Bojan Boric "The Ghost Boulevard". (Higher Seminar, Feb 26)

In 1947, the Soviet Architect Alexey Shchusev together with his team of architects and urban planners developed plans for the new Boulevard in Chisinau, the Capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. The Boulevard D Cantemir in Chisinau was a part of the major urban renewal project for the post WWII city according to the new Soviet master plan for Chisinau. Although large parts of this project have been realized, the boulevard itself has never been built and its plans were buried and forgotten for decades in the Chisinau Municipal archives. Almost half a century later, during the early 1990’s, and shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union the idea of realizing this long forgotten project re-emerged. Paradoxically, it was the collapse of the Soviet Union that triggered the idea of building the boulevard again. As a result the conflict for urban space is currently in progress.

This research explores the impact of shifting institutional frameworks within contemporary urban planning practice. The process of changing ideologies and urban governance and how this affects urban space today is explored through dynamic relations among micro and macro social and political structures. The overlapping memories, contested ideologies and agendas as elements of the afterlife of urban practices are discussed through juxtaposition of incompatible narratives among emerging power hierarchies, institutional formations, cases of contested urban spaces, legal and bureaucratic procedures. The specific points of departure with the empirical case studies are situated within the light of political changes of recent decades and economic forces of privatization and deregulation. Questions are hereby: What kinds of knowledge and practical arguments are used to establish new strategies for urban development? What kind of new institutional frameworks, laws and regulations have emerged? How has control over urban development changed?

Bojan Boric

Degree in Architecture from Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Cooper Union, New York (class of ‘93), and a Master’s Degree in Architecture and Urban Design from GSAP Columbia University, New York ((class of ‘99). Practicing architect since ‘93. NCARB Registered in New York State and Virginia since 2002. Developed range of projects from interiors to housing, public buildings and urban design in the US, Europé and Asia. In 1997, he has founded an office Forma Architecture and Design in New York. Since 2004, Bojan is based in Sweden. Bojan has been involved in many international exhibitions, collaborative projects and organized conferences and workshops with focus on contemporary architecture and urbanism. He as also involved in research projects and teaching at GSAP Columbia University, and most recently at KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm. Between 2009 and 2011 he was the Director of the Masters Program in Urban Planning and until from 2008 to 2015 head of the masters level architecture studio focusing on urban design at KTH, Stockholm . Today, Bojan is a PhD Candidate.