40 articles in this issue
Elena Grigoryeva
Who are the elite?Those who are called elite today, Will be forgotten next day.Those who are today killed or brought low,Will be the elite tomorrow.January 15, 2016 is Mandelstam’s 125th anniversary Since classical antiquity many minds have been concerned... see more
Anna Grigorieva
The International Design Awards (IDA) announced a call for entries for their 9th awards.
Alexander Kudryavtsev
National cultural heritage is a key element of the social, economic and intellectual potential of Russia. The masterpieces of the historical and material culture are symbols of the nation. The existing legislative and regulatory basis ensures preservation... see more
Nikita Tokarev, Alexander Ostrogorsky
The article considers the aspects of teaching of history and theory of architecture and the relations between humanity and design subjects. The touch point of design and history may consist in consideration of the tasks, which have been facing the archite... see more
Lyana Lazuto
The article observes the “ARCH_TAIGA” project – Siberian platform for annual international architectural contests for students and young architects. Every year the designers from all over the world are challenged to find the solution to a new creative tas... see more
Vladimir Stegailo
The article presents the results of the architectural competition for the development of the Central Market held by the Irkutsk branch of the Union of Architects of Russia together with the city administration. It presents the main concepts of the winners... see more
Valentina Kazakova
The author shares her impressions of the festival of architectural art “ArchBukhta. Urbanization” organized by the Club of Young Architects. The festival was held in March 2016 in Baikalsk (the Irkutsk region) and concerned the problems of Baikalsk as a m... see more
Alexei Kozmin
It is crucial for a present-day big city not to reduce the process of spatial planning to elaboration of a formal master plan and other town-planning documents. The spatial planning should flow from the city development strategy and be based on real econo... see more
Vladimir Rasputin
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Andrei Gnezdilov
Eugenia Arefieva, Irina Zamotina
Eugenia Yamova, Valeria Nuyanzina
The article reviews the results of the 17th session of International Baikal Winter University of Urban Planning Design, the subject of which was “The System of Urban Centers. Formation of Public Spaces”. The international teams presented their reconstruct... see more
Anastasia Zhmykhova, Inna Druzhinina
Nadezhda Naumova, Inna Druzhinina
Marina Tkacheva
The article observes the book “Irkutsk and its Citizens” by S. I. Medvedev issued in 2015. The article features the key topics of the book and characterizes its visual material and the possibility to use this issue for city space investigations.
Marina Novikova
The article observes thematic, graphic and semantic peculiarities of the works by Siberian artist Anatoly Pogrebnoy. It discusses the significance of the historical experience of pictorial art and culture for the development of personal creativity. The ar... see more
Victor Logvinov
The article describes the situation in the contemporary Russian architecture, where the state control over business is legislatively called off, the public consumer control has not yet matured, the professional control is beyond the law, and such notions ... see more
Konstantin Lidin
In his late dialogues, Plato defined elites as social groups that produce eidetic images or, in modern parlance, coherent, archetypic and innovative images. Plato embodied the idea of ascetic elites, which restrain personal consumption, in the images of a... see more
Alexander Rappaport
In the shift from aristocratic society to democracy professional and social elites still are lacking definite cultural norms and attitudes. Rapid change of tastes and political influence blurs common attitudes and values, intuitive and rational methods of... see more
Elena Bagina
Today the notion of palace is rather vague. It unites artistically and functionally heterogeneous buildings. Historically, there are two types of palaces: a palace-delubrum (Ancient times, Middle Ages) and a palace-artwork (epochs of absolute monarchies).... see more
Nadezhda Gryaznova
The article describes the process of spatial reorganization of provincial cities in accordance with the ideas expressed in the model of an ideal state formed by Ekaterina II. Town-planning and architectural reorganization of the province is viewed as a co... see more
Ilya Lezhava
The article reviews a new paradigm for the arrangement of settlement systems in Russia. It is proposed to cover the territory of Russia with linear settlement systems, basing mostly on the existing and planned railroads. The author believes that some of t... see more
Alexander Levintov
The article reviews the history of the notion of elite, its mission and functions, and, first of all, how it forms the reasons for existence. It also features the role of the elite in the relations between the state and the society. Organization of the po... see more
Today there is a growing interest toward the personality of Georgy Petrovich Schedrovitsky (GP) and the Moscow Methodological Group (MMG). The MMG is sometimes called a sect. In fact, these people offered an innovative and tough school of thinking. The Me... see more
The critique of “constructivism” and implementation of “stalinist empire” style in the USSR is regarded as a general trend in the course of revolutionary shift to modern mass society in the West culture, producing “kitch” as a hybrid of aristocratic and p... see more
Elena Grigoryeva, Konstantin Lidin, Alexander Rappaport
Discussion participants: Elena Grigoryeva, Konstantin Lidin, Alexander Rappaport, Dmitry Khmelnitsky and Elena Bagina
Yuri Volchok
The article has fixed four meaningful cross-sections of arts and engineering creative work in Russia from the 1840ies to the middle of the 1920ies. In combination, they provided for the unique historic picture of the spatial structure of the VKhUTEMAS’ pr... see more
The revival of the notion of "the fine" has become one of the tasks in the framework of matching historical and theoretical issues related to architectural criticism at the present stage of architectonic thinking integration into the space of a non-linear... see more
Mark Meerovich
The article reviews two critical stages in the history of architectural profession in the USSR, when the party and state authorities imposed change on all the key principles of architectural and townplanning design in the country: stylistic, social, finan... see more
The Soviet avant-garde of the 20s-30s has been wearing the crown of martyrdom for a long time. It is generally thought that the turn to Stalin’s Empire style was sharp and dogmatic. It is not quite the case. It was extended in time for at least five years... see more
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Over the last fifty years, the quality of construction has been constantly declining in light of the ideology of fast updating of the whole sphere of consumption. As a result, the houses built in the 1950s remain elite, despite their respectable age. Bulg... see more
Alexei Sergeev
Frank van der Hoeven
Starchitect Zaha Hadid won the bid to design one of the planned stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup event in Qatar. Her design for the Al-Wakrah stadium became the centrepiece of a discussion on the role that starchitects play in society. That debate rea... see more
Tatyana Lebedeva
Zaha Hadid’s works are represented in the article by the Dominion Tower Office Building – the only one project of hers realized in Moscow so far. Zaha Hadid’s early creative work was inspired by Russian avant-gardists and constructivists. The article show... see more
In the contemporary world urbanization becomes a large-scale process. Huge flows of people migrate from poorer districts to the cities with a higher level of consumption. It takes migrants about 15-25 years to give up their traditional ascetic way of life... see more
Kozma Kvartalov
We continue to publish the myths of the 130 Quarter. They are told by an honored crooner, collector of the modern city folklore Kozma Kvartalov. Please do not treat his stories as historical accounts. They are more like fairy tales where the historical tr... see more
Irina Dagdanova, Irina Alsagaeva
The article presents realizations of new types of urban quarters and present-day reconstructions of these urban units aimed to achieve the higher quality of life of the population.