London, United Kingdom
“I undertake to assemble the best minds with the best planning, architectural, design, and engineering skills in the world to bear on the rebirth of the city of Kharkiv. In the spirit of combining a planetary awareness with local action, I would seek to bring together the top Ukrainian talents with worldwide expertise and advice,” states Norman Foster.
British architect Norman Foster has offered to contribute to gathering and coordinating all great architects in order to design a reconstruction of the war-torn city of Kharkiv, Ukraine.
After his recent meeting with Kharkiv’s Mayor, Ihor Terekhov, the British architect discussed the “rebirth” of the city’s buildings and infrastructure, much of which has been destroyed to the ground, during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
According to Ihor Terekhov, Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, had nearly two million people before the war and today more than 1,900 buildings have been completely destroyed.
The first and crucial step would be a city-wide master plan which would “deliver the city of the future now and to plan for its life decades ahead.”
The project would combine the city’s most-loved and revered heritage buildings with the most “desirable and greenest” elements of infrastructure and buildings, Foster says, adding: “A masterplan is an act of confidence in the future for generations still to come.”
Norman Foster has already presented a plan to reconstruct the eastern Ukrainian city, known for its art nouveau architecture, where around a quarter of buildings have been destroyed since the Russian invasion.
THE KHARKIV MANIFESTO
I undertake to assemble the best minds with the best planning, architectural, design, and engineering skills in the world to bear on the rebirth of the city of Kharkiv. In the spirit of combining planetary awareness with local action, I would seek to bring together the top Ukrainian talents with worldwide expertise and advice.
The first step would be a city masterplan linked to the region, with the ambition to combine the most loved and revered heritage from the past with the most desirable and greenest elements of infrastructure and buildings – in other words, to deliver the city of the future now and to plan for its life decades ahead.
At the height of the pandemic, London updated a master plan, the roots of which were a plan commissioned in the darkest days of World War II. A master plan is an act of confidence in the future for generations still to come. – Norman Foster, 18th April 2022.
Project: Norman Foster- The Kharkiv Manifesto
Architects: Foster + Partners
Lead Architect: Norman Foster
