Brutalism in Minsk

Minsk was rebuilt almost entirely after the Second World War, and by the late Soviet decades its architects were producing some of the most confident modernist public buildings in the USSR. The city's wide avenues are punctuated by expressive concrete landmarks like the Oktyabr Cinema and the House of Fashion, while the Belarusian State Circus and sports facilities carried the idiom into leisure architecture. Viktor Kramarenko, together with Mikhail Vinogradov, later designed the National Library, a rhombicuboctahedron of glass and concrete that extended the Soviet monumental tradition into the 2000s. Because Minsk escaped the wholesale redevelopment seen elsewhere, its modernist ensembles survive with unusual completeness along Independence Avenue and Pobediteley Avenue.