Norman Foster bids to rebuild Ukraine’s bombed-out Kharkiv

British architect Norman Foster, recognized for restoring the German Reichstag and designing London’s Millennium Bridge, has presented to assist rebuild Ukraine’s heavily warfare-damaged city of Kharkiv, his foundation stated.

The 86-yr- architect had a video meeting with the mayor of Ukraine’s 2d biggest city, Igor Terekhov, on Monday, the Norman Foster Foundation and the town authorities stated.

Foster presented a plan to reconstruct the jap Ukrainian city, acknowledged for its art nouveau architecture, where around a quarter of homes had been destroyed when you consider that Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

The city near the Russian border saw heavy fighting at the start of Moscow’s offensive but always remained under Ukrainian control. It is currently partly blockaded by Russian troops.

Foster vowed to “assemble the best minds with the best planning, architectural, design and engineering skills in the world”, who could start work “immediately” to bring about “the rebirth of the city of Kharkiv”.

He said the team’s first step would be to draw up a master plan for a “city of the future”.

This would “combine the most loved and revered heritage from the past with the most desirable and greenest elements of infrastructure and buildings,” the architect said.

In extracts from their video meeting posted on Facebook by the city authorities on Wednesday, Terekhov told Foster in Russian: “I’ve seen your work and I would really like to see this new, progressive style in our city.

“I would like us to get a city center that would become one of the highlights of Europe.”

He told Foster that around 25 percent of the city’s buildings have been destroyed and it will need new hospitals, schools, and kindergartens as well as offices for its thriving IT sector.

The mayor is particular that each large building, college, and kindergarten inside the town should have bomb shelters.

Residential buildings ought to have underground carparks which can be “dual cause” and maybe transformed for emergency use, he delivered.