Kiosk: The Last Modernist Booths Across Central and Eastern Europe

a red and blue kiosk in a wet polish street
Image: Zupagrafika

Kiosk: The Last Modernist Booths Across Central and Eastern Europe is a book about kiosks, those little shops you see dotted around European cities, selling everything from magazines to tobacco, chocolate, water, and chewing gum. Zupagrafika created the photobook to showcase these little buildings of convenience in all their wild and wonderful designs:

Mass-produced from the 1970s to the 1990s, modular kiosks like the seminal K67, designed by the Slovenian architect Saša J. Mächtig, and similar systems – including the Polish Kami, the Macedonian KC190, and the Soviet ‘Bathyscaphe’ – could be found anywhere throughout the former Eastern Bloc and ex-Yugoslav countries, from bustling city squares to socialist-era housing estates. They served as hot dog and Polish zapiekanka joints, farm egg and rotisserie chicken vendors, funeral flower shops, newsstands, car park booths, currency exchange offices, and more.

While this book covers European variants, kiosks originate from Persia where they were small pavilions and spread to India and Turkey from the 13th century.

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