July 8, 7:30 PM
Admission is free of charge, lecture is delivered in Russian. Attendees must register in advance (link in Russian).
Project Baltia magazine lectures
Curator: Vladimir Frolov, architecture critic, Chief Editor, Project Baltia magazine
The subject of rational city is similar to the popular contemporary concept of the smart city, as a technological mega-machine for habitation, which at once controls people and serves them. The discussions will cover the systematising, constructivist, ordering approach to space — the approach which ultimately leads to the emergence of the smart city of today and tomorrow, even though this smart city is sometimes far from the posited ideal.
A range of invited historians, architects and urbanists will discuss various settlement models, both utopian and real: from the building reforms of Catherine the Great to the developer’s pragmatism of the 21st century. The lecture cycle aims to shed light on where the phenomenon of today’s megapolis first appeared from. The city of St Petersburg will take centre stage: a city created as a model for other Russian cities to follow, it came to formulate its own unique architectural tradition, one which still inspires urbanists to this day.
