The H-Block

While I was waiting for my students to arrive to play soccer this afternoon, I was observing the wonderful communist housing units. In front of me stood a row of twelve large H-blocks. I call them H-blocks because simply they look like H's. An example of the H-block from Petrzalka is at right. For those who do not know, Petrzalka is something like a suburb of Bratislava. It is not a suburb in the sense of American Suburbia. It is nearly the opposite of what we normally think of as a suburb. Though, like an American suburb, the housing is all the same.

One of the major complaints against communism is that making everything the same creates a bland life. Nevertheless, the beauty of the H-block is that they are versatile. Like Legos, you can build upon them, creating them to be the exact size that you want them to be. The dimensions of a base H-block is something like 100 by 100 by 100. If you want a larger building, you just add another H-block to it. That my friends is diversity.

Still think communist housing is bland? The H-block is versatile in color as well. Collect all sixteen. In any given row of H-blocks, you can find a dozen different colored H-blocks. This afternoon I noticed light green, peach, pink, light blue, yellow, and grey H-blocks. That my friends is diversity.

Though I love poking fun at the H-blocks, I try to remember their purpose: housing a large number of people at a relatively low price but still lasting for many years. In the United States, how much different are our houses? You either have the front door to the right of the house or to the left. You either have the garage attached to the house and to the left or the right, have it detached, or have no garage.

I have oversimplified our housing in the United States as I have with that in Bratislava.

I imagine we want unique houses and buildings to represent our unique natures. We acknowledge that we all are different from one another. If I lived under communism, I would have been dying to show myself and my life different from others in whatever way possible. Nevertheless, we are no more the uniqueness of the houses than we are the clothes we wear.

Though I wish all of Bratislava was as beautiful as Old Town, I still enjoy looking at a lovely row of differently colored and shaped, sometimes tagged, H-blocks.