Tolyatti is a collaborative project between Michele Cera and Guido Sechi. Tolyatti is a visual and scientific exploration into society and common spaces in contemporary post-Soviet cities. This work, in particular, is about the city Tolyatti. Tolyatti is the largest Soviet industrial planned city and the most relevant example of a mono-industrial town in contemporary Russia. The largest district of the city, Avtozavodskiy rajon, was built starting from the late 1960s following the establishment of AvtoVAZ, the largest automobile manufacturer in the USSR, in order to accommodate factory workers from all Soviet republics. Tolyatti is the first chapter of a larger project on public space in post-soviet cites.

Arch 550 Current issues in Architectural Design Module 01 Architecture & Photography

This module focuses on the relationship between Architecture and Photography, emphasizing how the concept of architecture, as well as our understanding of the architectural and urban experience, is to a great extent, constructed on the basis of visual representations. In particular, the aim is to analyse and discuss the emergence and evolution of Photography neither as a documentation nor as simple figurative transposition of reality, but as a construction of a gaze able to question and subvert reality. Since its infancy, photography has proven to be not only an unparalleled means of objective documentation, but also a fertile field of aesthetic experimentation. Photography then may be interpreted as the privileged place where Architecture (in a wider sense space) is deconstructed, reassembled, and re-established as a realm whose perception is continuously questioned.

Tolyatti is a visual and scientific exploration into society and common spaces in contemporary post-Soviet cities. This work, in particular, is about the city Tolyatti. Tolyatti is the largest Soviet industrial planned city and the most relevant example of a mono-industrial town in contemporary Russia. The largest district of the city, Avtozavodskiy rajon, was built starting from the late 1960s following the establishment of AvtoVAZ, the largest automobile manufacturer in the USSR, in order to accommodate factory workers from all Soviet republics.

To recive the zoom info send an e-mail to: buse.demir@bilkent.edu.tr

Biography:

Michele Cera (Bari, Italy, 1973). His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions.His work is represented in major public collections, including the Maxxi (NationalMuseum for 21st Century Arts) in Rome. He was co-founder of Documentary Platform, a visual archive about contemporary Italy.

Guido Sechi (Bari, Italy, 1978). Urban and regional planner; researcher and lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Latvia. His interests mostly focus on dynamics of socio-spatial change, development and inequality in post-socialist cities and regions, in particular those of the former USSR.