As I noted in my previous post, several of the friends I made came to visit my exhibition after I’d installed my ENSV stationery paintings. One of them saw The New Collective and knew a lot about Pärnu KEK, so he generously offered to spend an evening with me touring some of the buildings KEK built.
It turns out that my friend Kris’s partner actually grew up in the most famous of their builds, a kilometer-long monolithic concrete terraced housing block on the edge of a Soviet industrial complex called Kuldne Kodu (Golden Home), attended their kindergarten, and now works in one of the business buildings KEK not only built but also continues to manage in their present-day real estate company.
We toured her workplace, which had a model and map of the entire vision for the complex (which was never completed post-independence) as well as a series of informational panels about the history of Pärnu KEK.
We then walked around the rest of that industrial and business section, seeing both original and renovated areas, and designs that never got completed - like the ramp to nowhere.
Then we visited Kuldne Kodu (Golden Home). It’s so massive and uniform that they color coded interior sections and floors so inhabitants and visitors didn’t get lost! We also saw the exterior of the kindergarten.
It was a really cool experience to research Pärnu KEK and paint on its ceremonial stationery, and then to get an in-depth tour of its constructions, history, and present from locals.