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The architecture of autocracy: the skylines of unfree societies used to bring to mind images of endless gray Soviet apartment blocks. But today, some of the world's most innovative and daring designs are breaking ground in the least free nations. Why are the world's best architects taking their most ambitious plans to modern--day autocrats? Two words: Blank slates.
- Article from:
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Foreign Policy
- Article date:
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May 1, 2008
- Author:
- Lacayo, Richard
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2008 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Daniel Libeskind is one of the world's best-known architects, designer of Berlin's Jewish Museum, the Denver Art Museum's very forward-looking new addition, and the early master plan for the World Trade Center site. He works everywhere--or almost everywhere. A few years ago, he told me he would never work in China. Libeskind, who was born in Poland in 1946, lived for a time under the feckless regime of communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka. It wasn't an experience that left him well disposed toward one-party states.
Libeskind's scruples on the client question weren't widely known until February, when he gave a talk in Belfast in which he criticized ...