Kyiv: The Latest Architecture and News

The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991 came not only with political, economic, and social implications but also left behind a distinctive style of architecture. This architecture, under the Soviet regime, was a system that relied on quantifiable targets, such as the Five Year Plan. These quotas forced architects to evaluate building projects in terms of material and labor costs, number of units, volume of skilled and unskilled labor, and so forth. As a result, architecture across these regions became an industrial commodity, an outward flex of power and technological innovation, and a collective of architects executing a Stalinist vision.

+ 27

+ 8

Videos

Dmytro Aranchii Architects have started construction on a large interactive green roof in Kyiv, Ukraine. Called the Signature Garden, the 6000 square meter park sits on top of a shopping center and provides a space for visitors to dine, play, and enjoy both vegetation and water features.

+ 19

Format: 6-day international and interdisciplinary workshop in the framework of the 10th International Architecture Festival CANactions 2017 (with full-time involvement)
Curatorship: Mirjam Niemeyer / helsinkizurich (Finland / Switzerland)
Tutors: Selected finalists of the Future Architecture Platform: call for ideas 2017
Participants' profile: Critically-thinking practitioners, researchers, and artists with background in urban design, city planning, and architecture, economics, political and cultural studies, journalism, sociology and other related fields
Number of participants: Up to 24
CANactions provides: Accommodation in a hostel in the center of Kyiv (May 28 - June 4, 2017), lunches and coffee breaks, free tickets to all events of the International Architecture Festival CANactions 2017
Deadline for applications: May 07, 2017
Apply now: https://goo.gl/forms/3zIGL9C62NT1Vb253

CANactions seeks to enhance the creation of places and communities in Ukraine where people love to live and work. CANactions integrates the most relevant world experience in the sphere of architecture and urbanism to educate and inspire responsibility active change makers. For this moment CANactions is a member of Future Architecture Platform.

+ 15

+ 18

+ 32

+ 8

In a 'long view' piece for The Calvert Journal, Owen Hatherley tackles one of the most pressing cultural questions facing many former Soviet countries: should the Ukrainian capital of Kiev (or Kyiv) erase its Soviet past or learn to live with history? For a city which saw a popular revolution against "a grotesquely wealthy elite" last year, Kiev is developing a flourishing independent cultural scene. In this article Hatherley, who has taken part in the city's 2015 art biennial, expertly narrates the city's Soviet, post-Soviet and contemporary "oligarch-funded" architecture to ask: "if Soviet Ukraine can’t be wished away, what should be conserved, and what should be rejected?"

+ 18

+ 23

+ 19

+ 15

+ 15

+ 3

+ 5