Kyiv’s iconic Soviet-era “spaceship” building risks being swallowed up by a new mall that will soon rise near Lybidska metro station. The controversy over the mall’s construction plans has raised the question of whether examples of Soviet modernist architecture even deserve to be preserved in Ukraine.
New urban movement
The Soviets launched Sputnik 1, the first satellite, on Oct. 4, 1957. Less than four years later, on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s orbited earth — the first human to do so — in his Vostok spacecraft. These event put the Soviet Union far ahead in its space race with the United States at the time, but America pulled ahead by the time of the first U. S. Apollo mission moon landing on July 20, 1969.
But, throughout the 1960s, owing to its early successes, the idea of human domination of space and Soviet space achievements continued to be reflected in Soviet architecture.
The famous “Flying Saucer” was built in 1971 by architect Florian Yuriev as part of the building of the Ukrainian Institute of Science and Information. Yuriev, now 89, spoke at the Kyiv Biennale last November. His lecture was a huge success and inspired a group of activists to start a movement called Save Kyiv Modernism to preserve and protect Soviet modernist architecture in Kyiv.
Initially, the developer of the Ocean Mall, which is being built behind the Ukrainian Institute of Science and Information, and right next to the recently built Ocean Plaza Mall, pledged to renovate the Soviet building and its “Flying Saucer.”
However, the project was changed and, according to the photos, the saucer will now be incorporated in the new building as part of its entrance. Moreover, the construction of the mall will destroy the unique concert hall located inside the saucer, urban activists say.
Under current legislation, buildings constructed between 1955 and 1991 aren’t considered a part of the city’s historical or cultural heritage, and therefore aren’t protected from demolition and reconstruction — unlike historic buildings from the 18th or 19th century.
In addition, anti-Soviet sentiment in Ukraine has risen since the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, which saw former President Viktor Yanukovych ousted from power, Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the start of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine in the Donbas. In 2015, the Ukrainian government launched a decommunization campaign in a bid to get rid of the symbols of communist rule, which resulted in a nationwide campaign to topple Lenin statues and rename Soviet-Russian city, town and street names.
But architect and urbanist Oleksiy Bykov believes Soviet modernism is just as valuable as any architectural style from other historical periods. “We need to preserve all history,” he says.
What is Soviet modernism?
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ended the era of Soviet monumental classicism with an order on Nov. 4, 1955 introducing a “Fight With Excesses in Construction” concept. New Soviet architecture was required to be practical and plain in form. All the same, architects still managed to exercise some creativity even within strict rules of Soviet architectural orthodoxy.
Some of the resulting modernist buildings have become landmarks in Kyiv, such as Kyiv Crematorium or the Salyut hotel, while others remain relatively unknown even to locals. The Save Kyiv Modernism group recently released its first map featuring 70 modernist buildings that are in various states of disrepair.
Bykov fears that, in the absence of any legal protection and state conservation policy for Soviet modernist buildings, they will become an easy target for property developers. In his opinion, urbanists, architects and developers have to work together to find a solution.
“Revitalization is a global trend that rethinks how old buildings can be converted into something new functionally, while preserving their form and cultural value,” Bykov explains. “A good example in Kyiv is Platforma, a former Soviet plant that has been turned into an art and public space.”
Soviet architecture could also be a tourist attraction, he added.
Once considered “ugly and bleak architecture,” modernism and brutalism have gained popularity, attracting scores of foreign tourists, artists, photographers, and researchers to former Soviet cities since the fall of the Iron Curtain. The obsession with abandoned and decaying post-communist infrastructure has even got its own term — “ruin porn.”
However, this has often been criticized for fetishizing the repressive Soviet regime, and glossing over the effects of economic decline following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
