Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture

The Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture, a cultural institution on the international level, was designed to combine contemporary art, state-of-the-art technologies, innovative educational programs and creative laboratories in one environment. The cultural center will incorporate a multi-functional public space with an exhibition hall, an event-space for lectures and meetups, for music or theatre performances, areas for media and a modern library, offices for cultural management, areas for artistic workshops, a cafe and a hostel.

A team of professional architects, historians and cultural specialists suggested an integrated approach, aiming to preserve the originality and authenticity, identity and historical value of the building. Having studied its long history, they have developed a holistic concept that complies with the existing complex. It safeguards its historical planning and spatial structure in order to give a second life to the place with regard to the needs of modern local society. Revitalization of this building into the Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture reveals its potential and prospects for sustainable development.

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Dnipro is an ideal city for contemporary art and culture. Abandoned houses, abandoned industrial facilities, “frozen” construction, architectural ruins, Soviet-era buildings – all this creates a conventional foundation for cultural development and an inexhaustible potential for working with the urban environment. The Kultura Medialna team is working on the emergence of a cultural platform in Dnipro under the roof of which will gather those who develop urban creative movements and contemporary art in the city and beyond. For the second year, together with a consortium of Ukrainian and international partners, they are working on the creation and launch of the Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture. The transformation of an abandoned 19th-century house in a decentralized and post-industrial city, initiated and created by grassroots initiatives, is a significant case of cultural, artistic, and urban movement in Ukraine.

The Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture is happy to share with TEH members our experience in transforming an abandoned building into a center of cultural development, international cooperation, creative industries, intercultural dialogue, a platform for working with the local cultural context, the formation of the urban creative community, exchange of experience and activism.