Public Learning 2

Spaces in Between Linear City Kharkiv

Excursion/Workshop 2017

The workshop, a cooperation between students and teachers from Kharkiv, Lviv and Vienna, took place in the Linear City or XTC-City (after the tractor factory) in Kharkiv. It was built in 1935-38, when the Soviet Union was still quite young. “Sozgorod - New Kharkiv” is regarded as an outstanding example of the soviet linear city model, developed by Milutin and others. The main goal of the planning was a collectivisation of private life to free up a larger number of workers for the industrialisation programme.

Against this background we concentrated the workshop on the (public) open space. The students were given the task to investigating how much is left of the formerly revolutionary ideas and realisations, especially in terms of design. How has it - officially or informally - changed or been appropriated?

In the context of this small research project the student groups were asked to take up their observations and transfer these into interventions in public space.