Accommodating Extractivism. Mobile Architecture and Rotational Urbanism in Western Siberia, 1980–1992

• Applicant: Ksenia Litvinenko, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 552244184

This project is an architectural history that investigates the role of architectural and urban planning expertise and built environments in late Soviet extractivism. More specifically, it reconstructs how mobile architecture, urbanism and professional knowledge facilitated the mobility of labour for the oil and gas extraction industries in Western Siberia between 1980 and 1992. Drawing on recent environmental histories of architecture and utilizing a multiscalar research approach, this project pursues two main objectives. Firstly, it sets out to map out collective (institutional) and individual actors, professional networks, "platforms of exchange" (Bernhardt, Butter, Motylinska 2023) and "technological zones" (Barry 2006) where knowledge of mobile architecture and technology could translate and circulate across the regional, national and international levels in the context of the Soviet Union, the wider Socialist Bloc (Kalinovsky 2018; Stanek 2020; Schwenkel 2020) and permeate the "Iron Curtain" (Frapier 2009). This objective, therefore, seeks to contextualize the historical discourses around Soviet mobile architecture and urbanism in the broader history of modern mobile architecture and technology. Secondly, the research will identify and analyze varying imaginaries and concrete design proposals produced for Western Siberia across three scales of design/planning: urban planning (rotational settlements), architecture (mobile living units) and technologies (e.g. construction materials, insulation techniques). Notably, the project will reconstruct how these imaginaries and projects of mobile architecture developed by architectural and engineering professionals were tested against the materiality, equipment, and building conditions in such settlements as Kogalym and Lyantor. It will also retrace how the proliferation of mobile architecture and technology, in turn, informed or challenged the government of shift work and seasonal migration of individual citizens in Western Siberia during the analyzed period. To meet the research objectives outlined above and ensure a robust and reliable research process, I will conduct a comprehensive archival and library research, documenting the activity of various actors and institutions involved in the planning, design, research and construction of mobile buildings and rotational settlements in Western Siberia during 1980–1992. The data collection for this project will be conducted in Lithuania, Estonia and Germany.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position