Alex Bykov is an architect and researcher whose academic and project-based work focuses on the study of 20th-century Ukrainian architectural heritage. His research is grounded in an interdisciplinary approach that combines methods of visual analysis and historical-archival investigation, including architectural photography, the identification, preservation, and systematization of rare archival materials, as well as the use of oral history methods in working with authors and participants of architectural projects.
An important tool for presenting the results of his research is curatorial and exhibition practice. Alex Bykov acts as both author and curator, developing his own research-based artistic initiatives as well as projects by other architects and artists. Among the key projects is a series of exhibitions dedicated to Soviet modernism in Ukraine, initiated in 2015 with the project Superstructure (in collaboration with Oleksandr Burlaka and Oleksii Radynski), which defined the subsequent trajectory of his research.
Alongside this, Alex Bykov develops publishing activities as an important component of scholarly communication. He is the co-author of Soviet Modernism, Brutalism, Postmodernism. Buildings and Structures in Ukraine 1955–1991 (in collaboration with Ievgeniia Gubkina; Osnovy Publishing and DOM Publishers, 2019) and Orthodox Chic (in collaboration with Oleksandr Burlaka and Sasha Kurmaz; Osnovy Publishing, 2020). He also served as curator and editor of the thematic issue of 5.6 — Architecture. Community. Time (Viktor Marushchenko School of Photography, 2018), dedicated to the problem of uncontrolled urban development in Ukraine.
In the field of education, Alex Bykov holds a teaching position at the Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, where he leads his own studio Alex Bykov Dream_Team and teaches a course in architectural photography, integrating his research practice into the educational process.
Among his recent projects is his participation as a co-curator of the exhibition Retrotopia (in collaboration with Polina Baitsym) in Berlin (2022–2023), as well as his contribution to the development of the Ukrainian Pavilion within the March On project at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 (in collaboration with Bogdana Kosmina, Uliana Dzhurliak and Ivan Protasov), demonstrating the integration of his research into an international academic and cultural context.
