build your own soviet-era modernist circus with zupagrafika’s architectural model book

CIRK pairs photography and architectural history with five press-out paper models that recreate the sculptural circus buildings built across the former USSR.

thomai tsimpou June 25, 2026 3 min

Zupagrafika revisits Soviet circus architecture in CIRK

Independent publisher Zupagrafika releases CIRK, a book dedicated to the permanent circuses built across the former Soviet Union between the 1960s and 1980s. Written by David Navarro and Martyna Sobecka, the publication documents seventeen arenas spanning Eastern Europe and Central Asia, tracing a lesser-known chapter of postwar modernist architecture shaped by public entertainment, state ambition, and experimental engineering. Alongside archival research and contemporary photography, the book includes five press-out paper models that allow readers to reconstruct selected circus buildings themselves.

Unlike the temporary traveling circus, these permanent venues were conceived as civic landmarks. Rising in cities including Chișinău, Dnipro, Tashkent, Bishkek, and Almaty, the buildings combined expressive concrete forms with highly engineered interiors designed to accommodate complex performances. Many adopted bold circular volumes and hovering rooflines that gave them a distinctly futuristic presence within the urban landscape.

build your own soviet-era modernist circus with zupagrafika's architectural model book - 1 — Bishkek Cirk in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan | all images courtesy of Zupagrafika

from modernist landmark to paper model

CIRK examines what has become of these buildings today. Some continue to operate as performance venues, while others are undergoing restoration after years of neglect, reflecting the changing status of postwar modernist architecture across the region and the evolving attitudes toward its preservation.

The book’s second half shifts from documentation to participation. Readers can press out and assemble paper replicas of five featured circuses: the Kyrgyz State Circus in Bishkek, Chișinău State Circus, Dnipro State Circus, Great Moscow State Circus, and Tashkent State Circus. Continuing Zupagrafika’s long-running interest in combining publishing with model making, the format transforms architectural history into an interactive object.

Founded by David Navarro and Martyna Sobecka in Poznań, Poland, Zupagrafika has built its publishing practice around modernist and brutalist architecture, often pairing photography, research, and collectible paper models. With CIRK, the duo turns its attention to an architectural typology that has largely remained outside mainstream histories of modernism.