Sub-themes

Collective

The condition of the Open City can be considered a balance between two extremes: the Collective city — centrally planned on the basis of the public interest — and its counterpart, which we will call the Individual City,— based on minimizing public space and giving maximum freedom to private initiatives. The Individual City can be found in capitalist societies such as the United States, the Collective City in Post-war housing estates in Western Europe and (former) communist countries. Clearly, the Individual City with its suburban sprawl and gated communities is not an Open City. In the case of the Collective City, where there is no private space,  the answer is less obvious: the city is as open as it could be. However, Europe’s experience with its Post War housing estates has shown the problematic side of this openness. The definition of an Open City can thus be found not only in the rejection of the gated community, but also in the way it solves the inadequacies of the Collective City.

Russia is the place where the Collective City was realized in its most extreme form. Contrary to Western Europe, in Russia the Collective City is still being constructed. It is therefore the ideal laboratory in which to test the principles of the Open City, not only by reconstructing its vast housing districts, but also by exploring the potential to design contemporary Collective Cities where the principles of the Open City can be applied in dense, cheap, large, mass-produced urban structures. 

The “Collective” portion of the Biennale exhibition will consist of three parts, organized around Microrayon, the basic housing element in Russia’s collective cities: In “The World of the Microrayon,” the historic and geographical scope of this phenomenon will be presented – from its appearance in the 1950s in the Soviet Union as the ideal fulfilment of communist ambitions to the present when the Microrayon is still the dominant form of housing in many (post)communist countries. The second part, will show the demise of the Microrayon in the 1980s and 90s as a result of the changing socio-economic conditions (“Microrayon Check-up”) and the possibilities to adapt it to the new circumstances (“Microrayon Update”). The final part of the exhibition, “Microrayon 2.0,” will examine the potential of the Microrayon to provide cheap and sustainable housing in the future. At times of a collapsing real estate market, this might be an alternative for Holland’s Vinex-wijk.

Sub-curators:
Bart Goldhoorn, Alexander Sverdlov, Anna Bronovitskaya (Moscow/Amsterdam/Rotterdam) [read more]
Cities: Moscow, Perm, and others