... Talking About City Development, Modernism, and its Alternatives
In our fourth podcast, we will talk with urbanist Alexander Lozhkin, the chief architect of Novosibirsk. Alexander will speak about the realities of Soviet city development, the genesis of urbanism in the USSR, and how it was promoted by the participants of the city planning seminars held in Novosibirsk in the 1980s. We will touch upon the Western experience of urbanism as applied to a post-Soviet city, based on the implementation of Russia’s first urban development master plan, for the city of Perm. We will also discuss the viability of other modernist city development projects such as Akademgorodok, Krasnoobsk, and Koltsovo, and the perspectives of urban development of Marx Square in Novosibirsk.
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This podcast has been issued by the Goethe-Institut in Novosibirsk as preparation for the Siberian opening of the exhibition “The City of Tomorrow”, the result of a multi-year study of Soviet architectural modernism in the post-Soviet space. In 2019, the Goethe-Institut showed the exhibition in Minsk, Yerevan, and Moscow. In Novosibirsk the exhibition will be displayed in the Centre for Culture CC19 from 24 November 2020 to 24 January 2021. The exhibition encapsulates a long period or time, from 1920s constructivism to the Soviet modernism of the second half of the 20th century, and ends with the transition to the post-modernist architecture of the early 1990s. Presenting the podcast is the Novosibirsk artist and curator, Anton Karmanov.
ALEXANDER LOZHKIN
Alexander Lozhkin is an urbanist and the chief architect of Novosibirsk. He graduated from the Novosibirsk Institute of Architecture (now the Kryachkov Novosibirsk State University of Architecture, Design and Arts (NSUADA)) in 1990, and was an active participant of the city planning seminars by the Novosibirsk paper architects in the 1980s. He worked in the Novosibirsk organizations involved in the preservation of historical and cultural heritage, and in the Stolitsa institution. He was involved in the organization of the Golden Capital festival of architecture and design, was the editor-in-chief of the Project Siberia magazine, and authored a book on the Novosibirsk paper architecture movement, titled “The Unknown Architecture of Novosibirsk”. From 2011 to March 2013, Lozhkin worked in Perm, in the municipal institution Bureau of City Projects, and participated in the implementation of Russia’s first urban development master plan, created for the city. Since 2014, he has served as councilor on city development to the mayor of Novosibirsk. In 2015, he became the chairperson of the Novosibirsk Art Council, and in 2019, he was appointed the chief architect of Novosibirsk. Alexander Lozhkin participates as a jury member or as part of expert boards for many architectural contests and prizes. He is a professor at the International Academy of Architecture (IAA).
