Plan of Kharkiv, drawn up by the city department of communal services in 1924.The layout of the future new administrative center with a circular square has already been mapped out and is clearly visible in the northern part of the city. © Photo by S. Smolenska from the original.
Kharkiv in the 1920s-1930s as the Capital of Victorious Modernism

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52200/docomomo.70.02

Keywords:

interwar modernism in Ukraine, the first capital of the Ukrainian SSR, Kharkiv Constructivism, urban planning in the 1920s-1930s

Abstract

Documenting and demonstrating (based on material from archives and literary primary sources) the extraordinary growth and development of Kharkiv in the interwar period with an emphasis on the time when it became the first capital of Soviet Ukraine is the main goal of this article. The ideas of modernism were vividly embodied in the architecture and urbanism of the city in the 1920s and early 1930s. Large-scale urban transformations turned it into one of the largest and most significant industrial, cultural, scientific and educational centers of the USSR in a very short period. It became the third most important city after Moscow and Leningrad. And in 1928 modernism was officially recognized as the leading direction in its architecture.

How to Cite

Smolenska, S. (2024). Kharkiv in the 1920s-1930s as the Capital of Victorious Modernism. Docomomo Journal, (70), 8–17. https://doi.org/10.52200/docomomo.70.02

Published

2024-04-15

Issue

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

Section

Essays

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Copyright (c) 2024 Svitlana Smolenska

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

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Author Biography

Svitlana Smolenska, Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University

was born and received her architectural education in Kharkiv/UA, defended her PhD thesis in 1993 (Scientific Research Institute of Theory and History of Architecture and Urban Planning, Moscow) and received her Sc.D. diploma in 2017 (Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine). She is an expert of ISC20C, a member of the national ICOMOS (Ukraine), of the Union of Journalists of Ukraine, a guest researcher at TH OWL (Detmold), financed by a scholarship of the Volkswagen Foundation (2022-2024). Her professional interests are: urban environment research, architecture and town planning of the 20th century as cultural heritage. She is a professor at the Department of Construction, Architecture and Design, Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University/UA.

References

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