Irkutskgrazhdanproject celebrates its anniversary. It has been working for the good of the city and the region for half a century. Within 50 years it has created dozens of microdistricts in Irkutsk and other towns of the region, millions of square meters of housing, hundreds of cultural, educational, commercial and personal service facilities. And a number of outstanding architectural and town-planning works, which have received professional, public and national recognition.
They were created by several generations of highly qualified specialists, architects and engineers. While...
Irkutskgrazhdanproject was founded in the middle of the 1960s, a unique and wonderful time. Clear and heavy forms of Neo-Brutalism matched harmoniously the context of the Siberian city of Irkutsk. Young architects of the western avant-garde were aligned with the emerging Irkutsk school, which was unexpected, because both parties could hardly know about each other. But it is obvious that the first architects from Irkutskgrazhdanproject ranged among such great architects as the Smithsons, Louis Kahn and Kenzo Tange.
The Institute had grown up by its tenth anniversary. It had become more significant in the development policy of Irkutsk and the Irkutsk region. Party officials had to reckon with the Institute. It was widely recognized domestically and internationally. None of its leaders had any special training in management. Basing on their intuition and personal experience and being creative and highly professional people, they found and realized principles of effective management of a creative team. This was the second decade and the golden age of Irkutskgrazhdanproject.
After Brezhnev’s death, starting from 1983, there were troublesome times in Russia. At first the senile secretaries general came and passed away, making ‘a funeral parade’, and then Gorbachev’s perestroika started. The wind of change shook all foundations of usual mode of life. The economic collapse of the 1990s brought in all forms of wild capitalism. The profession was not able to feed any more. Even recognized masters of architecture had to breed poultry in the country and return bottles to feed their families. But we weathered those bad times. Some of us quitted the profession;...
By the end of the millennium the primary accumulation of capital had become more restrained. Easy money still was in the air, but its amount had decreased. The circle of industrial magnates had been formed and strengthened. A large-scale redistribution of assets that resembled the civil war horrors became more civilized. The decade at the turn of the millennium was a watershed. It brought big changes into economy, politics and people’s way of life. We remember that decade as a period of subsiding fire, of pacific and relatively untroubled times. But also as times of lost opportunities,...
Within the last five years the team of Irkutskrazhdanproject has worked out a number of interesting projects, such as a unique architectural and engineering solution for city environment – the 130 Quarter built by Irkutsk’s 350th anniversary in 2011, a new school for 600 students in Kultuk settlement, a water sports complex in Irkutsk and an international ethnocultural center Baigal. Irkutskgrazhdanproject is commissioned to improve the area planning scheme for the Irkutsk region and to work out regional design standards.