Ashgabat’s Postwar Architecture Is Disappearing One Building at a Time
In July, UNESCO added ten examples of Tashkent’s modernist architecture to the World Heritage List, recognizing the buildings and urban complexes that helped reshape the Uzbek capital after the devastating 1966 earthquake. In neighboring Kazakhstan, prominent Soviet-era buildings in Almaty are protected through national and local heritage registers. Turkmenistan has also gained international recognition for ancient sites such as Merv and Nisa, along with traditions of carpet weaving and horse breeding. Yet Ashgabat’s 20th-century architecture remains largely absent from this system of recognition. This has taken on added urgency because some of the buildings that tell the story of modern Ashgabat are already disappearing. [caption id="attachment_56051" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] Image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland[/caption] In August 2026, turkmen.news reported the demolition of several buildings near Ashgabat’s 30th microdistrict. Some were residential blocks. Although some occupants received replacement apartments, other families objected to the relocation terms. In February, the former building of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography on Azadi Street was also demolished. At different times, it had housed a court and the Cultural Heritage Center. An additional floor and marble cladding had already changed its appearance, although some neoclassical elements survived. Once a building has been demolished, its architecture can be studied only through archives and photographs. For Ashgabat, this is particularly significant because much of the city visible today emerged from one of the worst disasters in its history. The City After the Earthquake The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake struck on the night of October 6, destroying or severely damaging much of the city. The capital had to be largely rebuilt. Architectural historian Ruslan Muradov writes that postwar reconstruction began with two-story brick apartment buildings designed to meet higher seismic standards. Their facades featured decorative plasterwork and carved wooden elements on the loggias, or recessed balconies. New residential blocks were organized around shared courtyards and greenery. In the 1950s, the Academy of Sciences, the railway station, Turkmen State University, theaters, administrative buildings, and new housing transformed the city center. From the 1960s through the 1980s, hotels, public buildings, and residential districts added another architectural layer. Behind this architecture was the everyday life of several generations. Courtyards became extensions of apartments, while institutions and shops occupied the ground floors. The postwar city gradually became an ordinary, lived-in urban environment. Its surviving buildings still offer clues to how Ashgabat recovered after 1948. They show how seismic risk changed construction, how the climate influenced housing design, and how planners used the spaces between buildings. But unlike some neighboring capitals, Ashgabat has no publicly available inventory identifying the most significant examples of its postwar architecture. The time available to document them is shrinking. [caption id="attachment_56053" align="alignnone" width="1774"] Image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland[/caption] Turkmenistan’s Heritage Focus Turkmenistan has five properties on the World Heritage List. Ancient Merv, Kunya-Urgench, and the Parthian Fortresses of Nisa make up three of them. The other two are transnational properties, the Silk Roads: Zarafshan-Karakum Corridor and the Cold Winter Deserts of Turan. Another nine sites are on the country’s Tentative...
