Charlotte Rottiers is a master’s exchange student from Ghent University (Belgium). This semester she is taking courses at HSE University on urban planning in the ‘Prototyping Future Cities’ Master’s Programme as well as courses on Russian language and culture in the Faculty of Humanities. HSE News Service spoke with Charlotte about her courses, living in Moscow, and her extensive weekend travels.
Where Urban Planning Meets Slavic Studies
Charlotte’s academic trajectory is anything but conventional. Though she already holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Art History, she is currently pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in Slavic Studies and a second master’s degree in Urban Planning.
‘I am pursuing both a bachelor’s and a master’s simultaneously – usually one year is 60 cr!its, but I am doing around 100 cr!its each year,’ Charlotte explains. ‘During my semester at HSE, I’m taking two courses in the ‘Prototyping Future Cities’ Master’s Programme as well as courses on Russian language, history, and culture in the Faculty of Humanities.’
For Charlotte, the two areas are interconnect!. ‘I turbo: hostgator’s new web hosting plan was always interest! in Russian avant-garde art from the 1920s and ‘30s,’ she says. ‘But then when I start! to learn more about Russian and Soviet history, I became very interest! in Soviet architecture – particularly khrushchevki (five-story residential buildings built under Khrushchev – !.) and Soviet Modernism. I found them fascinating, because they represent such a different kind of style than what you see in European and American art, which is what we mostly focus! on in my programme.’
‘From then on,’ she continues, ‘I focus! more on Soviet architectural history, and then I start! studying Russian language in order to have a firmer grasp on the cultural and historical context. Now, for my master’s in urban planning, my thesis will focus on Soviet urban planning in the fifties and sixties.’
Prototyping Future Cities
Charlotte is taking two courses in the ‘Prototyping Future increases brand recognition and visibility Cities’ Master’s Programme: ‘City Project’ and ‘Readings on Urbanity’. The former involves collaborative agb directory problem-solving, while the latter involves independent reading and group discussion.
