Antony Kalashnikov's Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time (Cornell UP, 2023) analyzes Stalinist monument-building. From the 1930's through the Great Patriotic War, architectural monuments such as subway stations were designed to emphasize the perpetual endurance of the nation, regardless of the many crises of the peri ... Show More
Yesterday
Lauren Stara, "Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects (Bloomsbury, 2025) is a book designed for librarians, trustees, local government officials, architects, and interior designers who are designing or planning to build, renovate, or reconfigure library spaces. ... Show More
55m 58s
Aug 11
William Whyte, "The University: A History in Stone, Silk, and Blood" (Harvard UP, 2026)
We often idealize the university as a sanctuary for disinterested reason, where material concerns are set aside in favor of higher principles. Yet when we remember our own college experiences, what springs to mind are not just lofty concepts but also material realities: cramped d ... Show More
42m 20s
Aug 10
Marco Pompili, "Public Housing in Japan: The Dōjunkai Apartments One Hundred Years On" (Brill, 2026)
Public Housing in Japan: The Dōjunkai Apartments One Hundred Years On (Brill, 2026) is the first comprehensive English-language examination of the Dōjunkai Foundation (1924-2024). Compiled and edited by Dr. Marco Pompili through interviews and studies, it is a must-read for anyon ... Show More
57m 14s
Feb 2023
Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic, "Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow" (Routledge, 2022)
Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow (Routledge, 2022) asks us to consider: what stands behind the propensity to remember victims of mass atrocities by their personal names? Grounded in ethnographic and archival research with Last Address ... Show More
1h 12m
Feb 2024
How to design for dignity during times of war | Slava Balbek
What happens when architecture meets empathy? Through the challenges of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, architect and humanitarian Slava Balbek, who volunteers part-time on the front lines, highlights the importance of designing for dignity when building temporary housing for th ... Show More
12m 14s
Feb 2020
Maria Taroutina, "The Icon and the Square: Russian Modernism and the Russo-Byzantine Revival" (Penn State UP, 2018)
In The Icon and the Square: Russian Modernism and the Russo-Byzantine Revival (Penn State University Press, 2018), Maria Taroutina examines how the traditional interests of institutions such as the crown, the church, and the Imperial Academy of Arts temporarily aligned with the r ... Show More
1h 4m