Tashkent Modernism XX/XXI

About

A New Canon of Modern Heritage
At the crossroads of cultures and empires, Tashkent stands as a palimpsest of Central Asian identity. Yet its boldest architectural gesture—its modernist legacy from the 1960s to the 1980s—remains largely unrecognized. Conceived in the spirit of progress and built under the constraints of economy and ideology, these structures gave form to a vision of collective modernity. After independence, they fell out of favor—dismissed as relics of a past no longer politically convenient.
Today, this architecture is being reappraised: not as a peripheral footnote in global modernism, but as a critical and compelling narrative of Soviet-era transformation. It speaks of radical social ambition, of regional specificity within a global style, and of a design culture shaped by urgency, scarcity, and vision.
This book is a design manifesto and a conservation tool.
Produced by an international team of architects, historians, and restoration experts, Tashkent Modernism XX/XXI presents the most comprehensive survey of this unique legacy to date. Essays and visual narratives frame the architecture within broader geopolitical histories. Twelve monographs detail key buildings, their biographies, and strategies for preservation and adaptive reuse.
This is not just a look back—it is a roadmap forward.
A call to reimagine the role of modernist architecture in shaping future cities—not despite, but because of its ideological and material contradictions.

Info

Edited by Boris Chukhovich, Davide Del Curto, Ekaterina Golovatyuk
Foreword by Francesco Bandarin, Gayane Umerova
With photographs by Armin Linke
With essays by Sofia Celli, Boris Chukhovich, Davide Del Curto, Federica Deo, Ekaterina Golovatyuk, Nicola Russi
Lars Müller Publishers
16,5 × 24 cm, 6 ½ × 9 ½ in
948 pages, 1771 illustrations
paperback
2025, 978-3-03778-751-9, English