Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations (AHTI 2022)

The present thematic collection of scientific articles is the result of the 4th International Conference on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations (AHTI 2022) held on 24-25 February 2022. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was held online in a videoconference format using the Zoom platform.

The first conference under the same title, which took place in February 2019, was followed by the publication of a similar collection of articles: the Proceedings of the 2019 International Conference on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations (AHTI 2019). The next two conferences, held in February 2020 and in March 2021, were followed by the publication of the Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations (AHTI 2020), and the Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations (AHTI 2021).

Traditionally, these conferences were organized by the Scientific Research Institute of the Theory and History of Architecture and Urban Planning (Russia) with assistance from the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences (Russia), the State Institute for Art Studies (Russia), the André Chastel Research Center in History of Art of the Sorbonne University (France), the Institute of Arts of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences (Armenia), the Faculty of Architecture of the Belarusian National Technical University (Belarus), the International Science and Culture Center for Academic Contacts (Russia), and Zhengzhou Yingchun Conference Planning Co. Ltd (China).

In 2022, the 4th International Conference on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations (AHTI 2022) attracted scholars from 13 countries: Russia, France, Germany, Iraq, China, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Poland, Syria and Vietnam. The scientific scope of the conference and the importance of the topics discussed in the conference sessions were the reasons for representatives of universities and research institutes to take an interest in AHTI 2022.

AHTI conference abstracts are traditionally published on the website of the Scientific Research Institute of the Theory and History of Architecture and Urban Planning (http://www.niitiag.ru/events/past/architecture_heritage_traditions_and_innovations_2022), and on one of the leading Russian digital platforms on architecture Archi.ru (https://archi.ru/events/19634/arkhitektura-nasledie-tradicii-i-novacii).

AHTI 2022 is devoted to a wide range of problems of the history and theory of architecture and concentrates on the correlations between heritage preservation and contemporary architecture, and between traditional and innovative approaches to its development. As in previous years, the conference organizers tried to bring together scientists from different countries on a joint discussion platform in order to link their ideas on the innovative development of architectural creativity and the traditional ideas reflected in centuries-old architectural heritage, to identify the ways to solve one of the most pressing issues of our time: the balance between rapid expansion of architectural and urban planning activities, and the need to preserve architectural monuments and valuable historical environment.

At the plenary session of the conference and its thematic sessions entitled “History and Theory of Architecture: From Ancient Times to the Early Modern Period”, “History and Theory of Architecture: From World War I to Contemporary Times”, “Architectural Heritage Protection and Contemporary Use”, “Innovations in Contemporary Architecture”, and “Architectural Aspects of Town Planning”, the conference participants discussed the issues of architectural heritage preservation and systematization, the development of architectural schools, the interaction of architectural traditions, peculiarities of architectural creativity, the formation of innovative concepts, architectural ideas, and their implementation.

The 4th International Conference on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations (AHTI 2022) was attended by 120 participants and 49 articles were accepted for publication in the proceedings. All papers included in this collection underwent careful and thorough review by three independent experts before being selected for publication. Strict submission criteria for the previous volumes in the AHTI series became the reason for the increased interest in the AHTI 2022 conference.

The AHTI 2022 proceedings consist of five parts corresponding to the thematic sessions of the conference: “Session I – History and Theory of Architecture: From Ancient Times to the Early Modern Period”, “Session II – History and Theory of Architecture: From World War I to Contemporary Times”, “Session III – Architectural Heritage Protection and Contemporary Use”, “Session IV – Innovations in Contemporary Architecture”, and “Session V – Architectural Aspects of Town Planning”.

The first part entitled “History and Theory of Architecture: From Ancient Times to the Early Modern Period” includes articles devoted to the understudied aspects of architecture history and introduces new, previously unknown, data on monuments of world architecture.

The second part entitled “History and Theory of Architecture: From World War I to Contemporary Times” includes articles devoted to several questions of the history of architecture of the last 100 years: the period of large-scale construction and architectural development. It reveals the processes of global and regional development of architecture and its most important and less studied evidence and works.

The third part entitled “Architectural Heritage Protection and Contemporary Use” discusses the theory and practice of historical and architectural heritage preservation, including its legal aspects, and issues related to contemporary use, and architectural and structural renovation. The issue of historic cities and the preservation of their historical, architectural and urban-planning identity, have also been considered.

The fourth part entitled “Innovations in Contemporary Architecture” reflects the phenomena and processes caused by the transformations in modern cultural space in the sphere of architecture and urban planning, and discusses new opportunities in architecture provided by digital technologies. The main emphasis is on new types and forms of architectural and artistic expression, and on methods of formation.

The fifth part entitled “Architectural Aspects of Town Planning” comprises articles devoted to the theory and practice of modern architecture and urban planning, and problems and prospects of their development.

We hope that the AHTI 2022 proceedings will contribute to the development of fundamental science in the fields of architecture, urban planning, heritage preservation and art criticism, and that the ideas expressed in the articles will elicit responses in contemporary architectural and urban planning practice and in architectural creative works.

We would like to thank the conference organizers and the members of the scientific committee. Especially, we would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers who worked very hard to review all the papers and suggest improvements, and to the authors for contributing their research results to the conference.

Armen Kazaryan, General Chair of AHTI 2022
Nina Konovalova, Program Chair of AHTI 2022