Does Postmodern Mean Capitalist? On Postmodernism and the Planned Economy in Poland and the German Democratic Republic

Abstract

Does postmodern mean capitalist? This article aims at providing an answer to this question by comparing postmodernism in two socialist contexts: the People’s Republic of Poland, where in the 1980s the planned economy was progressively eroding and postmodern architecture was mostly sponsored by non-state clients (private individuals, small housing cooperatives and the Catholic Church), and the German Democratic Republic, where throughout the 1980s the institutions of the state-planned economy remained in power while commissioning prominent postmodern projects. The article argues that while the difference in economic regimes did not lead to prominent stylistic discrepancies, they strongly influenced the significance and perception of these projects in their specific national contexts.

Keywords

• poland
• postmodernism
• german democratic republic
• neo-historicism