Balcony Chic is a playfully voyeuristic journey into peoples’ lives through the motley and unusual architectural culture of Ukrainian balconies. This photo book documents this unique structural phenomenon, cobbled together from individual initiatives claiming unregulated residential space. Along the way it discovers the origins of the balcony culture and its quirky do-it-yourself ethos yielding multifaceted structures that are simultaneously beautiful, ugly, plastic, wooden, antiquated, modern, painted, and glazed, full of stuff and covered in flowers. Each balcony is unique, like its owner.
Balcony Chic is a great addition to the library of anyone interested in Soviet architecture, Eastern Europe, Ukrainian urban scene and photography in general.
The title includes more than 100 photos of balconies from across Ukraine, set in an elegant layout along with an insightful introduction about the history of balconies as an architectural phenomenon in Ukraine.
About the author:
Oleksandr Burlaka graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. He is a Kyiv-based artist and architect working in installation, photography and exhibitional display. Burlaka’s work includes research and often covers architecture and its transformation in post-Soviet countries.
