Radoslav Zuk on Ukrainian church architecture and his work (02/22/04)

Radoslav Zuk on Ukrainian church architecture and his work

During its 1,000-year development Ukrainian architecture has followed contemporary stylistic trends, but in a unique "Ukrainian" manner. The great Byzantine, Renaissance or Baroque buildings are experienced as distinctly Ukrainian, in spite of the great variety of their plan configurations, roof shapes and types of decoration.

Thus, in its essence, cultural meaning is not derived from such stylistic elements as a Byzantine plan or a Baroque dome, but rather from more abstract and basic characteristics such as rhythm, proportion and scale of a building's component spaces, masses and planes. Some proportions or rhythms are more in tune with and preferred by a specific cultural temperament than others.

The task then is to create an architecture which responds to a specific cultural temperament and historical experience, yet is expressive of the given geographic situation and of the dynamism of the contemporary world spirit. Architecture thus becomes a comprehensive cultural statement. The question, therefore, is not which prototype or which stylistic element to select, but rather how to infuse a design, which explores new environmental experiences within the universal cultural context, with those special abstract attributes which will make it meaningful in the most profound, subconsciously sensed way to a specific cultural group. To discover what these attributes are, analytical studies of historical precedents and exposure to folk art are essential.

One such analytical study has revealed that it is the rhythm of the roof outline that most clearly distinguishes Ukrainian church architecture from that of other nations. Concentrating on abstract geometric relationships, the varying stylistic shapes have been inscribed into simple rectangles which define the extreme points of each major roof element vertically, horizontally and in relation to the main body of the building.

The resulting analytical diagrams show surprising similarities. In spite of the drastic differences in the plan shapes, and in the explicit geometric shapes of the divergent stylistic elements of the churches, the very close relationship between their abstract geometric structures, revealed in these diagrams, suggests that it is this typical rhythmic order which determines the essential native cultural content of a Ukrainian church.

This geometric structure has been used as a guide in the design of the churches shown in this exhibition. As can be observed, in their explicit geometric configuration, use of contemporary technology and local materials, these buildings arose clearly from the context of their time and place. In their abstract rhythmic relationships, however, they evoke the typical character of a Ukrainian church. By maintaining the essentials of the characteristic abstract geometric structure, they represent a continuation of the long historical tradition of pertinent stylistic transformations in Ukrainian architecture.

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