CfP: Concrete and the Making of Eastern Europe: From Interimperial Networks to the International Socialist Division of Labor

Online conference, January 26-27, 2027, organized by the “Art, Environment, Ecology” / “Kunst, Umwelt, Ökologie” Research Group at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich

Few building materials have shaped modern architectural practice and discourse as much as concrete. From a marker of progress to an ambivalent symbol of state socialism and an agent of environmental destruction, concrete has been at the center of debates around modernity, development, and the manifold social and ecological crises engendered by global capitalism. Set against an increasingly uneven global landscape of production, this conference aims to explore the material practices and geopolitical dynamics associated with the production, deployment, and discarding of concrete in Eastern Europe across the twentieth century.

The event is organized around three thematic panels, designed to debate continuities across established periodizations. The panel “Extractivism,” chaired by Monika Motylińska (Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung), invites contributions on the geography and infrastructure of gravel and limestone extraction and concrete production, as well as the labor practices and geopolitical relations that these processes entailed. Motylińska also welcomes papers that consider cement and concrete as a “meta-infrastructure” of extraction—a necessary precondition for the emergence and expansion of extractive industries. Second, “Development,” chaired by Nikolay Erofeev (Freie Universität Berlin), aims to examine building typologies, urban layouts, and aesthetic forms engendered by the broader processes of urbanization, industrialization, and proletarianization that concrete construction accelerated. This section considers the contested meaning of progress and development across conventional historical caesuras, from early integration into capitalist economic flows to fascist “alternative modernities” and the much-contested “socialist international division of labor.” Third, the panel “Waste,” chaired by Adam Przywara (University of Basel), will consider historical discourses on the noxious by-products of concrete production (e.g., cement dust and CO2) as well as practices of rationalization, pollution reduction, and economic efficiency. The conference will conclude with a keynote lecture by Kim Förster (University of Manchester). Altogether, the conference centers the material processes underpinning the near ubiquity of concrete as co-constitutive of political and economic relations within and among the states of Eastern Europe.

Researchers are invited to submit abstracts (max. 400 words) considering, but not limited to, the topics outlined above via email to Alexandra Masgras at a.masgras@zikg.eu by April 15, 2025. For more information, please access the QR code or consult www.zikg.eu.