Kharkiv’s Gosprom building, damaged by a Russian bomb, is the subject of special attention by UNESCO
12 December 2024 12:56
The participants of the 19th meeting of the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to apply the mechanism of “ad hoc monitoring” to the House of State Industry in Kharkiv on an emergency basis. This was reported by the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
Thus, as the ministry emphasized, Ukraine will become the first country to apply this mechanism. This will allow to properly record the damage to the site, coordinate measures to restore the monument, and have evidence for further prosecution of Russian war criminals.
Commenting on the decision, Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications Mykola Tochytskyi noted that while Russia continues to target cultural heritage sites, disregarding international humanitarian law, Ukraine is stepping up its efforts to use UNESCO mechanisms to maximize the protection and preservation of cultural property in times of war.
The minister also expressed confidence that the results of the “special monitoring” mission will help to record the destruction and send the findings to the International Criminal Court.
As you know, on October 28, Derzhprom was hit by a high-explosive bomb. The building was hit a second time by air strikes on the night of November 8. The building of Derzhprom in Kharkiv suffered significant damage and destruction. A powerful explosion that occurred in the seventh entrance on the third floor level caused the collapse of the ceiling of the third and second floors, as well as part of the facade and roof. The blast wave also damaged the structures of other entrances. According to the decision of the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property of September 7, 2023, the Derzhprom Building is on the International List of Cultural Property under enhanced protection.
What is the Kharkiv Derzhprom building known for?
“Derzhprom, the State Industrial Building, is an architectural monument in Kharkiv,” Suspilne notes. “Derzhprom was built in 1925-1928, when Kharkiv was the capital of the Ukrainian SSR. The building was one of the first skyscrapers. Its height reached 63 meters (108 meters with a television tower added in 1955), and the area of office space was 60 thousand square meters.
The building consists of three parts in the shape of the letter H, connected by bridges that create a single complex. Its architects, Sergey Serafimov, Samuel Kravets, and Mark Felger, wanted to emphasize the functionality and use of modern industrial materials with their project. According to Serafimov, in the project of Derzhprom, he tried “to show a factory, a plant that became a palace, as a part of the organized world.”
This is the first building in the world to be constructed exclusively of reinforced concrete without a metal frame, which was a technical breakthrough for the time. In total, the construction took 1,315 railroad cars of cement, 9,000 tons of metal, 2,700 railroad cars of granite, and 40,000 square meters of glass.
How the “ad hoc monitoring” mechanism is used
The Ad hoc monitoring mechanism involves focusing monitoring on a specific case and is a kind of unscheduled control. It is used in various industries. In particular, it is used by temporary special missions, representatives, organizations, committees or working groups created to perform special tasks. Arbitration tribunals and international commercial arbitration may be established on an ad hoc basis (to consider one specific dispute or disputes under one contract). The Ukrainian parliament sometimes adopts special laws using the same regime.
