This seminar will catalogue mass-built, omnipresent rural housing types in Ukraine, an important and urgent task in the face of the damage inflicted by Russia. The Ukrainian rural built environment has been preserved in its uniqueness through decades of homogenizing Soviet rule. This distinctive built fabric, a combination of the top-down and broad Soviet approach, and local design expertise, requires recording and preservation. The seminar will share research that documents and analyzes changes that took place inside rural homes since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, combining both fieldwork in Ukraine and select objects from the CCA Collection. Kateryna Malaia will shine a light on Ukrainian rural architecture at this critical moment, both for its ongoing survival and future development.

Kateryna Malaia teaches architecture at the University of Utah. She studies the evolution of quotidian architecture in times of social change, particularly in relation to the collapse of the USSR. She also examines architectural transformations brought forth by housing insecurity in the United States. Malaia’s writing has been published in venues including Architectural Histories, and JSAH. Her first book Taking the Soviet Union Apart Room by Room was published with NIUP/Cornell UP in 2023. Together with Philipp Meuser, she is working on a catalogue of mass-built housing series in Ukraine to be released in 2024.