Ekaterina Mizrokhi

Ekaterina Mizrokhi is an urban and architectural humanities researcher specialising in post-socialist urban transformation. Ekaterina studied Geography and Urban Studies at the University of Toronto, before completing her MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies at the University of Cambridge. Ekaterina’s PhD in Architecture at the University of Cambridge investigated a comprehensive redevelopment scheme that sought to demolish several thousand Soviet-era standardised housing blocks in Moscow. Her research ethnographically explored how the state-led construction of ‘anachronistic space’ changed how residents of these blocks began to relate to their pasts, presents, and futures. Ekaterina is currently an Associates’ Research Fellow at Newnham College.

Ekaterina’s postdoctoral research continues to explore the political stakes of disagreements over time and space in contemporary Russia. In particular, she is interested in alternative representations of standardised housing blocks and how they might challenge popular memorialisations of Soviet history in Russia today. Ekaterina is currently co-editing a special journal issue in Architecture & Culture entitled “Spectres of Time in Space: Tracing Phantom Temporalities with Architectural Methodologies”. Recent publications include a chapter entitled “Moscow’s Khrushchevki in Flux: Reflections on the Imminent Demolition of Twentieth Century Socialist Housing” in the Palgrave MacMillan edited volume on Rethinking Socialist Space in the Twentieth Century, and a journal article entitled “Living in Anachronistic Space: Temporalities of Displacement in Moscow’s Soviet-era Standardised Housing” published in Political Geography.