The Architectural Image of Kiev ’ s Central Square as a Symbol of National Identity

Historically, Kiev has had two central squares. (Fig.1) Initially, the city’s administrative center was located on its highest hill in the Upper Town, within the limits of the so-called city of Prince Vladimir, and later Prince Yaroslav.1 Kiev was one of the largest cities in feudal Europe at the beginning of the 13th century. Its area reached 380 400 hectares and the population amounted to 50 thousand.2 Yaroslav the Wise established close ties with Byzantium and Western Europe in the first half of the 11th century. He built the main church of Kievan Rus – St Sophia Cathedral – on the model of Hagia Sophia of Constantinople. The axis connecting St Sophia and St Michael’s cathedral, erected half a century later, formed the main square of the city, its administrative and political center. St Sophia Cathedral was Kiev’s spiritual center and a symbol of the nation’s identity. In 1240, Kievan Rus, one of the largest European countries, was burned and looted by Khan Batu and could not regain its significance for over 300 years.3 In the 17th and 18th century, during the heyday of the Ukrainian Baroque, ancient shrines were restored and decorated, and the valley part of Kiev called Podil was settled. Khreshchatyk, the city’s main street today, remained a boggy creek called the Goat’s Swamp until the late 18th century. It was not until the ruins of the fortifications of the Upper City destroyed in the Mongol invasion were completely dismantled that a square formed at the foot of Old Kiev Hill, right next to the Khreshchatyk, which was soon built up and later received the status of the city’s main street.


De Urbanitate. Tales of Urban Lives and Spaces
Hence the square's first name, Bazarna, which reflects its function at the time, as it was Kiev's chief market place doubling as a promenade.
In 1869-1876, it got the name of Khreshchatytska after the Khreshatyk Ravine around it.When the City Assembly, or Duma, was built there by architect Alexander Schille, the square was renamed Dumska. 5(Fig. 2) Dumska Square was not unlike a forum of Antiquity and Renaissance in that it was designed for public gatherings and isolated from the city's thoroughfares.Historically, a dense ring of buildings was built in squares; they were either surrounded by arcades, or located on the crossing of secondary streets (lines of pedestrian flows).The Duma was erected along the Khreshchatyk, so the square found itself to the rear of the horseshoe-like structure, and formed an enclosed space with a public fountain as its centerpiece.In fact, it was a small-town square for leisurely strolls, gatherings, and recreation.The city's main square continued to be on the top of Old Kiev Hill, in  front of St Sophia Cathedral.This spatial organization of the square lent it the role of a hub on the axis Old Town-Pechersk, as well as underscored the importance of the Duma, the town hall, which seemed to appeal by virtue of its location to the shrines of the Upper Town -St Sophia Cathedral, St Michael Monastery, and St Alexander Roman Catholic church. 6en the Bolsheviks took hold of the city in 1919, they renamed the square Sovetskaya.The capital of Ukraine was moved to Kharkiv because the struggle for independence did not end in Kiev until 1920.In 1934, the Bolsheviks made Kiev the government seat of Soviet Ukraine, for which purpose they developed a plan for the construction of a government center at the top of Old Kiev Hill, near St Sophia Cathedral.St Michael Gold-Domed Monastery of the 12 th century was demolished.St Sophia and the 19 th -century Government Offices complex were to be blown up as well, but the Second World War interfered with those plans.An all-Union competition in 1932-1934 defined the concept of the Government Center: the main axis that used to unite St Sophia and St Michael's was to be expanded and turned into a square fit for military parades, with an enormous statue of Stalin completing the pompous esplanade.While the architecture of the buildings to line that vast "parade ground" differed from one design to another, the idea behind all of them was the same. 7(Fig. 3) The winning design by Iosif Langbard was to be implemented, but only a part of the complex was built -the present Ministry of Foreign Affairs building. 8 the first approximation, the Dumska, later the Soviet Square, acquired its present appearance in the interwar period.With its front opening on Khreshchatyk's red line, the former Duma building housed the regional committee of the Communist Party, but still had at its rear a public square with a fountain around which a streetcar looped.Until 1941, the odd-numbers side of Khreshchatyk was built up with a sheer row of residential buildings, with the 14-storeyed Ginzburg rooming house, the city's tallest, looming where the Ukraina Hotel stands now.By the mid-20 th century, the Khreshchatyk had acquired the standard appearance of most European cities: sheer perimeter development and businesses on the ground floor of the buildings.triumphal arcs, monuments, towers and parade grounds were indispensable attributes of all designs. 10(Fig. 4,5) The main thing that they succeeded to do was to endow the city with a new scale that the capital of Ukraine deserved, to accentuate the unique landscape of central Kiev with the main building line, and even to translate certain allusions of Ukrainian Baroque into stone in the curly rooftops of the façades.
Khreshchatyk's new appearance had an enormous influence on the development of architecture in the former Soviet Union.It remains one of the best works of the so-called totalitarian architecture.From the town planning perspective, it is an integral architectural ensemble 1,200 meters long and an average of 75 meters wide, with three squares, broad sidewalks and buildings from various periods.Arguably, nothing better was built in all the subsequent decades.After the Second World War, however, its prewar European identity was replaced with symbols of the Soviet state.Instead of a trade and pedestrian street marked by perimeter development, the Khreshchatyk became a large-scale parade ground/boulevard ensemble of showpiece residential buildings and "local" squares.
The space of the main square -now named Kalinin Square, after a statesman in Stalin's government -was changed too.After the debris of the blown-up Duma building were cleared up, the space opened on Khreshchatyk.On the opposite side, the square was expanded as a cascading parade stairs in front of the Moskva Hotel (now Hotel Ukraina).The prewar fountain in the center of the square was preserved.Intact two-and three-story buildings around the perimeter survived well into the 1970s.(Fig. 6)  The visual impact from the unfolding of the square required new dominant features and proportions.The latter was provided by Hotel Moskva, a wall-like building which became an essential element of the stage set being born, hinting at its origin in the Moscow "archetypes." 11That was how Kiev's main square got its role -to be the ideological center, always appeal to the center of the empire (Moscow), and keep a distance from city life.
After the reconstruction was finally completed in 1977, the square got its new name -the October Revolution Square, which also emphasized its ideological purport.(Fig. 7) The new spatial conception confirmed the semantic value of the Revolution Square as the city's main parade ground.The square was expanded to include the opposite side of Khreshchatyk and marked with an impressive monument -a statue of Lenin surrounded by revolutionary workers.
The banner-like pylon with the figure of the Leader had a clear connection to its backgroundthe front façade of the Hotel Moskva.The granite monument palpably "grew" out of that wallthe source of its indestructible strength.
For all its Communist ideology, the composition of the square as a focus of urban space was immaculate.By far the best town-planning solution ever, it combined parade, government and social functions, featured a rebuilt fountain, and quickly became the Kievans' favorite recreation area.
The ensemble of the October Revolution Square entered the 1990s and the early 2000s in all of its Communist beauty -an accomplished specimen of monumental propaganda in architecture.
Shortly after the independence, however, it became clear to the conservative post-Soviet government of Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004) that the excessively open expanse of the square accommodated too many people.Following mass student protests in 2000, Kuchma initiated a new reconstruction of the now Independence Square.In addition to the political goal of making the square as unfit for mass manifestations as possible, the burgeoning oligarchic interests wanted it fragmented into smaller areas so they could have sites for lucrative projects in the very center of Kiev.Those were subterranean shopping malls, which quickly filled all the space under Khreshchatyk and the Independence Square.That decision forever buried the chance of making 11 Nikitin, "Khreshchatyk, Maydan."Khreshchatyk a two-level thoroughfare with underground parking lots and turned the Maidan into a chaotically built-up exposition ground of various clan identities. 12 the one hand, patriotic Soviet symbols made way for the domes of underground shopping centers.On the other hand, the spaces between those composition accents were filled with all kinds of purely decorative and distasteful representations of the new identity.These are the sculptures of the city's patron Archangel Michael, the legendary founders of Kiev and the Cossack Mamai as the mythical national hero, the Polish Gate rebuilt in an unabashedly kitsch baroque style and, finally, the Independence Column topped with an ethnographic maiden in folk garb.As a result, the visual relation of the square to the general space of the city was lost, and the Maidan was cluttered up with structures of various heights.Instead of the neatly organized and clearly delimited functions of festive manifestation and informal recreation, the square turned into a hodgepodge of sundry spaces.The Kievans' favorite fountain was dismantled, festive manifestations were to move out to Khreshchatyk, and commercial buildings became the ideological manifesto of the new authorities.(Fig. 8) When it was re-planned and rebuilt in the 2000s, it was inevitable that it should become a monument to corruption and other social ills of the new times.This is precisely why it has since become a focus of public rejection and a ground of civil conflict and unrest.This must be how the city is claiming back its main square as a natural agora and urban core.
The outburst of popular resentment in 2004 known as the Orange Revolution and the advent to power of the initially democratic government of Yushchenko -Tymoshenko seemed to give a fresh impetus to the lookout for a new identity.In architecture, however, it boiled down to a wave of reconstruction of churches destroyed in the Soviet period and lavish ornamentation of high-rise buildings with fake Ukrainian baroque elements.In essence, instead of supporting the national idea in architecture, the corrupt oligarchic elite flirted with the people, donning Ukrainian attire for greater patriotism.
12 Bogdan Cherkes, Natsionalʹna identychnistʹ v arkhitekturi mista [National Identity in Urban Architecture] (Lviv: "Lviv Polytechnic" National University Publishing House, 2008), 79.When the openly pro-Russian regime of President Yanukovych secured its hold on Kiev, it stopped even flirting.As a result, the past eight or nine years have dealt the hardest blow ever to the historic appearance of Kiev, destroying the integrity of its urban configuration, eliminating its beautiful vistas, and turning its center into an ugly, amorphous clot of substandard high-rise architecture without even a try at aesthetics.
On the one hand, Kiev's recent architecture is marked by pointed internationalism, purposeful neglect of the city's heritage, and growing congestion resulting from high-rise construction in the historic core and erasing open public spaces from the city map.On the other hand, pseudohistoric fakes in architecture and décor continue to dominate the scene.
While the reconstruction of lost historic and cultural monuments started out in the 1990s with the aim of reviving the Ukrainian national mythology, it acquired absolutely incredible forms in a combination with the thoroughly corrupt construction practices of the 2000s, giving rise to mass production of fakes and clones and substituting an imaginary history for the true one.
"Throughout recorded history, architecture has waited upon the authority," V. Hite notes. 13Its important task is to translate verbal myths proposed by the ruling elites into its specific idiom and to visualize them in architectural compositions, materials, technologies, motifs, details, sculptural and artistic décor, thereby asserting the national identity in the spatial/material structure of the community. 14e independence, which Ukraine obtained so unexpectedly and so easily in 1991, has never been reflected in its architecture.Surprisingly, the ideology of heritage conservation in Ukraine is still leaning on the propaganda and heroic imagery of Soviet times. 15Bohdan Cherkes concludes, in his fundamental study National Identity in Urban Architecture, that in the twenty-odd years of its independence, the Ukrainians have not been able to create a united mythology, an integrated heroic imagery that is necessary for the consolidation of any nation.In the western and eastern parts of Ukraine, national awareness developed along different paths, so apart from the heroic pages of the recent Soviet past and, relatively, the ancient epic tradition, those two parts of one country have never identified what they have in common in Ukraine's millennial history.Ukraine was desperately lacking an inspiring modern history to unify all of its lands. 16l these years, Ukraine has been professing a kind of dualism.While the Ukrainians became increasingly aware of themselves as an independent nation, they still preserved a certain dependence on the deeply entrenched Soviet imperial attitudes and close ties with Russia. 17e cultural, national and political values of a society at any stage of its development affect the architectural appearance of its cities and are reflected in the various forms of collective identities.While it correlates with relevant political and social processes in society, the architectural and town-planning treatment of a city's identity has a cyclic and analogue nature. 18wn-planning tools create a new volumetric-spatial structure of the main public space and its composition, with a clear hierarchy of spaces and a pronounced new ideological center in the form of a centerpiece structure -a symbol and a monument.
Architectural input includes buildings that symbolize the achievements and explain the goals of the new political regime.In this case, special attention is paid to the function and style of the building.Finally, artistic and figurative means of asserting an identity include various monuments and small forms of ideological significance. 19e public space of a city is a palimpsest of identities, where old and new identities entwine to create a striking and sometimes conflicting conglomerate of spaces, buildings, monuments, symbols and functions. 20e public space of Kiev's main square was created in the Soviet era, and its architectural appearance was elaborated in various periods.In the years of independence, however, the square and the city as a whole have not received a major work of architecture to reflect the idea of national identity in any measure at all.The main public spaces were only decorated with new imagery and artwork, which seemed to emphasize their temporary character.
Identity design is based on a revision of history, which means the recovery and the partial or complete falsification of the past.Inevitably, the revision of history causes changes in mythology, when new (pseudo-) myths are invented or old ones are put back into circulation as the authority sees fit.In doing so, history is rewritten and a new layer of collective memory is generated.The nascent new mythology contains a set of symbols and values which correspond to the new sociopolitical paradigm of the society -or rather its elites -and demonstrate their "new" collective heritage and cultural unity to the masses. 21is is why the main objective of the Ukrainian society at the moment is to assert its own identity and to create its own imagery.To quote Anthony D. Smith, by identifying ourselves with the nation we do more than identify with our profession or community; this is a means of achieving personal immortality through common ancestors. 22To an individual, this means to be born again and get a new dignity in and through the national revival.To each "family" (clan), this means to become part of a political super-family, which will reinstate its primogeniture and former privileges where it is currently deprived of status and access to power.Nationalism promises a change of status: the last will become the first and the world will recognize the new nation and its sacred values. 23The nation can promise a glorious future on a par with its heroic past, and inspire its members for sharing a common destiny with generations to come.These future generations are "our" children both in flesh and in spirit -and that is already much more than any party or class can promise.In that way, the promise of immortality in future generations seems genetically justified. 24Traditional values and myths of a nation are reflected in its culture, including architecture, and so they influence the consciousness of the public and the individual.Therefore, public zones of the capital of a democratic country should be transformed to emphasize its democratic character and perform other socially important functions.
At the moment, the numerous minor elements and sundry spaces on the Maidan of Independence interfere with its perception as an integral whole, destroying the visual image and feeling of the nation's unity.The Maidan is filled to the brim with conflicting energies today.This architectural appearance of the nation's main square gives rise to separatism and uncertainty in the popular mind.However, after the 2014 Revolution of Dignity both the Maidan (Independence Square) and the main street of Khreshchatyk are now perceived as a scene of mass protests, the Ukrainians' struggle for the European ideals of freedom and democracy, and the nation's unity and identification.
Furthermore, the Maidan and the adjoining Hrushevsky street have become a memorial site: more than 100 fighters against the criminal clique were killed there in February 2014.Therefore, there was a public need to re-define the architectural aspect of the city's central square in accordance with its new function as a place of national identification and remembrance.For these reasons, the contest for the reconstruction of public space of Kiev, entitled simbolically "Territory of Dignity: International Open Competition," was held in the late 2014 and early 2015, and showed great interest in this issue.The competition, honed through months of public discussions and consultations, was aiming to commemorate the lives lost in Ukraine's Maidan Revolution, through a memorial and also by implementing the ideals of the revolution in the urban space surrounding Maidan Nezalezhnosti.
The aims of competition were: (1) to turn the territory of revolutionary events into a "Territory of Dignity"; (2) to memorialize the feat of Heavenly Hundred Heroes; (3) to rethink Soviet heritage and to turn "Ukrainian House on European Square" into International Cultural Center of Ukraine taken as a member of European Family of Countries; (4) to propose a place and a vision of the main center for developing the Ukrainian political nation -"Museum of Maidan / Museum of Freedom".In total 149 projects from 13 countries (Ukraine, Lithuania, USA, China, Japan, Ireland, India, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, Canada) were submitted in four nominations: "Public space of Maidan and Kiev`s city core"; "Commemorating the Revolution of Dignity and Memory of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes"; "International cultural center "Ukrainian House on European Square"; "Multifunctional museum complex "Museum of Maidan / Museum of Freedom".
Assessing the potential of the central area of Kiev, the authors of the winning projects sum up a series of coherent points for the redevelopment of public space, such as: more connectivity of city parks, but more simplicity of urban form; more continuity in the materiality and the microtopography of public space, but preservation of some functional divisions; more integration of the parking lots in the design of public space, but adaptability to other uses; more resistance of public facilities, but mobility of street furniture; more nature in public space, but development of open-air climatic control.So, in order to accept all these oppositions, the proposals understand Terra Dignitas as the need for a new geography of Kiev, and rethink the public space of Kiev as landscape.(Fig. 9) Indeed, the proposals of Terra Dignitas can be summed up as follows: they gave each of the visitors a feeling of being a member of community, and at the same time its independent part.They also provided a representative space, as well as functional and comfortable spaces for pedestrian, bicycle, and cars.They also provided space for practices such as tourism, educational and cultural events, political gathering.Last but bot least, they elaborated on historical facts so as to be commemorated with dignity.All the authors note the need to transform the space of Maidan as a memorial places of great importance for the unity of the nation.A thorough analysis of the submitted designs shows, however, that they cannot be implemented for the time being.Firstly, owing to a political and economic crisis the situation in Kiev and Ukraine remains unsettled.Then, the city's spaces are still in the process of being shaped.But the competition has definitely performed at least one of its roles -to elevate the significance of the city's main square to a symbol of the nation's identity.
Any future interventions in an accomplished environment must be implemented with regard to the specific features of the historical town-planning and architectural identities of the city or area, taking the historic memory of the place into account as a top priority.In other words, architectural and town-planning activities must connect newly designed and historical collective identities, 25 paying attention to strong ties between changes in the community's identity and the city's plan and space structure.If for some reasons a city wants to preserve a certain space, it must lose no time in declaring it part of its heritage and give it official protection.
Urban spaces -both "symbolic and physical" -embody society's values. 26To understand the "essence of a place," the symbols and the memory of the place, together with related cultural associations, as G. Warnaby notes, 27 are indispensable.This means that in the process of its development, it is essential to ensure the conservation of the city's identity.
The visual image of the Independence Square and the Maidan as a catchword has become a symbol of the just struggles of a nation and its self-identification process.Now it is up to architects to underscore its meaning with architectural means.A powerful unifying element -for solar energy, growth and unity -should become the symbol of the Maidan instead of the domes of underground trade centers.
For the time being, we cannot predict the fate of the country and its main public place with certainty.Yet, without a doubt, the Maidan's architecture should personify the nation's striving for freedom, democracy, and national unity as its hard-earned identity.

(
opposite page) Fig 1. Center of Kyiv.View from the air Fig 2. Dumska Square in 1910 Fig 3.The concept of the Government Center_An all-Union competition 1932-1934The Ginzburg house, the former Duma building and almost every large structure on Khreshchatyk were blown up by Soviet underground fighters and destroyed in massive fires during the first few months of the Nazi occupation in the autumn of 1941. 9A competition for the reconstruction of Khreshchatyk was announced in June 1944, almost a year before the end of the war.All leading Soviet architects took part.No doubt, most of the designs were in the mainstream of the "historic" trends of Stalinist architecture of the period.Yet, even those designs proposed a completely new scale of the city's main street.The building area on the odd side was moved towards the hill, with a pedestrian boulevard forming in front of it.Naturally, 9 Volodymyr Chepelyk, "Slavetnyy forum stolytsi Ukrayiny" [The Glorious Forum of the Capital of the Ukraine), in Khreshchatyk: Kul'turolohichnyy putivnyk [Khreshchatyk, Cultural Guide], edited by V.M. Gruzyn (Kiev: Amadey, 1997), 19-20.

Fig. 8 :
Fig.8: Independence Square, 2004 Kiev community's demands and social inquiries were: (1) the Heavenly Hundred Heroes' feat have to be honored on the highest world level; (2) creation of conditions to each person to feel worthily and to feel himself a member of the community, nation; (3) creation of modern European public space which should be free of officious political propaganda and commercial advertisement, be safe and accessible for everybody; (4) creation of conditions for the new peaceful social practices' development.Providing opportunities for the community and the different social groups to realize their initiatives; (5) "Ukrainian House on European Square" has to be a newly created place to recognize a role and a value of Ukraine among the other European states; (6) "Museum of Maidan / Museum of Freedom" has to become the museum of the new type, the place for Ukrainian democracy development and formation of the Ukrainian political nation.