The aim of this research project is to analyse the spatial environment in the context of transformed methods of art history after the cultural turn, to focus on new interpretative possibilities of architecture and the built environment as well as to introduce the discipline with new fields of research and archives that have so far been considered unimporant. The spatiality of the environment includes in this particular case the physical space and spatial practices but also representations of spaces and spatial discourses: buildings in the context of their program and economic flows, landscapes in the context of politics and identities, art tied to its institutions and site specificity. Widening the concepts of art and architectural history from the narrow specialist fields engaging in style history, aesthetics and attribution onto the built spatial environment we will try, among other things, to look at processses that produce art and architecture. The latter include political discourses, social values, flows of money and labor, which run into the final object together with the intention of an author and the ideas circling in the institution of architecture. As most of the researchers focus on problems of Estonian architecture and the built environment after the II World War then one of the cruxes in the study becomes the method and possibilities of research of the Soviet period, its dialogue with the growing studies on postsocialism in the West and its adequate translation on both sides. The output of the project would be: research articles in refereed publications, common publications of the researchers, the formation of international research network and a corresponding conference, intergation into postgraduate studies.
Principal investigator: Mart Kalm
Research staff: Andres Kurg, Epp Lankots
Duration: 2004–2008
See in the Estonian Research Information System