Project description
Exploring civic spatial practices in Estonian post-Soviet military sites
In the post-Soviet era, military sites have been reopened and revitalised through civic spatial practices. The previously isolated military ecology is gradually evolving into an inclusive more-than-human commons. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the MILITENCE project will explore the architectural history of the Estonian islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, focusing on the transformation of former military enclosures shaped by Soviet occupation (1940-1991) into spaces of civic care and repair, referred to as ‘transitional care’. The project will enrich both eastern European architectural history and the global discourse on care in architecture. It will also investigate how civil societies respond to current geopolitical and climate challenges through the revitalisation of these sites.
Objective
The objective of the MILITENCE research project is to write—for the first time— an architectural history of how military enclosures were re-opened and revived through civic spatial practices in the post-Soviet era. Using as examples the paradigmatic sites of the Estonian islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, which served as strategic frontiers during the Cold War, the study foregrounds how former military enclosures, marked by the imprint of Soviet occupation (1940-1991), are transformed through civic spatial practices of care and repair. The paradoxical closed-off military ecology characterized by preserved biodiversity, toxic contamination, and derelict infrastructures is gradually changed into becoming more-than-human commons. The project proposes to understand these novel civic spatial practices as “transitional care”. It advances two key contributions: firstly, it fills a gap in architectural historiography, which has largely overlooked these sites, despite their profound significance in Eastern Europe and Eurasia; secondly, it rethinks architectural history through the lens of care, analyzing highly invisibilised civic practices of care, repair, maintenance, and reuse. These two innovative approaches complement each other, as they expand Eastern European architectural history specifically, while at the same time enriching the emerging global discourse on care in architecture. As the Estonian case is a paradigmatic example of reviving former military enclosures, the research project establishes a new transferable framework for studying such sites globally. In light of the current geopolitical tensions in the Baltic Sea and the rapid re-militarization along NATO’s Eastern border, this study sheds light on how contemporary civil societies are challenged by the security imperatives calling for preparedness for war and the climate imperatives for cultivating life-sustaining, more-than-human commons through transitional care for former military enclosures.
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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1010 Wien
Austria
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