Modernist Monuments of Freedom Square In Kharkiv

Abstract

Since February 24, 2022, the architectural heritage of Ukraine has been exposed to dangerous destruction. The government center on Freedom (Svoboda) Square in Kharkiv - the largest urban development of early modernist architecture and its pearl, included in the Tentative UNESCO World Heritage List (2017) and provisionally inscribed on the International List of Cultural Property under Enhanced Protection (2023) - Derzhprom (The State Industry Building), were hit by a missile attack on March 1, 2022. In the conditions of non-cessation of hostilities and non-priority, the only means of protecting monuments in the city for months were, and in many places still are, sandbags, adhesive tape and plywood. The architectural research community and Government of Ukraine, together with international organizations, must take all possible actions to protect and restore the damaged architectural monuments. The article deals with the modernist monuments of Freedom Square, the chronology of their reconstruction since the Second World War and the damage received over the past almost two years. The paper raises important questions regarding their future fate with the possibility of restoring some objects of the square to their original appearance of the modernist era.

Keywords

• Kharkiv constructivism
• Avant-garde
• Ukrainian Modernism
• monument protection
• Freedom square