Rebuilding Kharkiv, Ukraine

The decolonisation debate

Urban Ukraine. Photo by Neronas on Unsplash

We’ve been discussing colonisation in the context of Ukrainian architects. Oleg Drozdov, who co-founded the Kharkiv School of Architecture, Ukraine’s first such private institution, has been talking a great deal about fighting “colonisation”. He branded British architect Norman Foster’s proposal to rebuild Kharkiv as “intellectual colonisation”. And European companies’ generous help to displaced Ukrainian architects was “a new professional colonisation”.

“Ukraine still has the capacity to produce the things that we need — 3D printers, furniture, materials, projectors, computers, tools — but we need money to be able to buy them.” — Oleg Drozdov

There are two things to say about the constant evoking of the bugbear of colonisation. It’s legitimate for Ukrainian architects to want to rebuild their own country, when the time is right. It’s also understandable to not want a brain drain. Ukraine has been so hard hit by Russia’s assault that it will ne…