The Unfinished Revolution? The Palace of Culture of the Railway Workers in Kharkiv

Błażej Ciarkowski; Maciej Miarczyński

doi:10.52200/docomomo.70.07

The Unfinished Revolution?

The Palace of Culture of the Railway Workers in Kharkiv

Authors

Błażej Ciarkowski University of Łódź https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5661-3429
Maciej Miarczyński https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5539-9248

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52200/docomomo.70.07

Keywords:

Constructivism, palace of culture, modernism in architecture, Kharkiv

Abstract

The future reconstruction of Ukrainian cities from wartime devastation will require an extensive discussion on strategies and concepts of preservation of cultural heritage – including the heritage of the Modern Movement. It should involve not only the technical aspects but political and historical issues as well. The history of the Palace of Culture of the Railway Workers in Kharkiv (architect Alexander I. Dmitirev, 1927-1932) provokes a number of questions on the essence of Ukrainian pre-war Modernism and Constructivism, the idea of the Sovietisation of the theater against the Great Theatre Reform movement or the role of Workers’ Clubs and Palaces as social condensers. Thus, its analysis cannot by limited to the form and content of the edifice itself, but should be perceived in the broader context of similar projects (for example the Kharkiv Opera House) and views on architecture in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Palace of Culture in Kharkiv can be considered as an example of “architecture in transition” where evolving trends in art as well as a dynamic socio-political situation left their marks and created a multi-layered palimpsest. Dmitriev’s design included the Constructivist spirit as well as conservative monumentality. It seems to become a legacy of a revolution (in architecture, theater and society) which has never been really completed.

How to Cite

Ciarkowski, B., & Miarczyński, M. (2024). The Unfinished Revolution? The Palace of Culture of the Railway Workers in Kharkiv. Docomomo Journal, (70), 52–59. https://doi.org/10.52200/docomomo.70.07

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Published

2024-04-15

Issue

No. 70 (2024): From Constructivism to Modernism in Kharkiv

Section

Essays

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Plaudit

Author Biographies

Błażej Ciarkowski, University of Łódź

MSc and PhD in Architecture from the Lodz University of Technology, M.A. in the History of Art from the University of Lodz. Since 2010, he has been an associate professor in the Institute of Art History, University of Lodz. Author of numerous articles and books on modern architecture and the preservation of the Modern Movement’s heritage. His current research focusses on post-war modernist architecture, mutual relations between architecture and politics in totalitarian and authoritarian systems, preservation of modernist architecture, and architectural criticism.

Maciej Miarczyński

MSc and PhD student in Architecture from the Lodz University of Technology, MSc in I.T. and Econometrics from the University of Lodz. His current research focuses on concert halls and theater architecture, the evolution of stage and auditorium and its relation to social and cultural changes.

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