Concrete Mon Amour: Stefano Perego’s Photobook of Modernist Architecture

This blog post reviews Stefano Perego’s new photo book Concrete Mon Amour (Gestalten, 2025). It explains why this visual archive of modernist concrete architecture — focused on Eastern Europe and its transnational echoes — matters to architects, engineers, and cultural heritage professionals.

Drawing on three decades in the field, I outline the book’s themes and highlight key monuments featured. I also explain the practical preservation lessons these monumental concrete works offer today.

What Concrete Mon Amour documents and why it is timely

Stefano Perego has assembled a striking collection of photographs that focuses on the monumental concrete structures erected during the 1960s and 1970s across Eastern Europe and beyond. Published by Gestalten in 2025, the book frames these buildings as products of a specific cultural and political moment — the socialist era — while emphasizing their continued visual power.

The photographs foreground the sculptural forms and futuristic geometries of sites conceived as expressions of utopian ideals. By documenting them now, Perego creates a record of works that are increasingly underappreciated or at risk of neglect.

Featured monuments and their stories

Among the most compelling images are the “Peace” monument by Georgian sculptor Nugzar Manjaparashvili, erected in the 1970s in Nukriani, Georgia. The Ilinden Memorial — widely known as the Makedonium — was created in 1974 by Jordan and Iskra Grabuloski in Krushevo, North Macedonia.

Perego’s camera treats these structures as both architectural artifacts and sculptural objects. He isolates their forms against sky and landscape to emphasize their monumentality.

Beyond these headline pieces, the book surveys a range of lesser-known civic monuments, war memorials, and cultural complexes. In these, concrete was used not simply for economy but as a medium of meaning.

• Sculptural power: images that make concrete read as form and gesture
• Historical context: works rooted in socialist-era aspirations and collective memory
• Archival value: high-quality documentation of at-risk structures
• Global relevance: a contribution to the international revival of interest in brutalist architecture

Why architects and engineers should pay attention

As a practitioner with 30 years’ experience working on concrete buildings, I see two critical values in Perego’s project: cultural recognition and technical urgency. Recognizing the architectural ambition behind these structures is the first step toward informed conservation and adaptive reuse.

Photographs can galvanize public interest. Turning affection into action requires engineering appraisal — material tests, structural assessments, and sensitive repair strategies that respect original form while meeting contemporary codes.

Preservation, adaptation and the lessons concrete structures teach us

Perego’s images offer practical prompts for intervention.

The expressive forms documented in the book often conceal complex structural systems and detailing that must be understood before any conservation work.

For engineers, the challenge is to diagnose deterioration mechanisms such as carbonation, chloride ingress, and freeze-thaw cycles.

They must also propose repairs that are reversible and visually consistent with the original design.

For architects, these monuments teach both restraint and ambition.

They show how to use a raw material to create meaning at an urban scale.

For planners and heritage officers, the lesson is strategic.

They should combine photographic advocacy, community engagement, and measurable conservation plans to secure funding and protect these landmarks.

Concrete Mon Amour celebrates the poetic resonance of concrete while providing an archival resource.

Perego’s book is a timely reminder that modernist monuments deserve careful stewardship.

 
Here is the source article for this story: concrete, mon amour: stefano perego’s book captures a decade of modernist architecture