Email: D.A.Zadorin@sms.ed.ac.uk

Programme: Architectural History - PhD/MPhil

Start date: Sep 2019

Mode of study: Full time

Research title: Genealogy of Soviet Mass Housing

Dimitrij Zadorin (Minsk, 1983) is a doctoral student in Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh. After gaining his MA decree in architecture with Honours from the Technical University of Delft in 2007, he worked as a practicing architect at Buromoscow (Moscow, 2008–2011), Wowhaus (Moscow, 2011–2013), and Barcode Architects (Rotterdam, 2019). Since 2013 he has been a freelance writer and lecturer on post-war Soviet Modernism, mass housing in the USSR, and his native city. Most recently, he curated the Belarusian part of ‘The City of Tomorrow’ exhibition in Minsk.  

In his PhD work, Zadorin investigates Soviet mass housing, which—codified through an intricate naming system—was intended to fully describe and master the human habitat in the USSR. The research focuses both on the ideological framework of standard architecture and its variety. As a model of the Soviet world view and the most persistent heritage of the Soviet period, mass housing can be used today to understand the trails of rootedness in the past across the former empire. The research is meant to do away with case studies and tackle the very core of the system instead. 

Selected Publications

  • Meuser, Philipp, and Dimitrij Zadorin. Towards a Typology of Soviet Mass Housing. Berlin: DOM Publishers, 2015.
  • Zadorin, Dimitrij. Architectural Guide Minsk. Berlin: DOM Publishers, 2018.
  • Zadorin, Dimitrij “Defragmenting Omnipresence: The Struggle to Preserve Soviet Standard Housing.” Eurozine, September 22, 2017. https://www.eurozine.com/defragmenting-omnipresence/.
  • Zadorin, Dimitrij “Not Seeking after Anything Better, or the History of Standard Soviet Home-Building.” Project Russia, 2015.
  • Zadorin, Dimitrij. “The Death of Modernist Minsk? The Demolition of an Architectural Landmark in Post-Soviet Belarus.” The Calvert Journal, June 13, 2017. https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/8378/modernist-minsk-demolition-architectural-landmark-belarus.

Related links

History of Architecture and the Built Environment Research Group