Regional identity and conceptual depth in the creativity of modern Kazakh architects-philosophers: Dialogue between form, image and meaning

Abstract

The creativity of Kazakh architects has varied from seeking innovation during the Soviet era to the identification of national and regional characteristics during the years of independence. Among Kazakhstan’s many talented architects, masters such as Bek Ibrayev and Saken Narynov occupy a special niche, acted as both builders and conceptual thinkers and philosophers. They embodied in their projects a deep synthesis of form, image, meaning and cultural context. Architects with developed cultural reflection, as carriers of local identity, used architectural space as a philosophical statement, expressing ideas about time, memory and human experience. The aim of the research is to analyze and identify the distinctive features of the architectural heritage of B. Ibrayev and S. Narynov, revealing the approaches and conceptual depth of their work, which determined their role as architect-philosophers in shaping the regional architectural identity. The methodology is based on a comprehensive approach that includes field research, architectural and compositional analysis, and semantic interpretation of completed projects by B. Ibrayev and S. Narynov. The material and spatial characteristics of architectural objects were taken into account, as well as their intellectual and symbolic content, reflecting the authors’ ideas and their correlation with regional identity. The comparative study was conducted to identify ways of interpreting traditional forms, images and archetypes in contemporary architectural practice. As a result, the key techniques of form creation and semantic transformation of each architect were identified, contributing to the formation of a new architectural language that combines cultural memory and local identity. For contemporary practice in Kazakhstan, the significance of this research lies in the fact that, using the examples of projects by B. Ibrayev and S. Narynov, the Kazakh architectural context is learning to perceive regionalism not as stylistic adaptation, but as a unique philosophical and cultural strategy. This strategy is based on the deep archetypes of nomadic civilization, the mythopoetic of space, and the sacred geography of the steppe.