Zaporizhzhia

Situated on an ancient trading route on the banks of the River Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia was a small provincial town until the construction of its railway station in 1873 put it on the map as an industrial centre. The Dnipro Hydroelectric Station (1932) turned it into an important hub for the metallurgical industry and eventually into one of the largest cities in Ukraine.

This guide, written by two local architectural historians and preservation activists, focuses on Sobornyi Avenue, the 11-kilometre-long axis which threads the parts of Zaporizhzhia into a harmonious whole. One of the finest examples of Soviet ensemble architecture, the avenue is a catalogue of architectural styles: early-20th-century Style Moderne, the Constructivism and Rationalism of the 1920s and 1930s, the grand Neoclassical architecture and ensemble-based urban planning of the Stalinist period, and post-war Second Socialist Modernism with its clean lines and well laid-out ‘microdistricts’. Parts of Sobornyi Avenue resemble Berlin’s former Stalinallee or Leningrad’s Moskovsky prospekt.

Architectural Guide Zaporizhzhia is a unique opportunity to approach this war-threatened city and hold it in one’s hand. To peruse the pages of this guide is to wander the city’s streets and squares and breathe again the air of a more peaceful, more purposeful age.

This architectural guide is part of the Histories of Ukrainian Architecture programme initiated by Berlin-based DOM publishers in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty on 24 February 2022.

Pavlo Kravchuk is a Ukrainian architectural historian. Chief specialist in historical and cultural heritage at the Department of Culture and Tourism at Zaporizhzhia City Council. One of the founders of Zaporizhzhia Museum of Architecture. Creative director of the digital portal Zaporizhzhia Heritage. Author and coordinator of ‘Programmes for protecting cultural and historical monuments of Zaporizhzhia City for 2018 – 2022’. Editor of the Ukrainian-German publication Fragile Heritage: Architectural Modernism of the Ukrainian South and East: late 1950s–1980s (2023). Co-author of the visual monograph Total Modernism. Mass Housing and Urbanism in Soviet Zaporizhzhia: 1958 – 1985 (2024).

Mykhailo Mordovskoi is a Ukrainian historian and designer. Head of the municipal museum network in Zaporizhzhia. Author of the permanent exhibition at the Zaporizhzhia Museum of Architecture. Holder of the Heritage Solidarity Fellow¬ship for Ukraine from Europa Nostra, Global Heritage Fund, and ALIPH (2022). Curator of the Rethinking Space cultural centre – the first public space in Ukraine focused on understanding the events of the current Russo-Ukrainian war (2023). Author of tourist guidebooks to the city of Zaporizhzhia (2012, 2019) and Zaporizhzhia Region (2012, 2019), co-author of the visual monograph Total Modernism. Mass Housing and Urbanism in Soviet Zaporizhzhia: 1958 – 1985 (2024).