One of London's most prestigious institutions has opened its doors to the Cold War. The Victoria & Albert Museum's (V&A's) autumn exhibition, Cold War Modern: Design 1945-70, is the first to examine contemporary design, architecture, film and popular culture from both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Images of destruction haunted the collective imagination as the Second World War came to a close in 1945, and it was the challenge of the world's leading designers and architects to create visions of post-war visions for devastated cities. The V&A exhibition looks at new industrial products and building methods from the West, as well as socialist realist art and architecture from the USSR.
The exhibition, showing in London until 11 January 2009, focuses on rival architectural visions in East and West Berlin: the Eastern Sector's Stalinallee and the Modernist housing schemes of Interbau in the West. Inspirations came from Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Oskar Niemeyer.
