About us

This is who we are

New Architectural Heritage is an initiative that brings together various experts to research, promote and strategically develop architecture created after World War II.

We insist on complex stories, contextual interventions and a multi-layered urban environment.
We believe in heritage as an integral part of contemporary life, in conservation as a resource for sustainable development and in architecture as a social responsibility.

This is how we work

We work across several fields – architecture, design, heritage conservation, urban development, cultural management and communications.

We seek algorithms that do not stop but instead allow development and bring together benefits for the wider public and property owners as well as for the city and the building as a piece of architectural significance. 

We are convinced that conserving our recent architectural heritage will provide multilayered and diverse contemporary cities – a necessary prerequisite for their economic, social and cultural development.

These are our aims

0 1

Development and conservation of significant examples from architectural periods that are not yet widely recognised as carrying cultural significance

0 2

Identifying realistic tools for their appropriate development

0 3

Devising a set of robust principles to guide future interventions, lead to appropriate interventions, and eventually to the positive development of the built environment.

Team

Our team

Aneta
Vasileva

Aneta is an architectral historian, critic, and writer. She has a PhD in history and theory of architecture, and her expertise lies in postwar architecture and the conservation of architectural heritage. She teaches at the Department for History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Architecture, Civil Engieering and Geodesy in Sofia.

Aneta is a member of ICOMOS Bulgaria and DOCOMOMO Bulgaria, the International Science Committee for Education & Training of DOCOMOMO International. She is a co-founder of WhAT Association and GRADOSCOPE.

Emilia
Kaleva

Emilia is an architect engaged in heritage conservation. She has completed a postgraduate course at ICCROM (The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property). She teaches at the Department for History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia. Her PhD topic is on the conservation of Bulgarian postwar architectural heritage.

Emilia is a consultant at ICOMOS for world heritage, member of the International Science Committee of ICOMOS for 20th Century Heritage (ISC20C), and member of DOCOMOMO Bulgaria.

Dayana
Nikolova

Dayana is an architect with experience in spatial and strategic planning and in the conservation of the built environment of the recent and most recent past. She graduated with a Masters in Architecture from the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in 2012. In 2016 she completed a Masters in Architectural Theory and Critique, part of the Department of History and Theory. In 2018 she was part of Goethe Institute Bulgaria and New Bulgarian University’s academy for cultural management.

Dayana is part of the Sofiaplan Municipal Enterprise and is co-founder of the Association for Urban Policies (a generator for ideas, strategies, and policies for improving the built environment).

Viktoriya
Dimitrova 

Viktoriya has a Masters in Architecture with a specialism in architectural conservation. Her Diploma project was on the adaptive resue of the dilapidated socialist housing estate Zone B5 in Sofia and won the Prof. Peyo Berbenliev Award for Excellence. Viktoriya has a strong interest in dissonant heritage and Bulgarian socialist architecture. 

Georgi
Marhov

Georgi has a Masters in Architecture with a specialism in architectural conservation. His Diploma project called ‘A Centre for Contested Heritage’ explored the site of the now-demolished memorial ‘1300 Years of Bulgaria’ in Sofia and was awarded a High Commendation in the Prof. Peyo Berbenliev Award. Georgi has written many articles on architecture and has a particular interest in Bulgarian architecture of the second part of the twentieth century.

Zekie
Emin

Zekie graduated with a Masters in Architecture with a specialism in architectural conservation as part of the Department for History and Theory. She is curious about modern architecture and the relationships between architecture, politics, society and culture. She believes that understanding and conserving architectural heritage occurs through dialogues with society, which is why she reflects and writes about architecture as Chief Editor at stroiinfo.com.

Iva
Hasamska

Iva has a Masters in Architecture with a specialism in architectural conservation. Her Diploma project was on the adaptive reuse of the Sunny Beach Communist labour camp near the town of Lovech. It was awarded First Prize in ICOMOS Bulgaria’s annual Diploma Show, and was nominated for the RIBA Silver Medal Award, and for the YTAA – EU Mies Award. 

Nikola
Yanev

Nikola is the Chair of DOCOMOMO Bulgaria. He has a Masters in Architecture from the University of Sheffield and works in the fields of conservation and adaptive reuse in the United Kingdom. His Master’s dissertation studied dissonant heritage in Bulgaria and with his Master’s design project he won the Philip Webb Award from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.

Teodora
Madanska

Teodora has a Masters in Architecture with a specialism in architectural conservation. She received two nominations for the RIBA President’s Medals Awards for the duration of her studies. Her Diploma project explores the relationship between architecture and power and investigates a series of party/government residences in Bulgaria.

Collaborators

Lilyana Todorova, Yordan Yordanov, Mustafa Hayrulov, Gergana Ilieva, Raya Marinova, Vanya Dimitrova, Ivan Peev, Alexander Ignatov, Rumen Dzhagarov, Magdalena Andonova, Zlatimira Simeonova, Anabel Ivanova, Yoana Kalomenska

Talks

Interviews with us

Dayana Nikolova, Emilia Kaleva, Aneta Vasileva speaking to GRADAT Magazine.

– In the beginning of 2020 Sofiaplan and the Centre for Research and Design at the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy commenced a project for identifying significant architectural sites built within the extents of Sofia Municipality after 1944. Would you please present a short summary of the aims and objectives of this research project?

Read the entire article (in Bulgarian)

Where many see just a building, Aneta Vasileva sees volumes of history. She teaches at UACEG, she is a co-founder of the platform for architectural critique WhATA and she currently develops the New Architectural Heritage Foundation whose inaugural event is the exhibition TOTALPROEKT: The Invisible Architecture of Modernity hosted at the ‘Toplocentrala’ Regional Centre for Contemporary Arts in Sofia.

Read the entire article (in Bulgarian)

Loznitsa has significant architectural features evident from the overall masterplanning of the town to the smallest details visible in its buildings. It is important that all of this is conserved as a testament of its time for future generations to come, says in an interview for the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) the architect Zekie Emin.

Since the end of June images from the town were showcased as one of six case studies at the exhibition TOTALPROEKT: The Invisible Architecture of Modernity, which presents Bulgarian architectre from the period 1945-1989 in a new and interactive way.

Read the entire article (in Bulgarian)

  • What drew you towards researching architectural heritage from the past century?

It came from one very impactful encounter with it, more precisely an encounter with a particularly dissonant example of heritage – the now well-known Buzludzha monument. In fact, it is renowed today in Bulgaria and abroad with its photogenic semi-ruinous image, however, at that time 15 years ago, the monument had fallen into (or was intentially left to) decay. I was striken by the contrast that existed over there…

Read the entire article (in Bulgarian)

  • What was your first encounter with Bauhaus? 

I will not surprise you by saying that it was in university. The first book that I bought as an architecture student was a small blue square-sized book of 59 pages, which all modelling tutors were talking about, this book was in fact the Pedagogical Sketchbook of Paul Klee…

Read the entire article (in Bulgarian)

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