Typical isn’t it? The brutalist architecture constructed in the democracy of Great Britain in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was either irredeemably ugly or downright lethal. Or both. Most town centres were blighted with some horrible examples of the genre, many of which have now, mercifully, been demolished. Meanwhile, in the communist state of the USSR the same architectural vogue resulted in some of the most extraordinary and strangely-beautiful buildings imaginable.

90 of these weird constructions were captured by French photographer Frédéric Chaubin for his book ‘Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed’ (available from Taschen) and the images present a fantastical world where concrete is king and architects were seemingly all obsessed with bad sci-fi.

While you can only imagine that most of the buildings are nightmarish to actually inhabit, they look truly spectacular and leave you wishing that Britain had been brave enough to employ a few dissident Russian architects to design our town centres.

Frédéric Chaubin: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed is available here from Taschen and priced at £34.99

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