BOHDAN VOLYNSKYI, OLEG DROZDOV. CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ARCHITECTURE

The book “Conversations about Architecture”, written by the architect Bohdan Volynskyi during a series of meetings with the architect Oleg Drozdov that took place several years ago in Kharkiv, is published by ist publishing in February 2022. 

Under the yellow book cover, which outlines the light contour of a window, Drozdov talks about a house with a garden and urban space, relief and light, the sacred and the profane, flesh and weather, the market, politics and architectural competitions, the professional community and education. The issues discussed by the architects summarize the first twenty years of Drozdov's architectural practice and are also an attempt to talk about topics that are becoming important both in their practices and in today's architecture. 

Oleg Drozdov says: "We started working on this book quite a while ago, when a desire arose to sum up the interim results: the different opinions, the different paths that my colleagues and I took in architecture during our first active twenty years. Bohdan Volynskyi was interested in the opportunity to take on such a project, and the entire agenda discussed in the book belongs entirely to him. The conversation both went as planned and also often turned to other related topics. For me personally, this book is an opportunity to think about the future in a much more systematic way". 

In turn, Bohdan Volynskyi talks about his inspiration: "I created this book because I love architecture and want to share it. The text seems important to me for two reasons. Firstly, it is the story of one of the main figures of the contemporary Ukrainian architectural scene, which has never been told before, let alone written down. Secondly, I made the list of topics so broad and complete that the book will be a great guide to the world of architecture for those who are not familiar with it; and for those who are, it will serve as a great checklist for revising their own experience”.

About the authors 

Bohdan Volynskyi is an architect and founder of the design school "dash!". In 2014, he co-founded his first architectural practice and the NGO "Critical Thinking", which also works with issues of the architectural profession. A year later, he created the Children's Architectural School (now it is "dash!" design school) and in 2015-2018 worked to launch the Kharkiv School of Architecture. He has also worked as a carpenter, graphic designer, tutor of student workshops, artist, author of texts and articles about architecture and poetry. 

Oleg Drozdov is a co-founder, chief architect, and tutor at Drozdov & Partners, Kharkiv School of Architecture, and Paragraph. In 1997 he founded the architectural bureau Drozdov & Partners. The bureau works in a wide international field (Korea, France, Switzerland, USA, Spain, Kuwait) and advocates critical artistic pragmatism. He curated Ukrainian projects at the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale "The Flood" in 2005 (Monisto project, which explores the development of the coastal part of Odesa) and at the Moscow Architecture Biennale in 2012 (Circumstances project, which traces the "fates" of some of the bureau's projects). He also curated the art project Terralogia (Kyiv, Kharkiv, 2015) and the project Patiology (Kyiv, Kharkiv, 2007), dedicated to the issue of a house with a courtyard. In 2011, he was the co-author and critic of a semester-long project at Columbia University GSAPP. In 2017, he founded the Kharkiv School of Architecture, the first private school in independent Ukraine. He is a key lecturer at the Department of Engineering and Technology, and focuses on finding new understandings of tectonics. He is an expert of the EU mies award.

Team

Publishing house: ist publishing 

Authors: Bohdan Volynskyi, Oleg Drozdov 

Foreword: Borys Filonenko 

Photos: Andriy Avdeenko, Oleg Drozdov, Bohdan Volynskyi 

Translation into Ukrainian: Tetyana Kryshtalovska 

Editor: Tetyana Kryshtalovska 

Corrector: Oleksandra Sauliak 

Design and layout: Uliana Bychenkova