Universities occupy a special place in the city’s life, the place where centuries-old traditions of the past meet the future. Universities keep their ancestral roots stretching back into the Middle Ages. University rooms and laboratories are the places where the future of science and society is built and discussed.
The oldest Siberian University located in Tomsk was included in the City Charter as a city-forming enterprise. Other Siberian cities have not yet come to such deep comprehension of the role of universities. But who can doubt the significance and beneficence of this...
The article addresses the issue of creating an architectural form, while comparing the arts practiced by the Blue Soup Group and the projects by Architectural School MARCH. One of the means of working on the form is revealing its characteristics through metaphor, comparing with a poetical, artistic and natural image. The essential feature of this approach is translation of a certain image into the language of architecture with the help of fixation of your own feelings and search for appropriate means to create similar feelings among the audience or users.
The article refers to foundation of the East-Siberian (Irkutsk) Branch of the Union of Architects. It presents the role of the Organizational Bureau in formation of the Union of Architects, which included such architects as K.V. Mital, B.M. Kerbel, I.G. Efimov, S.M. Zaslavsky, V.N. Kolyanovsky and V.N. Volkov. The article tells about the first Board of the Union of Architects in Irkutsk and gives the plan of the Union’s activity in the pre-war period.
Art and architecture of the avant-guard in the beginning of 20 century supposed to be connected with the general upheaval in cultural and spiritual life. But phenomenon of creative enthusiasm cannot be fully explained in terms of political and cultural events. Moving forces of that historical moment are still unexplained. It is supposed that such creative outburst could be regarded in the context of spiritual and religious practice as a hidden resurrection of irrational attitudes of cult.
The RF government’s program documents on education have high and ambitious goals. However, everyday training practice is in acute contradictions with these goals. With the help of the analysis of emotional and imagery content of typical interiors, it is shown that in most cases it refers to such emotions as shame, placability and obedience. Unconscious influence of interior images contributes to maintenance of discipline and controllability among students, but obstructs their effective education.
The article observes designing and construction of one of the new university complexes in Russia, Far Eastern Federal University. It analyzes the town-planning decision, the spatial structure, drawbacks and contradictions occurred during operation of the university campus.
The age segregation becomes reality in today's urbanistics. There are cities and settlements in which there is absolutely no youth, only people of ‘the third age’. The tendency to carry university campuses out of city borders can lead to expansion of an age segregation practice. It is possible to assume that in the process of ‘eviction’ of youth from the city, it will become more conservative, less tolerant and less vital. In different years several projects of Irkutsk State (classical) University campus were proposed assuming location of the campus within the city structure. Recently...
A university campus is not only a complex of living, education and auxiliary facilities. It is a certain style of life. It is developed to fulfill a certain task: knowledge preservation and generation.
The system of preservation and processing of the society’s knowledge has functions similar to the nervous system. The stronger the society’s scientific and academic network is, the more intellectual, advanced, diverse and flexible is the society’s response to extrinsic stimuli. The nervous system of present day states is similar to the nervous system of insects – with ganglions and...
Mobility is a strong demand of urban societies and transport systems are backbones of urban life – in Russian cities like in other cities all over the world. Transport planning has to be understood as an integral part of urban development and urban planning. The report discusses problems and chances for sustainable urban transport planning in Irkutsk.
This article provides an overview of the aims, topics, findings and main deliverables of the EU-funded NODES project. The NODES project investigates and evaluates tools that support the innovative design and operation of new or upgraded efficient urban transport interchanges. The key topics that are addressed in the project are illustrated by means of a review of the recently upgraded interchange in Rotterdam city centre.
The article describes the history of the formation of the «Union of Soviet architects of the USSR» from 1932 to 1941. It presents the decisions of the highest bodies of the party-state apparatus to create the Union of Architects. It also describes the reasons for the ban on creative organizations of architects, artists, writers, composers, and so on. The article discloses the relationship between the power policy and the fulfillment of its decisions by Soviet intellectuals. The functions of the «authorized» Union of Architects and its role in subordination of Soviet architects to the...
The Irkutsk Organization of the Union of Architects is 80. Our journal has published many articles and special issues about foundation, different life stages and prominent architects of the organization.
As it is known, the Russian history of voluntary creative unions of registered architects and specialists takes origin from the Moscow Architectural Society with the Charter of 27 October 1876. Then followed the Saint Petersburg Society of Architects, and later on creative unions of architects, artists and civil engineers were established in different cities. In the XIXth century...
In the 1970s the period of global development in the context of the hyperbolic growth of the key indicators came to its end. The demographic, economic, scientific and technical growth decelerated. Against the background of the reduced flow of innovations the social image of universities changes, while approaching the image of medieval monasteries. The architecture of universities evolves accordingly. It tends to isolate campuses from the city structure and aspires to international and supranational stylistics, which is common for universities of the whole world.
Since the XIIIth century the number of universities in Europe has been constantly growing. During the XXth century similar growth was in the countries of the USSR, but its character changed. Until the 1950s universities appeared in big cities on a well-prepared staffing and organizational ground. In the last quarter of the XXth century there were tendencies towards inflation of the higher education, decrease of its prestige and its formalization. In the 1990s and up to the present time, bureaucratization of universities extended so much that it put the system of Russian universities on...
Universities that appeared in different countries at different times have not got any special “university form”. The style paradigm is common for all types of buildings and structures of the same time. If a university has a long history and premises that emerged at different times, it looks more attractive for professors and students than a modern university built from scratch within a short period of time. This makes a university resemble a city. Historical architecture and traditions are a special privilege of famous universities of the world.
During the period between the fall of the Iron Curtain (1986) and the beginning of the global crisis (2008) Russian universities made an attempt to switch over to graduation of specialists that would be able to meet competition in the international market for intellectual labour. As the crisis evolved, the processes of globalization of higher education in Russia faced problems of the bureaucratized system of management. As a result, Russian universities split up into two unequal groups: the minority of universities remained on the way of globalization and integration into the global...
The article analyses different forms of easel painting, monumental and decorative art and photography existing in modern universities. It observes how the function of art changes in the context of modernization of culture and higher education. The role of initiators of art spaces in universities is also featured.
In 2013 the foundation stone of a new campus of Ural Federal University was laid in the area of the lakes Shartash and Malyi Shartash. In 2016 its first stage will be put in commission. Construction started despite all compelling comments from ecologists, sociologists, transport specialists and architects. The architecture of premises also triggers a lot of questions among specialists. Building of the new UrFU campus “from scratch” is the third attempt within 100 years to create a student campus in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) by examples from the West. The first attempt to build the...
The article features the space-planning development concept for National Research Tomsk State University and the subsequent sketch design. Together with extension of educational and laboratory area, the system of open exterior and interior public spaces is created for interpersonal communication, independent work, leisure, self-presentations, team building events, etc. One of the leading principles is preservation of the University historical heritage together with appliance of advanced architectural and spatial methods and integration of facilities built at different times into one...
The Delft University of Technology is adapting its campus to the challenges it faces in a rapidly-changing academic context. The original monofunctional greenfield area is being transformed into a high-quality urban campus. The campus needs to provide a sustainable learning and working environment for staff, students and visitors. This article outlines the historical background of the campus, the aims for its future development set out in the university’s policy framework, and the actions that stem from this.
Within the last 20 years a number of well-equipped universities have been founded in different Chinese cities. At the same time, they are research centers for the most promising disciplines of modern science. The universities are built on the base of the global government program, which has the following slogan: “patriotism, innovations, inclusive development”. Chinese universities can invite the best specialists from different countries and are open to collaboration with Russia. Architecture of Chinese university campuses is mostly international, but their layouts often refer to ancient...
The short review of the works by Irkutsk painter Vladimir Gennadievich Maksimov allows the journal readers to look into the roots of the master’s creativity and see his deep mental and spiritual connection with the nature of Pribaikalie. The series of landscapes and genre pictures expresses the author’s fine poetical and musical sense, his rare gift for implementation of fantasy images on a canvas by using paints and a palette knife.