ABSTRACT
Using the example of the construction of two major architectural projects – the short-lived national capital city of the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Kazakh ASSR) Kyzylorda and the House of Government of the Kazakh ASSR in Almaty – the article investigates the development of Soviet architecture in Kazakhstan and links it to the political changes of the 1920–30s. It considers how the building process in Kazakhstan changed under the growing influence of the central Soviet authorities and became dependent on Moscow architectural organizations and construction companies. Furthermore, the article demonstrates the attempts to represent the Kazakh national character in traditionalist and Constructivist architecture associated with the nationalist sentiment of the national communists in the Soviet Kazakh government. It argues that the growing influence of the central Soviet authorities on construction in Kazakhstan furthered the adoption of Constructivist architecture as the main style of the new Soviet Kazakhstan.
