Svitlana Smolenska

Doctor of architecture

Kharkiv, Ukraine

Researcher of the architectural avant-garde in Ukraine.

Biography

Leading Kharkiv architects have already developed an influential school of constructivist heritage research. One of them is Svitlana Smolenska, Doctor of Architecture, recognized expert of ISC20C (The ICOMOS Twentieth Century Heritage International Scientific Committee) and the Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation (Florence, Italy), member of the ICOMOS-Ukraine and member of Ukraine's National Union of Journalists. 

Svitlana was born in Kharkiv. She obtained a master’s degree in architecture after studying at the Kharkiv Engineering Civil Construction Institute. In the 1980s and 1990s, she worked as an architect, studying the urban environment needs based on the residents’ perspective and the possible ways of citizen participation in urban decision-making.

She is an author of research methodology for identifying the peculiarities of the urban environment perception held by various social groups. In 1993 she successfully defended her thesis on the topic “Stereotypical environment perception in the research and urban design” at the Scientific Research Institute of Theory and History of Architecture and Urban Planning (Moscow, Russia). Since the early 2000s, she has been meticulously researching the avant-garde architecture of the 1920s–1930s in Ukraine, promoting it internationally at foreign conferences and through publications in Germany, Poland and Italy.

In 2017 she obtained a doctoral degree at Lviv Polytechnic National University for the dissertation “Architecture of avant-garde modernism in Ukraine: genesis and heritage.” She is the author of more than eight dozen scientific publications in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. Her research interest includes architecture and urban planning of the 20th century as a cultural heritage; theory and history of 20th-century architecture and urbanism, landscape architecture, the urban environment's research methods, and citizen participation in urban decision-making.

In the 1990s and 2000s, she worked as a journalist, collaborating with many Kharkiv and republican newspapers. Svitlana dedicates her free time to literary activities. She is an author of three poetry collections: “Talisman” (1992), “What the soul needs” (2004), “Garden of Hope” (2011). Her poems were included in “Anthology of Modern Russian Poetry of Ukraine” (Kharkiv, 1998), “Kyivan Rus. Contemporary Russian Poetry of Ukraine” (Ukraine-Germany, 2003), “Ukraine. Russian Poetry of the Twentieth Century: a Poetic Anthology” (Kyiv, 2008), etc. In 2011, she presented her poetry collection “Garden of Hope” at the Prix Russophonie event in Paris.

Publications

  1. Redesigning Constructivist Architecture in the 1930s and Retro-Modernisation of Soviet Cities after World War II // Rethinking Modernity: ICOMOS • JOURNALS OF THE GERMAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE LXIX, 2019.  P. 82-86 (ISBN 978-3-7828-4058-3). 
  2. Avant-garde architecture and art of the 1920s–1930s in Ukraine and European modernism: interpenetration methods // Architectus. – Wroclaw: Wydział Architektury Politechniki Wrocławskiej, 2019. № 3(59). С. 11-18. 
  3. Foremost Examples of Urban Ensembles of Socialist Realism in the Ukraine // Sozialistischer Realismus und Sozialistische Moderne Welterbevorschlage aus Mittel- und Osteuropa| Socialist Realism and Socialist Modernism World Heritage Proposals from Central and Eastern Europe. – ICOMOS Hefte des Deutschen National Komitees LVIII | ICOMOS Journals of the German National Committee LVIII, 2013. C. 106-111. 
  4. Charkowski modernizm po modernizmie – utrata autentyczności // Modernizm w Europe - Modernizm w Gdyni. Architektura pierwszej poіowy XX wieku i jej ochrona w Gdyni i w Europie. Gdynia: Urząd Miasta Gdyni, 2011. S. 213–218. 
  5. Mind Manipulation By Mass-Media Using City Images In Newspapers // Image of Heritage: Changing Perception, Permanent Responsibilities, March, 5 - 9, 2009 Florence (Italy) 
  6. Архітектура авангардного Модернізму в Україні: генеза та спадщина. Дис. на здобуття наукового ступеня доктора архітектури 18.00.01 – Теорія архітектури, реставрація пам'яток архітектури. Львів, 2017. 447 с. 
  7. Прогностика в архітектурній школі: досвід радянського авангарду 1920х-1930х рр. // Сучасні проблеми архітектури та містобудування. 2012. Вип. 30. С. 129-135. 
  8. Генеза ідеї купола в архітектурі модернізму початку ХХ сторіччя // Сучасні проблеми архітектури та містобудування. 2013. Вип. 34. С. 212-221. 
  9. Історичні віхи української архітектури: проект Харківського поштамту 1928 р. // Сучасні проблеми архітектури та містобудування. 2013. Вип. 32. С. 110-118. 
  10. Зберегти пам'ятки конструктивізму в Україні (на основі неопублікованих архівних матеріалів) // Сучасні проблеми архітектури та містобудування. 2015. Вип. 41. С. 190-198.
  11. Что надобно душе. 2004. 
  12. Сад надежд //Русофония. 2011. Париж.