In the first phase of cities.building.culture (2021-2024) Prof. Barbara Engel (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Prof. Christa Reicher (RWTH Aachen University), Prof. Arnold Bartetzky and Dr Corinne Geering (both GWZO Leipzig) made up the core of the collaborative research group. Owing to different areas of expertise, they combined perspectives from historical and cultural studies (history of art, urban planning and architecture), the scientific study of society and space (urban sociology, urban geography, economic geography), and innovative approaches to the design and management of built environment (heritage conservation, urban development, architecture and urban planning).
GWZO, Leipzig
The Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) is a member of the Leibniz Association and an affiliate institution of Leipzig University. The GWZO researches the historical and cultural development processes in the region between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas in a comparative perspective and it maintains cooperation with a large number of partners across Eastern Europe.
Corinne Geering leads the junior research group “Contrasting East Central Europe” at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig. She received her PhD in Eastern European History from the University of Giessen where she was a doctoral fellow at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC). She has worked extensively in archives in Russia and other countries, and in 2016, she was visiting researcher at Kazan Federal University. She is the author of Building a Common Past: World Heritage in Russia under Transformation, 1965–2000 and other publications on material culture and heritage, cultural policy, and international cooperation during the Cold War. Her wider research interests include the transregional history of Eastern Europe and the use of the past in rural and urban development.
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Arnold Bartetzky is Head of the Department “Culture and Imagination” at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO). He studied art history, German philology, philosophy, history, and, intermittently, architecture in Freiburg, Berlin, Tübingen and Kraków. He holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Freiburg. Since 1995 he has been affiliated with the GWZO. In 2016, he was appointed Honorary Professor of Art History at Leipzig University. His works embrace a wide range of topics from the early modern period to the present, with particular emphasis on architecture and visual culture in social contexts. Arnold Bartetzky also works as a journalist, mainly for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and serves on expert committees in areas of science and building culture. He leads this sub-project together with Dr. Corinne Geering.
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Mikhail Ilchenko is a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig. He holds a PhD in Political Sciences from the Russian Academy of Sciences (Ural Branch, Yekaterinburg). His studies focus on various aspects of urban transformations in Eastern Europe with a special emphasis on social perceptions and current public attitudes towards modernist architectural heritage. Over the recent years, Mikhail received different research fellowships in Germany and worked as a guest scholar and post-doc in the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IFL) and the GWZO in Leipzig. Mikhail conducted his research on modernist urban legacy in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Israel, France, Germany and other countries.
Currently he is involved in a number of international academic projects aimed to explore changing perceptions and functional role of modernist urban areas in Eastern Europe.
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Polina Gundarina is a doctoral researcher at the GWZO who focuses on post-Soviet history in Russia. She holds a Master's degree from the St. Petersburg State University that includes a period spent studying abroad at Volda University College in Norway. Her research specialization includes post-Soviet transitional history, Post-Soviet architecture and urban development, cultural heritage in Russia in the 20th century with its related legislative and institutional practices. Polina Gundarina has experience in teaching at universities such as the Russian State Social University in Moscow and the Peter the Great Polytechnic University in St. Petersburg, including work and internship experience in the field of public communication, which has expanded her knowledge of legislation and cultural policy.
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KIT, Karlsruhe Institute for Technology
As a research university in the Helmholtz Association, Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT) creates and imparts knowledge for society and the natural and built environment. The Institute for Urban and Landscape Planning (IESL) and the Institute for Regional Science (IfR) at KIT have been working at the interface between geo, natural and social sciences for over 50 years.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Barbara Engel is an architect and urban planner, since 2013 head of chair for International Urbanism at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. After completing her doctorate in 2004, she accepted a lectureship in urban design at the TU Dresden and was visiting professor at Kent State University in Ohio in 2007. From 2008 to 2013 she held a leading position at the City Planning Office in Dresden. Her main research interests include urban development in USSR, in Russia, and in the metropolitan areas of the MENA region as well as open space and knowledge transfer and planning culture. She is a member of the Executive Board of the DASL (German Academy for Urban Development and Regional Planning), the expert jury for national urban development projects, and design committees in Halle and Nuernberg.
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PhD student Ekaterina Gladkova is a researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. She holds a bachelor degree of architecture and master degree of urban planning at the Irkutsk National Research Technical University (IRNITU) that including periods of study and research abroad at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Ekaterina is a practicing urban planner, organizer of international urban planning workshops and a member of the Union of Architects of Russia. As a member of the trilateral international project between Germany, Russia and Ukraine "Unloved heritage "socialist cit "? she works on Planning strategies for the sustainable urban development of large settlements from the 1960s and 1970s. Research interests and project activities of Ekaterina include the search for methods, concepts and approaches to the renovation of residential neighborhoods of the 60-70s, including the interaction of public spaces, landscape and residential groups, scenarios for the renovation of public spaces of residential neighborhoods of the 60-70s.
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Senior Researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, architect, urban planner, specialist in the protection of architectural historical and cultural heritage. Dr.-Ing. Malko holds a PhD in Engineering in the Technical University of Dresden (Germany), specializing in the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage and urban development of the city. Work experience includes research abroad in urban planning workshops in Cergy-Pontoise (Les Ateliers Internationaux de Maîtrise d'Oeuvre Urbaine de Cergy-Pontoise, France) and Ecole de Chaillot - an architectural school for the preservation of historical monuments (Paris, France). Dr.-Ing. Malko's research interests and design activities are focused on the search for principles and concepts for the preservation and development of the historical architectural and urban planning environment, including the era of Soviet modernism, taking into account successful foreign experience. One of the main aspects is the importance of urban space and urban structures in the development of the city and the identification of the city and its history with its inhabitants.
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Marina Sapunova is a research assistant at the KIT Institute for Urban and Landscape Planning in Germany and a leading expert at the HSE University Faculty of Urban and Regional Development in Russia. She holds a Masters’ Degree in Urban Spatial Development Management from HSE University. Marina has analytical and team-leading experience in urban and strategic planning projects in Russia, concept development, and fieldwork. Her research interests include urban governance, urban planning, zoning legislation, housing and property policy and its (post)-socialist transformation. Marina is also a co-founder and screenwriter of MÊTRE – an investigative documentary project about housing and urban regeneration.
RWTH Aachen University
RWTH Aachen University distinguishes itself as a “University of Excellence”, promoting technological innovation and facilitating the transfer of scientific research into practice. The Faculty of Architecture is one of the leading institutions of this type in Europe, due, among others, to its extensive research activity dedicated to cultural aspects connected to building, cities and landscapes.
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Christa Reicher heads the Chair of Urban Planning and Design and the Institute of Urban Planning and European Urban Studies at the RWTH Aachen University. She has extensive experience in conducting interdisciplinary research projects. This includes the project on post-war modernism in European discourse, which was initiated in the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. She is a founding member of the specialist group Urban Historic Preservation, which addresses current urban planning and historic preservation issues at the interface of research, practice and teaching. Her relevant expertise in conceptualisation as well as in science-practice dialogues can be seen, among other things, in her participation in the Sounding Board for the World Heritage Site Historic Centre Vienna.
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Dr. Elena Batunova is a senior researcher at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany, an urban and regional planner. She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning, Design, and Policy from the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy that included periods spent studying and researching abroad at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig, Germany KU Leuven in Belgium. Elena's research interests and project activities include urban shrinkage, post-socialist cities, small and medium-sized cities, urban governance, urban planning, and institutional practices of built heritage preservation and use. She had a leading role in several national and international research projects in urban shrinkage, heritage protection, innovations in urban planning, and mega-events impact on local development. Currently, Elena is working in the sup-project Institutional Practices at the Chair Cultural Heritage and Planning (SKE) at the RWTH Aachen University.
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Albina Davletshina, M.Sc. has been trained as an architect and gained her professional experience from Russia, the USA, and Italy. She holds a Master of Science in Urban Planning and Policy Design from the Polytechnic University of Milan. In her master thesis, she was analyzing the transformation processes of wooden housing heritage in a case study of the Siberian city Tomsk. Her research interests lay in the intersecting disciplines of urban, environmental, and social science and primarily focused on the analysis of the built environment, and cultural landscape transformation processes, and resilient urban development. She has been a teaching assistant at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of the Polytechnic University of Milan. Currently, Albina is working in the sup-project Institutional Practices at the Chair Cultural Heritage and Planning (SKE) at the RWTH Aachen University.
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Dr. Liliana Iuga is a research associate at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. An urban historian, she received her PhD from the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, with a thesis on the concept of historic city in socialist Romania. Previously, she studied history and art history in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and Perugia, Italy, and was a visiting fellow at the Center for Urban History at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research focuses on topics that connect the history of architecture, urban planning, and heritage preservation with nationalism and state building during the twentieth century. Besides publishing on these topics, she also wrote historical documentation for restoration projects, and did editorial work for a volume on urban shrinkage in Romania.
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