The Kyiv suburb of Irpin was largely destroyed by fierce urban fighting in the first few weeks of the war in Ukraine. Now that Russian troops have been forced out, local authorities have invited in Ukrainian architects to reimagine how the urban areas might be rebuilt. They have their work cut out.
When Ukrainian forces took back Irpin from Russian troops on March 28, the formerly wealthy suburb in the northwest of Kyiv was largely destroyed.
Residents rushed to leave in late February when Irpin, along with neighbouring towns Bucha and Hostomel, became the focal point of Russian plans to encircle and capture the Ukrainian capital.
Weeks of fierce urban fighting left swathes of Irpin devastated. After Russian forces had departed, Ukrainian law enforcement officers reported that 885 buildings were completely destroyed, 2,738 partially destroyed and 8,651 had superficial damage.
There was damage to infrastructure too. To slow the Russian advance, Ukrainian forces had blown up the main bridge linking the suburb to Kyiv. Hospitals and schools had been hit by Russian attacks. Efforts began to clear Russian mines, reportedly planted in parks, playgrounds and in front of homes. So far, few residents have been able to return.
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‘Restoration and development’But on May 5, authorities started to imagine a new future for the suburb. “About 120 architects from all over Ukraine have arrived in Irpin to draft a strategy for the town’s restoration and development,” Oleksiy Kuleba, head of the humanitarian staff of the Kyiv Regional State Administration, said in a Telegram message, thanking those who accepted the invitation.
It is not unusual to start conversations about rebuilding even though fighting continues in other parts of Ukraine, says Dr Pierre Purseigle, Associate Professor at the University of Warwick (UK), and specialist in the history of war and urban catastrophes.
“In order to fight a war, you need to believe in your capacity to prevail, so thinking about reconstruction is just as important as thinking about the reasons why you’re fighting,” he says. “You’re fighting to defend your nation, but also you’re fighting to defend your capacity and your right to define your future, and that is what is at stake in Ukraine.”
A three-stage planFaced with an urban space that has been so thoroughly destroyed, where do authorities begin to rebuild? European think tank The Centre for Economic Policy Research laid out a three-step plan in its publication A Blueprint for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.
In destroyed cities, the first stage involves restoring safety (for example, by removing landmines) and reinstating critical infrastructure such as power lines and water systems. Next comes “rapid revival of the economy”, meaning clearing debris and restoring transport networks, along with housing and schools.
Building new housing, schools and hospitals begins in the third phase, with one key objective: build back better. “Although there is a natural tendency to repair cities to their original form, one should not try to restore Soviet-style housing and other infrastructure,” the plan says.
Instead, “reconstruction should focus on using modern technologies designs, and urban planning”.
In theory, there is an opportunity for Ukraine’s destroyed cities to be reborn as greener, more beautiful, and more efficient. Building back with a focus on environmentalism, for example, “may help make Ukraine a leader in green energy”, the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies wrote in a March report.
“When there’s so much destruction, you can make major changes and right old planning problems”, says Wendy Pullan, director of the Centre for Urban Conflicts Research and professor emerita in architecture and urban studies at the University of Cambridge (UK). “That’s the silver lining around the cloud.”
A blank slate?If the potential for change is proportionate to the level of destruction, some cities in Ukraine could be almost completely transformed. In April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 95 percent of the city of Mariupol had been destroyed.
In the city of Kharkiv, recently liberated from Russian forces, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said around 25 percent of housing had been destroyed. Much of the historical city centre has also been decimated and damage caused to unique architectural gems.
An employee of the museum collects surviving exhibits in the destroyed building of the Hryhoriy Skovoroda National Literary Memorial Museum in the village of Skovorodynivka, in Kharkiv Region, on May 7, 2022, on the 73rd day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to a report of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, late evening on May 6, a Russian missile hit on the Hryhoriy Skovoroda National Literary Memorial Museum in the village of Skovorodynivka. As a result of the missile hit, the 17th century manor house was destroyed and burned, where the world-famous Ukrainian philosopher, theologian and poet Hryhoriy Skovoroda (1722-1794) lived and worked in the last year of his life. © Sergey Bobok, AFP
Pullan equates what is happening in some Ukrainian cities to urbicide: warfare that aims to kill cities through loss of life and large-scale, deliberate destruction. “It’s attacking the city for what it means as a city by going after the city’s heritage, cultural centres and places of meaning for the existing population,” Pullan says. This can include attacks on hospitals, schools, and cultural spaces.
After a city has been razed so thoroughly, decisions about what to restore and what to replace can be complex. For example, there may be consensus over the cultural importance of restoring significant monuments or the need for hospitals, but what about which homes get rebuilt and which don’t?
For architects, urban planners and NGO’s, destroyed spaces may be fertile ground for improvement, but for former residents they can still hold meaningful memories. “They are not blank slates,” says Purseigle. “Building back better doesn’t necessarily have the same meaning for experts as it does for local populations.”
“You get real conflicts between what might be done for the city to make it more viable and the [wishes of the] people who lived there, because all they want is to go home,” Pullan adds.
‘A democratic exercise’Of an estimated 6.1 million refugees that have fled Ukraine since the war started, many have expressed a wish to return home. Some have already travelled back to Irpin to find their homes and businesses destroyed. Others are working together to make repairs where possible, to make the community liveable again
