The Post-socialist Hundertwasser
There are more than half a million large panel and reinforced concrete dwellings in Bulgaria, their exterior rehabilitation (known as sanirane in Bulgarian) being subject to public policies from above and business initiatives from below. These relations of interdependence could be either in conflict or in agreement. The conflict goes deeper than it seems because the state provides mostly for the normative regulation of the process, whereas the financial burden is carried by the flat owners sharing floor ownership of the building. This is all specified both in the European and in the national legislative framework, and will be further elaborated in a comprehensive set of sublegislative acts. The lack of agreement has produced visual effects in the urban space, particularly in its periphery.
The City Taking Place from Below
The battle for the city is fought on at least three fronts. On the one hand, there is the strong-willed power of the city-builders imposing the norms. It is them we know most about – starting from Hippodamus who re-built Miletus and Octavian Augustus who bestowed glamour on Rome, continuing with the Cartesian rationalization of Manhattan with the master plan from 1811 and the grand renovation of Paris by Baron Hausmann, up to Stalin’s new town Magnitogorsk or the neoliberal Shanghai.
