'Not a Stony Desert': Microclimate and Communal Hygiene in Soviet City Greening

• In Event: Placing Climates Across (Post-)Soviet Regions: Knowing, Writing, Planning

Abstract

Soviet urbanists’ ambitions to improve the microclimate of cities and mitigate industrial air pollution relied heavily on urban afforestation, similar to but less studied than the use of forested shelter-belts to improve regional hydrology and protect agricultural lands. This paper examines post-WWII Soviet engagement with microclimate (as both concept and phenomena) within trans-national and trans-regional currents of design-planning, urban environmental design, and nature-society relations. Using archival, professional, and cultural evidence, this paper investigates how Soviet architects, spatial planners, and affiliated “friends of trees” theorized the use of green plantings and winds as cultural and climatic interventions. Specifically, this paper will demonstrate how architects and urbanist who had been resettled to Central Asia during WWII incorporated ideas of regional climate and microclimate improvement into postwar norms and ambitions for participatory urban afforestation, even as the balance of new town development shifted to Siberian sites.

Author

• Maria C Taylor, Cornell U