On May 26, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko called on protesters to clear their encampment on the city’s Independence Square. Six days later, facing heavy criticism from those who toppled former President Viktor Yanukovych in last winter’s EuroMaidan Revolution, Klitschko changed his mind.
Kyiv’s top official is not the only one confused about what to do with the Maidan. In the wake of billionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko’s election and inauguration as president, many are skeptical that Ukraine’s government will embody the democratic spirit of the EuroMaidan Revolution. So, what’s next for the Maidan?
Lviv-based architects Erik Herrmann and Ashley Bigham have an idea.
In a recent competition sponsored by CANactions, the largest architecture festival in Ukraine, Herrmann and Bigham presented a proposal to build “The Kyiv Forum,” a semi-permanent structure on the Maidan designed to facilitate political and cultural dialogue.
The Kyiv Forum is a 10-story egg-shaped steel structure with a wooden lattice that includes an amphitheater, art museum, and library, and hopes to recreate the political spaces of antiquity in modern Ukraine.
Bigham says their goal was to create a framework of political space “that people would come and change…on a daily, monthly, or seasonal basis.” This transience, they say, would allow for the kind of spontaneous association that characterized the EuroMaidan Revolution.
“Our idea for the forum was to create a venue for those who want to continue occupying the Maidan, but want to change from a culture of reaction to a culture of pro-action,” says Herrmann.
Bigham, a U.S. Fulbright Fellow, and Herrmann, a German Chancellor Fellow, say Ukrainians’ resourcefulness and organization during the EuroMaidan Revolution inspired them to design a piece of non-programmed architecture on the Maidan.
Bigham hopes their project will “create a more formalized system for meeting, discussing, and creating” with “just enough formality…allowing people to manipulate the space as they need…These amazing events are happening [but Ukrainians] are really lacking the proper public space for them.”
Herrmann believes Ukrainians can benefit from a piece of architecture that has “enough structure to create a cohesive environment, and enough cues to demonstrate how a space might be potentially used,” but that would be open to a variety of political and cultural events.
Rather than erecting a monument that might be torn down under a new regime, they hope to create a permanent space for grassroots activism, the lifeblood of the Euromaidan Revolution.
Many Ukrainians believe that the popular stage of the Maidan has passed, and that the square has become an exclusive environment for fringe elements of the recent revolution.
Bigham and Herrmann told the Kyiv Post that the Kyiv Forum could help recreate the inclusivity of the EuroMaidan Revolution, which saw hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians turn out every week in protest of Yanukovych’s corrupt and violent regime.
The forum, both physically and metaphorically, opposes Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, which Bigham says feels “very private” and “removed from the Maidan.”
The forum, she argues, symbolizes kind of transparent popular government Ukraine needs: “You would be able to stand on the square and watch all of the events happening even if you didn’t want to participate in them directly.”
The concept of user-generated, non-programmed architecture is gaining traction in other parts of the world. Herrmann cites Jürgen Mayer-Hermann’s “Metropol Parasol” in Seville, Spain, as a source of inspiration.
Both agree that keeping the Maidan closed to vehicular traffic should be a priority. Doing so, they argue, will present a host of new possibilities for the square.
The Kyiv Forum could be affordably built. The architects estimate that the bowl of the amphitheater could be constructed for around $500,000, with other aspects of the project being added if funding allows for them.
If the project doesn’t come to fruition, Herrmann hopes to establish a dialogue that will change the way Ukrainians think about the Maidan: “I believe that architecture should be incredibly ambitious and incredibly radical. It should inspire more than it ever tries to build.”
Even if the Maidan’s physical appearance remains unaltered, Bigham is sure the square will never be the same: “culturally, socially, in people’s imaginations, it has changed…you have to acknowledge that.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Isaac Webb can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @IsaacDWebb.
