StoriesCulture & Heritage
The buildings the market wanted gone.
Twenty Soviet-era modernist buildings in Tashkent, reclassified from liability to diplomacy.
7 min read
What this case turns on
- 01Problem
- 02Constraint
- 03Decision
- 04Move
- 05Result
01The Problem
DocumentedTashkent’s Soviet-era modernist buildings were under commercial pressure to be demolished.
02The Constraint
DocumentedNo preservation mandate existed for Soviet-period architecture, and the market valued the land above the buildings on it.
03The Decision
DocumentedFrame preservation as cultural diplomacy, and build state and international backing on that footing rather than on a conservation argument.
this is the moment agency is visible- Interview Dezeen
- Article The Art Newspaper
04The Move
DocumentedLed the preservation of 20+ Tashkent modernist buildings, launched the Venice Biennale pavilion in 2021, and established CCA Tashkent in a 1912 industrial building.
- Interview Dezeen
- Article The Art Newspaper
05The Result
DocumentedTwenty-plus buildings preserved, the pavilion delivered, and CCA Tashkent established.
- Interview Dezeen
Agency signals
Each names the section that shows it
What this decision demonstrates.
Clear Thinking
Reads the situation as it is, including when that is inconvenient.
Shown in The Decision
Craft & Skill
Earns the outcome through depth of practice rather than positioning.
Shown in The Move
Persistence
Stays with the same work across years rather than weeks.
Shown in The Move
Read across the archive
Where this case is used as evidence.
- Construction, Not DisruptionIdea · pattern
Where the infrastructure is missing, agency looks like building it — not like breaking something.
Sources
Where this comes from.
A claim only counts as documented when it is carried by someone outside the people involved. For this case that is Dezeen and The Art Newspaper.
Preserving Tashkent’s modernist architecture an act of "cultural diplomacy"
Dezeen
InterviewIndependent reporting
Uzbekistan launches ambitious new cultural agenda
The Art Newspaper
ArticleIndependent reporting