Nikolay Erofeev

Research Interests

(Post-)Soviet architecture, Second-World modernity, Public housing, Soviet-Third World architectural engagements, Marxism

Research Topic

The concept of ‘experiment’ in Soviet housing architecture in 1950-1980

Supervisors: Dan Healey and William Whyte

My core commitment as a scholar is a detailed scrutiny of Soviet architecture and urbanism. My doctoral project, funded by a Hill Scholarship, explores one of the most fundamental features that shaped the nature of Soviet architecture – a peculiar division between experiment and standard. Looking at continuous process of experimentation involved in design and production of standardised large-panel residential towers—which were used to provide over 50 million apartments in the Soviet Union, – my thesis argues that the architectural story of this understudied ‘bureaucratic modernism’ represents much more creative and influential development in the history of modern architecture as a whole.

Publications

N. Erofeev, 'The I-464 Housing Delivery System: A Tool for Urban Modernisation in the Socialist World and Beyond' Fabrications, 29.2 (2019), doi: 10.1080/10331867.2019.1611255

L. Stanek and N. Erofeev, 'Comecon Architecture in Socialist Mongolia: Integration, Collaboration, Adaptation, and Innovation in Ulaanbataar’s Housing Projects’, in Bernhardt, Butter, Motylinska (Eds.) Between Solidarity and Business. Global Entanglements in Architecture and Planning in the Cold War Period (2020) [forthcoming]

N. Erofeev, M. Sapunova (Eds.) ‘Urban Standard and Norm and Their (Post)-Socialist Transformation', a special issue of Urban Research and Practices (2019) [forthcoming]

Conference Presentations

Erofeev N., ‘Youth Residential Complex: Self-governing housing in the era of late socialism,’ at Soviet Cosmologies and Ontologies, 1960s-1970s, University of Westminster, London, 2018

Erofeev N., and Sedighi M. The I-464 Housing Typology: A Tool for Urban Modernisation in the Socialist World, at European Association for Urban History (EAUH), Rome, 2018

Erofeev N., ‘Soviet Prefabricated Housing in Mongolia: Modes of Solidarity and Architectural Cooperation’ at International Planning History Society (IPHS), Yokohama, 2018

Erofeev N., ‘Housing Soviet regions’ at European Architectural History Network (EAHN), Tallinn, 2018

Erofeev N., Stanek L. ‘African Housing in Soviet Gift Economies’, Society of Architectural Historians international conference (SAH), Glasgow, 2017

Erofeev N., ‘Agrocities: Soviet state-led project for urbanisation of the countryside’, at 7th International Urban Geographies of Post-Communist States Conference (CAT), Kiev, 2017

Talks

‘From Cheremushki to collective farms settlements: Standard prefabricated housing in the USSR 1956-1959’, at international symposium ‘1956: The Turning Point in History and Design Culture’, Politecnico Milano, 2018

‘Internationalisation of Soviet architectural practices in the 1960s: International cooperation, technical assistance and Soviet alternatives to the Western strategies of development’, for the course Architecture and Urban Design as Global Practices: Cold War and After, University of Manchester, 2017