Although 30 years have passed since the dissolution of the USSR - we have just a year ago we had an immense push to reconsider the events of the past era. Ukrainian cities and architecture now stand on the brink of destruction, which does not spare any kind of heritage, especially the Soviet-time one.

The Soviet Ukrainian architecture thought of the 1980s has also shown an inclination to shape spaces of the upcoming democratic society and 'decommunized' societal relations. Today we have an opportunity to evaluate and compare those projects and our contemporary situation.

And even if every poІitical-economic system uses architecture as a medium of its own operations, architecture is not a hostage of politics. What can we learn about the do's and do not's in the identity-building, planning quality and design process in the upcoming recovery of Ukraine from the 1980s? Can a new modern vision be based on experiments four decades ago? What are the unique qualities or aspects of the epoch to be preserved? And, finally, is there an echo of post-colonial spatial thinking that has been omitted for decades? Such questions may seem to be a little premature to ask, but a reconsideration of multi-faceted architectural and planning heritage can prove immense value for the future.

Oleksandr Anisimov is a Ukrainian urban researcher, co-organizer and author of several articles in the publication After Socialist Modernism - architecture, planning and urban design of the 1980s, currently a PhD student at the Aalto University (Spatial planning).

After the launch of the book "After Socialist Modernism. Architecture, Urban Design and Planning of the 1980s", this a second event produced by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art with the cooperation of the National Art Museum of Ukraine.