Postwar Soviet Urban Economics and Humanism of Soviet Architecture
The Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies, in connection with the SAHGB, will host this research seminar to gain greater understanding of some of the debates and voices emerging from urban Ukraine and its progress through the 20th century to the present day.
Seminar, followed by Q and A. Scroll down to book
The mass housing construction phenomenon can be found in both socialist and capitalist countries, but it is arguably difficult to ignore the correlation between leftist governments and social housing policies. The 1980s and ‘90s saw a significant amount of criticism towards mass housing construction from theorists and practitioners of postmodernism as well as from neo-liberals. And while interwar modernism was extended to Auschwitz (according to Zygmunt Bauman), post-war modernist architecture was blamed for Pruitt-Igoe’s socioeconomic problems.
Popular culture of the second half of the 20th century has widely reflected such obvious problematic aspects of Soviet residential areas as the conflict between residents and their new environment, between the new environment and the historical one, between the new environment and nature, between the residents of the new environment and those in neighboring old districts. Architectural and urban planning criticism has always been drawn to crises, including a crisis of identity, morality, and ethics, among others. However, there were also less obvious conflicts and crises that arose from the very method of mikroraions, and the decision-making processes in construction economics under the command-administrative system.
Despite the imperfections of mass housing practices and policies, it would be a mistake or a deliberate shift of focus to deny the importance of such projects in solving one of the biggest problems of the late 19th and 20th centuries – the housing crisis. While architects of the 21st century have grand ambitions, an enormous number of earth's inhabitants, have lived, are living, and will continue to live in mass housing, especially in post-socialist countries. And modern wars and natural disasters serve as a reminder that many will perish in it.
“Without a hint of art”
Photo research project (copyright) by Ukrainian documentary photographer Pavlo Dorohoi, based on Borys Shchetinin’s photo archive. Images of Saltivka residential area, Kharkiv
BIO
Ievgeniia Gubkina is a Ukrainian architectural and urban historian, currently based in UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture as a visiting researcher.
Her work specialises in architecture and urban planning of the 20th century in Ukraine, and a multidisciplinary approach to heritage studies. She is the author of the books Slavutych: Architectural Guide (2015) and Soviet Modernism. Brutalism. Post-Modernism. Buildings and Structures in Ukraine 1955–1991 (2019).
In 2020–2021 she curated the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Architecture, a multimedia online project that worked with architecture, history, criticism, cinema, and visual arts.
Tickets are free but must be booked in advance via Eventbrite, HERE
More information from martincentreseminars@aha.cam.ac.uk