Architectural education unfolds its greatest analytical power where political discourse is most constrained. In Tashkent, the Mosaic Modernism workshop brought together academics from Portugal, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan to re-examine the monumental art of the Soviet era through the lens of decolonisation. In an environment marked by ideological tension, architecture became a language of resistance – continuing DOM’s tradition of linking research, teaching, and cultural critique. 

Text: Ana Neiva and Philipp Meuser

Photo: Participants in the workshop in Tashkent. © DOM publishers

Held in Tashkent in October 2025, Mosaic Modernism became a point of genuine intercultural exchange between three architectural traditions that rarely enter into direct dialogue. Students and lecturers from Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Portugal spent a week probing the political legibility of modernist architecture, combining academic debate with on-site investigation. What emerged was a striking divergence in how the built legacy of the twentieth century is interpreted across cultural contexts.

At the centre of the workshop lay the question of how monumental art and mosaic architecture from the Soviet and post-Soviet periods can be reinterpreted today. In Ukraine, decolonisation has become an existential project: rebuilding is synonymous with cultural self-assertion in the face of Russia’s neo-imperial aggression. Uzbekistan, by contrast, still negotiates its Soviet past through state-curated narratives. Critical engagement with the colonial dimension of Soviet architecture is only beginning to take shape. Against this background, the shift among students of the Tashkent University of Architecture and Construction — who began to view familiar mosaics and façades through a newly politicised lens — was far more than remarkable.

A decisive impulse came from the Portuguese participants. Their research on monumental art in Portugal’s former colonies introduced a postcolonial and postfascist lens into the Central Asian context. Coming from a country marked by the long afterlife of the Estado Novo dictatorship, they articulated with precision how propaganda, power and aesthetics intersect in architectural surfaces. For the Ukrainian group, this perspective resonated deeply: the parallels between Europe’s postfascist heritage and Ukraine’s confrontation with Russia’s neo-fascist and neo-colonial war of aggression were unmistakable. This triangulation – Portuguese postfascist experience, Ukrainian decolonial urgency, and Uzbek ambivalence – turned Mosaic Modernism into an intellectual laboratory.

The Jarsky brothers’ construction technique for Tashkent’s first towering façade mosaic was explained in detail by Rustam Khusanov. Last year, the Uzbek government placed more than 150 façades under special protection. © Ana Neiva

Excursions through Tashkent, guided by independent architects and researchers such as Rustam Khusanov and Alexander Fedorov, led the group into neighbourhoods like Chilonzar, rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake, or Vodnik, an open-air museum of some of the most colorful examples of Soviet façade design. Amid prefabricated housing blocks and the mosaics of Soviet modernism, the participants witnessed how deeply Central Asia’s visual culture remains entangled with political narratives. These mosaics have never been mere ornament: they functioned as ideological media, communicating progress, labour, and collective identity. Today, their reception oscillates between nostalgia, rejection and critical re-reading – a reflection of the broader struggle to position this heritage within evolving national identities.

Central Asia is a region where such debates are only just beginning to take root. Comparable debates unfold more openly in Kazakhstan, especially in Almaty, where questions of cultural emancipation from Russia have become part of public discourse. This was palpable during DOM’s recent launch of Edda Schlager’s Architectural Guide Almaty at the Tselinnyi Tsentr.  

In Uzbekistan, such reflection still remains largely confined to academic or artistic circles. Against this backdrop, Mosaic Modernism offered an essential impetus – not to produce final judgments, but to encourage reading the city as a palimpsest of ideology, power and transformation. In this sense, architectural history becomes a political instrument. To analyse façades is to analyse memory, belonging and dependency. The study of modernist monumental art reveals that decolonisation is not achieved through demolition but through understanding: through the capacity to decode how cities narrate power. Tashkent, with its layered history of Soviet planning, Islamic building traditions and contemporary reconstruction initiatives, provides fertile ground for such inquiry.

Mosaic Modernism – Portugal was represented by the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP), while Ukraine was represented by O.M. Beketov University for Urban Economy (Kharkiv) – stands for a new generation of academic formats that approach architecture not simply as a chronology of styles, but as a medium through which societies negotiate their place in the world. The masterclass demonstrated that international collaboration becomes productive precisely when it disrupts established narratives — not through didactic transfer, but through mutual irritation. In this shared act of questioning the self-evident lies the genuine potential of architectural education today. In 2026, a publication in the Basics series is scheduled to appear, placing the content of these debates in a broader context.’

In this interview, Pierre Hurt, director of the ­Luxembourg Order of Architects, talks about the international character of his country, excellence in architectural criticism, and Architecture deLUX, the joint project with DOM publishers.

Interview: Damien Leaf

Photo: Book launch in Luxembourg in May 2025. Pierre Hurt (far left) with Yuriko Backes (Minister for Mobility and Public Works; Defense; and Gender Equality and Diversity), Michelle Friederici (President of the OAI), Léon Gloden (Minister for Home Affairs), and Patrick Nosbusch (Vice-President of the OAI). © Yann Wirthor

Mr. Hurt, Luxembourg is located in the heart of Europe. Is this also reflected in its architecture?

Luxembourgers are not only fluent in German and French, but also feel at home in both the Romance and Germanic cultures. Luxembourg is a multicultural society: of the 675,000 inhabitants, only 50 per cent have Luxembourg nationality. You can maybe see it in the architectural style. What distinguishes our architects and engineers is a high degree of internationalisation and a cosmopolitan outlook: All Luxembourg architects have studied abroad, and many foreigners, both expats and commuters, work in the firms. Luxembourg is the only country where cross-border architecture and engineering is already a reality in Europe: A quarter of architects working in Luxembourg come from neighbouring countries.

A lot of building work has been done in Luxembourg in recent times.

Yes, if only because of Luxembourg’s rise as a financial centre and the European institutions that have settled here. And there’s of course the demographic development: within 50 years, the population has almost doubled. Accordingly, the number of architectural firms established in Luxembourg – 520 in 2025 – has more than tripled since 1990.

You have been part of these changes. 35 years ago, you became the founding director of the Ordre des Architectes et des Ingénieurs-Conseils (OAI). Unlike in other countries, you combine a wide range of different professions under one roof.

Yes, that is quite unique. All the women and men who conceive the built world we live in are represented in the OAI: architects, consulting engineers, landscape architects, interior architects, urban planners. Beyond its missions as a legal body, as a professional organisation, and as an institution of public interest, the OAI enhances the real dimension of its members’ work at an economic, social, artistic, and cultural level in order to achieve a sustain­able, smart, and high-quality living environment.

What has been your personal highlight in the past three decades?

I’m proud that we’ve built up a great deal of credibility as a partner for legal, professional, and cultural dialogue, taking all dimensions into account that reflect the full range of what architecture, engineering, and urbanism are about. It starts with the fact that we only accept truly independent architects and engineers who have no conflicts of interest, such as a stake in a construction company. There’s also a cultural mission to our work. We want to promote a broad understanding in society of the quality of buildings and the importance of independent planners. "Design first – build smart, sustainable and inclusive": Professional, independent, integrated, and detailed design guarantees added value to any project. That is why the OAI has recently developed the methodology in holistic collaboration moai.lu.

A master’s programme in architecture was finally set up at Luxembourg University a few years ago. How important is that?

It’s a crucial step in moving the debate on architecture and engineering forward. We also work with students on activities.

For Architecture deLUX, which has been published by DOM publishers in May 2025 to mark the 35th anniversary of the OAI, you invited ten ­critics from neighbouring countries to write about contemporary architecture in Luxembourg. What was the idea behind this?

Over the years, we have published a number of our own publications, including the architectour.lu guide, whose database can also be accessed online, as well as books featuring our clients "Bauhärepräis" award. However, what is often missing in a small country like ours, where there is no specialised media and little coverage of architecture in the daily press, is a critical view from the outside. Good reporting is particularly important for increasing public participation. We need the feedback after completion and then two years later to understand how we should build well. Architecture deLUX aims to provide impetus for architectural criticism like this.

What makes a good review?

A good critic understands the context – what the requirements and constraints might have been, but also the sustainability of a project – and doesn’t just follow their own aesthetic ideas. It’s a challenging task.

Apart from independent architecture journalism, what else needs to change in Luxembourg?

We implemented the EU’s green building directives earlier than other countries and are now realising that we may have gone too far by overregulating in all aspects. Similar to the German "Gebäudetyp E", we are trying to build simpler and faster, but better. It’s important that we don’t just demolish buildings after 20 years, but build for 100 years. We also need to rethink urban planning: there is urban sprawl, with houses built to the left and right of transport axes. We need more quality density and harmony in the public space. So, for example, eco-neighbourhoods are built where cars are not allowed.

PIERRE HURT has been the ­director of Luxembourg’s Ordre des Architectes et des Ingénieurs-Conseils (OAI) since its foundation in 1990. The OAI brings together five professions: architects, interior architects, consulting engineers, urban planners, and landscape architects/engineers. The institution thus represents more than 5,600 people currently working in  this field.

The German journalist was one of the few Westerners  to permanently report from Central Asia. Her architectural guide to the city of Almaty is a kind of farewell after 18 years in a region whose importance, she says, is still not understood. 

Text: Björn Rosen

Photo: Edda Schlager in front of a Soviet-era mosaic in Almaty. The German ­journalist reported from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Two research trips also took her to Afghanistan. © Amina Shyryntai

An incredible amount has changed in Kazakhstan since 2005 when Edda Schlager first visited Almaty, the former capital and still the country’s largest city. ‘First and foremost, digitalisation,’ she says. ‘In the beginning I still had to use a modem; now there’s reliable internet access via telephone at ridiculously low prices, and dealing with the authorities can be done efficiently online, much faster than I’m used to in Germany.’ Then the journalist immediately qualifies: ‘Of course, the network is also switched off quickly during anti-government protests.’

Edda Schlager has reported from Central Asia for newspapers and radio stations for almost 20 years, including the Swiss SRF, Radio Free Europe, and Al Jazeera. This makes her one of only a handful of Western journalists who have worked permanently in the region, which spans two time zones and consists of five countries with a total of 65 million inhabitants.

Schlager studied geography in Berlin, but always had her sights set on becoming a journalist. Having grown up in the former communist East Germany, she had learned some Russian at school and therefore dared to take an internship at Almaty’s Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the mouthpiece of the German minority, which had been forcibly deported to Central Asia under Stalin. Russian is still the lingua franca in the region, even if the language’s importance has been even more rapidly declining since the war in Ukraine. Schlager was so fascinated that she stayed on after her six months at the newspaper. She describes the region as a ‘hinge between Orient and Occident’, a place where influences and interests from Europe, Russia, the Gulf States, South Asia, and China come together. However, there is still hardly any awareness of this in the West, she says. During the attempted overthrow of the government in 2022, Schlager was a highly sought-after correspondent for a fortnight. After that, interest died down again immediately. This experience contributed to her decision to return to Berlin, where she now works for the federal marketing agency ‘Germany Trade and Invest’.

In her first architectural guide, published in 2017, she presented the Tajik capital of Dushanbe. ‘Unfortunately, many beautiful old buildings in the city have been demolished since then.’ The guide to Almaty, which is now being published, has a different significance for her. The Kazakh city was always her base for travelling and conducting research. And so the book, which also contains many interviews, has become quite personal. ‘Almaty is beautifully situated at the foot of the mountains and offers a fascinating mix with its mosques, Soviet buildings, and brand-new skyscrapers,’ she says. ‘But the fact that I felt so at home there was also due to the recognition I earned as a reporter for my long-term commitment.’

The world is facing an escalating climate crisis and rapid urbanisation intensifying pressure on infrastructure, resources, and the environment. In autumn 2025, DOM publishers will release a book that explores how sustainable urban transformation can be achieved through global collaboration, innovative research, and a focus on impact on the ground.

Photo: Urban intervention in Phnom Penh, 2022. © Stefanie Slawski

According to UN-Habitat, by 2050 around 70 per cent of the world’s population – some 6.7 billion people – will be living in cities, putting enormous pressure on infrastructure, resources, and the environment. The question is no longer whether cities and their regions must change, but how they can do so effectively and impactful to really achieve the necessary change.    

The upcoming book Navigating Urban Development, which will be published by DOM in autumn 2025, explores how sustainable urban transformation can be achieved through global collaboration, innovative research, and a focus on impact on the ground. Drawing from ten research projects across East and Southeast Asia - Cambodia, China, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam - , it offers insights into how diverse actors are co-creating solutions for more resilient, inclusive urban futures.    

At the heart of the book is the REframe framework, an impact-oriented monitoring approach that encourages a new way of working and understanding impact. Combining long-term goals (References) with adaptive learning (Reflection), REframe offers a practical tool for navigating complexity and fostering lasting change. Linking theory and practice, Navigating Urban Development offers both conceptual grounding, case studies and hands-on tools for those working toward sustainable, inclusive, and resilient urban transformation.    

The book was compiled as a result of the SURE Facilitation & Synthesis research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space as part of the Sustainable Development of Urban Regions (SURE) funding priority.  

Zu 80 Jahren Kriegsende ist bei DOM publishers das Buch Städtebau im Nationalsozialismus erschienen – der erste umfassende Überblick zum Thema aus paneuropäischer Perspektive. / 80 years since the end of the war:  To mark this anniversary, DOM publishers has released the book Urban Planning in Nazi Germany - it's the first comprehensive overview from a pan-European perspective.

Photo: Fritz Todt - Kopf der nach ihm benannten militärisch organisierten Bautruppe - vor der Staumauer des Wasserkraftwerks am Dnjepr in der Ukraine, wohl 1941. / Fritz Todt - head of the militarily organized construction group named after him - in front of the dam wall of the hydroelectric power plant on the Dnieper in the Ukraine, probably in 1941. © Schönleben 1943, S.104. 

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BUCHPRÄSENTATIONEN / BOOK PRESENTATIONS

Grau= Nur mit Anmeldung / Gray= Registration required

26. März 2026 / 26 March 2026 – 18:00

NS-Dokumentationszentrum/Architekturmuseum (München/Munich)

Weitere Informationen: klick.

DEUTSCH (GERMAN)  Am 08. Mai 2025 jährt sich das Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Europa zum 80. Mal. Anlässlich des Jahrestags ist bei DOM publishers das Buch Städtebau im Nationalsozialismus erschienen, ein mehr als 600 Seiten starker, umfassender Überblick zum Thema. 

Städtebau war ein wesentliches Instrument der nationalsozialistischen Diktatur. Er diente der Legitimation von Herrschaft und der Demonstration von Stärke, er begleitete Aufrüstung und Krieg, er vermittelte das gesellschaftspolitische Programm, er war ein Medium der Konkurrenz mit anderen Staaten, er band alte wie neue Fachleute an das Regime und grenzte systematisch Bevölkerungsgruppen aus.  

In Städtebau im Nationalsozialismus wird der Städtebau der NS-Diktatur erstmals nicht nur in seiner außerordentlichen Dynamik, sondern auch im Kontext anderer europäischer Diktaturen jener Zeit betrachtet. Denn zwischen 1933 und 1945 wechselten mehrmals die großen Themen des Städtebaus, die wichtigsten Akteure, die Inhalte der Propaganda, die betroffenen Städte und Gebietstypen, die Programme und Praktiken, die Gewinner und Verlierer. So entsteht ein vielschichtiges Bild, das über die übliche Darstellung bekannter Repräsentationsbauten hinausgeht und auch zentrale Aspekte wie Wohnungsbau, Altstadterneuerung, Innere Kolonisation, Bauten der Aufrüstung sowie die Anlage von großräumiger Infrastruktur, Industriegebieten, Erziehungsanstalten und Lagern berücksichtigt.

Weitere Details zum Buchprojekt: klick.

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ENGLISH (ENGLISCH)  8 May 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. To mark this anniversary, DOM publishers has released the book Urban Planning in Nazi Germany, a more than 600-page comprehensive overview of the topic.

Urban planning was an essential instrument of the National Socialist dictatorship. It served to legitimize rule and demonstrate strength, accompanied rearmament and war, conveyed the socio-political program, was a medium of competition with other states, tied old and new professionals to the regime, and systematically marginalized population groups.

In this book urban planning under the Nazi dictatorship is for the first time examined not only as something that evolved during the different periods of Nazi rule but also in the context of other European dictatorships of the time. 

For more details on the book project: click.