We invite you to a lecture by Ievgenia Gubkina, an architectural historian from Kharkiv, who will talk about the current situation in Ukraine from the point of view of heritage conservation. The lecture will be held in English without Czech translation.
"The Russian army is deliberately destroying the historic centres of our cities – ancient Chernihiv, baroque Sumy, classical Kherson and Mykolaiv, historicist Mariupol and modernist Kharkiv. The entire centre of Kharkiv, where the greatest number of monuments of different styles and periods are located, has been seriously damaged by Russian bombs, with one in four buildings destroyed. Kharkiv is world famous for its interwar modernism, including Soviet-Ukrainian Constructivism, of which the Derzprom building, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a prime example. The ensemble includes the former government centre of Soviet Ukraine, today's Svoboda Square with the Kharkiv Regional Administration building, whose bombing, captured on video on 1 March, has gone around the world," says Ievgenia Gubkina, describing the situation in Ukraine.
Ievgenia Gubkina is a Ukrainian architect, architectural historian and curator. She is co-founder of the non-profit Urban Forms Center and the feminist group Modernistki. Her work focuses on 20th century architecture and planning in Ukraine and the popularization of Ukrainian architectural heritage. She is the author of Slavutych: Architectural Guide (2015), Soviet Modernism. Brutalism, Post-Modernism. Buildings and Structures in Ukraine 1955-1991 (2019) ad.