildings provided by Soviet, Eastern European, Chinese, and Cuban institutions. These projects, including factories, schools, hospitals, and housing, transformed cities and landscapes in newly independent countries across Africa and Asia, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Mongolia, and Vietnam. The book considers how the generosity and violence inherent in gift exchange shaped — and continue to shape — urbanism across the two continents.
Stanek is a professor of architecture at Taubman College. His 2020 book, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (Princeton University Press), received the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. He also co-curated the 2024 exhibition The Gift: Stories of Generosity and Violence in Architecture at the Architekturmuseum der TUM in Munich and the 2025 exhibition Intersections: The Architecture of Victor Adegbite and Charles Polónyi in Ghana at the Wende Museum in Culver City, California.
In addition to Stanek, The Gift features contributions from Fantahun Ayele, Darisuren Azbayar, Boris Chukhovich, Yanjinlkham Dashtseren, David Kojo Derban, Alice Korkor Ebeheakey, Claudia Gastrow, Ana Ivanovska Deskova, Damjan Kokalevski, Vladimir Kulić, Ksenia Litvinenko, Ye Liu, Kulshat Medeuova, Thục Linh Nguyễn Vũ, Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh, Jennifer Robinson, Uurtsaikh Sangi, Christina Schwenkel, Alevtina Solovyeva, Setiadi Sopandi, Ke Song, Paul Sprute, and Miruna Stroe.
The project received support from the British Academy; the Architekturmuseum der TUM; the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art; the U-M Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia; the U-M Year of Democracy Research Grant; Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; the U-M Office of the Vice President for Research; and the U-M African Studies Center.
