Ukrainian architectural style. Visions, modes, centuries | Андрій Пучков

Andriy Puchkov's monograph is the first in domestic architectural studies to study the phenomenon of the "Ukrainian architectural style". The author defines it as a set of four visual modes: traditional rural architecture (cottages, wooden churches), Ukrainian brick baroque of the 17th–18th centuries (Orthodox churches), architectural modernism at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, and architectural neo-baroque (from the 1910s to the present).

The work proves that the leading and most numerous stylistic layer is the Ukrainian Baroque, mainly sacral. Having absorbed European influences and developed into an independent trend, it enriched European culture with new forms and artistic techniques.

Puchkov shows that Ukrainian architectural modernism, relying on archaic rural forms, initially actively created urban space (in particular, the Poltava provincial zemstvo of Vasyl Krychevsky), and later returned to the village through the architecture of zemstvo schools, while simultaneously integrating into the urban environment with the structures of the Myrhorod resort of Opanas Slastyon.

The development of Ukrainian architectural neo-baroque is also revealed, which, inspired by masonry examples of the 17th–18th centuries and creatively reinterpreting them, retained key features of the Baroque mode throughout the Soviet 20th century (for example, in the development of Khreshchatyk). Together with other stylistic expressions, it forms a model of distinctive Ukrainian architectural forms in the broader context of the Eastern European architectural tradition.