Critical practices in architecture of the Baltic region

The Conversation is chaired by
LOLITA JABLONSKIENĖ

The concluding fifth conversation will explore critical practices within the Baltic region.
Speakers invited from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia will elaborate on different forms of critical practices in architecture that formed a response to the ‘stifling’ standardised language of Soviet architecture.

Ieva Zibarte will present her investigations, discoveries and stories of Post-war modernism in Latvia, her work tracing the Latvian and Baltic architects connections with the West will uncover how this uncensored admiration reconfigured the architectural context within the region.

Marija Dremaite will explore the questions: In what form the critical practices could exist in the society with no right of free expression? How visible it was and what was the outcome? Did architects critically targeted the boundaries of architecture or was it a general critique directed at the ideology and political issues of the Soviet State?

Ingrid Ruudi will give one possible insight into Estonian architecture and art scene during the perestroika period. What kind of critical position would be possible in the turmoil between the falling of the Soviet regime and the rising hopes for nationalist restitution?

The discussion will further consider how the term ‘critical’ was and is currently at work in architectures within the region and will eventually speculate on how the idea of dissidence often associated with the independence movements of the early 1990s could be re-claimed and re-inhabited in the contemporary context in Baltic region.