Final Exhibition - Umetnostna galerija Maribor
Unfinished Modernisations 5/05/2012
Photo by Sandro Lendler
CONFERENCE: SPACES OF UNFINISHED MODERNISATIONS: ACTIONS AND REACTIONS
Project: Unfinished modernisations: between utopia and pragmatism – architecture and urban design in the former Yugoslavia and the successor countries
SPLIT, October 7-8, 2011
Dom mladih – Multimedia Culture Centre, Split
The conference Spaces of Unfinished Modernisations: Actions and Reactions is the fourth in a series of conferences that are a part of the two-year (2010-2012) international research project called Unfinished Modernisations: Between Utopia and Pragmatism – Architecture and Urbanism in the Former Yugoslavia and the Successor Countries. The project investigates the production of the built environment within the social, economic and cultural context of socialist Yugoslavia and the reflections of these processes in today’s independent countries after the breakdown of the former state.
After conferences in Zagreb, Skopje and Belgrade, participants of the project in Split will present and bring together the results of all the previous research, looking to the final exhibition of the project in Maribor in February 2012. The fourteen research projects carried out in the context of the project have brought together over thirty researchers from the space of the former Yugoslavia, who, through a wide range of themes, have attempted to discern and critically interpret architectural and urban design and planning models and processes that represented a cultural and social contribution to processes of modernisation, and to test out the ways in which the inheritance of modernisation continued to be developed or deconstructed in transitional and post-transitional conditions.
Like all the conferences to date, this too will devote an important part of its work to the history of local building. The Split conference will focus on the history of development and planning on the Adriatic coast; two pubic interviews will be held with architects and urban planners who took part, in the time of the former Yugoslavia, in the planning
and designing of various tasks on the Adriatic coast: from housing, via major public projects, to tourist infrastructure. The public interview with Vladimir Braco Mušić and Dinko Kovačić will present prime figures of one of the most interesting urban operations in Croatia in the period of socialism, that of Split 3. The discussion will take in the planning premises, the ways in which they were applied within the social context of socialism, the general reception of modern urban campaigns and the situation after the collapse of the former state and the fate of urban planning and design today. The public interview with Matija Salaj and Silvio Novak (Studio 3LHD) will focus on tourist development and planning as generators of the economic and also urban development that marked the modernisation of the coastline and affected, and continue to affect, the whole social dynamics of the coastal region. To be discussed are the achievements of tourist industry architecture formerly and today, the circumstances of building and the perhaps idealistic notion that a tourist complex need not be an enclave but can be an open and integral part of the urban space, which is a burning topic of today.
The conference will be closed by lectures of prominent guests Darovan Tušek (professor, Architecture Faculty, Split), Tom Avermaete (professor of TU Delft) and Dietmar Steiner (director, Architekturzentrum, Vienna).
Two exhibitions will be opened, and will constitute part of the conference. An exhibition of photographs called Frames of Unfinished Modernisations by Austrian photographer Wolfgang Thaler will show 80 photographs of architecture of the socialist period from the former Yugoslavia. His work is a testimony of the specific architectural cultures of the countries of the former Yugoslavia, of the persuasivness and eloquence of the different architectural languages that developed on a relatively small and heterogeneous territory as consequence of universal modernising processes as well as of individual poetics. The exhibition is a relatively wide and entirely subjective view on the exciting and exceptionally rich body of modern and postmodern architecture in the former Yugoslavia that has never been integrally presented or systematically processed.
The exhibition Unfinished Modernisations: Between Utopia and Pragmatism presents 14 researches that are the hub of the project and that attempt to answer certain questions. What kind of spaces did the socialist modernisation of the former Yugoslavia produce? What has happened with these spaces since the collapse of the common state and the disappearance of the socialist system? The focus of the exhibition is on the physical space – the production of cities, one of the basic resources of socialist modernisation – and the roles that architecture and urban design had in this production.
Unfinished Modernisations: Between Utopia and Pragmatism is a two-year research project (2010-2012) . It is part of the programme Culture 2007-2013, supported by the European Union. Along with the Association of Croatian Architects, which launched and is the leader of the project, the partners in the project are the Institute for Contemporary Architecture (Zagreb), Trajekt (Ljubljana), the Fine Arts Gallery (Maribor) the Association of Architects of Belgrade and the Skopje Coalition for Sustainable Development. The project explores the production of the built environment within the social, economic and cultural context of socialist Yugoslavia and the reflections of these processes in today’s independent states, after the collapse of the former state. The investigations endeavour to discern and critically interpret the architectural and urban design models and processes that represent a social and cultural contribution to modernisation processes, as well as to test out the ways in which the heritage of modernisation has been continued to be developed or deconstructed in the transitional and post-transitional circumstances.
The activities of the project along with research involving 14 research teams from the successor countries of Yugoslavia include the conferences that will be held in all the countries in the project (in Zagreb, Skopje, Belgrade, Split, Ljubljana), exhibitions, publications and Internet sites. The final exhibition at which the results of the project will be presented will be held in Maribor, European culture capital 2012.
Project leaders are Vladimir Kulić (University of Florida) and Maroje Mrduljaš (Architecture Faculty, University of Zagreb).
The project is financially supported by the EU Culture Programme for 2007-2013, the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), the Erste Stiftung, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the Ministry of Culture, Information and the Information Society of the Republic of Serbia, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Venue: Dom mladih – Multimedia Culture Centre, Split, October 7 – 8.
THURSDAY, October 6
8 p.m. – Opening of the exhibition of photographs Frames of Unfinished Modernisations by the Austrian photographer Wolfgang Thaler.
FRIDAY, October 7
6 p.m. – 7 p.m. – Opening of the exhibition Unfinished Modernisations: Between Utopia and Pragmatism
7 p.m. – 8 p.m. – Public interview with Vladimir Braco Mušić and Dinko Kovačić: Urban Design: From Integral Planning to Laissez Faire: Split 5. (Interviewed by Dafne Berc, Maroje Mrduljaš and Višnja Kukoč)
8 p.m. – 9 p.m. – Public interview with Matija Salaj and Silvio Novak (Studio 3LHD): Tourist Architecture – Incubator of Ideas (Interviewed by Dafne Berc and Maroje Mrduljaš)
SATURDAY, October 8
10 a.m. – 12 noon. Presentations of 14 research teams
12 noon – 6 p.m. – Workshop of research teams with the curators of the final exhibition
6 p.m. – 7 p.m. – Lecture: Darovan Tušek: The Split Architectural Scene in the Process of Modernisation of the 20th century
7 p.m. – 8 p.m. – Lecture: Tom Avermaete: Learning from Split: Team 10 and the Other Architectural Approach to Modernity
8 p.m. – 9 p.m. – Lecture: Dietmar Steiner: Unknown Masterpieces – On the Search for Sovietmodern
evolution of tourist arcadia - structure of research - draft
Unfinished Modernisations 17/08/2011
Click here to download:
The_Evolution_of_Tourist_Landscapes_an_Affordable_Arcadia_short.pdf (10.37 MB)
Conference: Rethinking Socialism: Twenty Years Later
Unfinished Modernisations 28/04/2011
FILM PROGRAM: MYSTERIES OF THE MODERNISM: Images of modernization of the society in Yugoslav cinema MAY 6-8th 2011
BELGRADE, SERBIA
6-8 May 2011
(in collaboration with the Belgrade International Architecture Week - BINA)
RETHINKING SOCIALISM: TWENTY YEARS LATER
Reinterpreting Socialism is the third in the series of conferences on Unfinished Modernisations. After having met in Zagreb and Skopje, the researchers will convene in Belgrade to focus on the socialist period and to offer new interpretations of the relationship between architecture and urban planning, on the one hand, and the model of socialist modernisation, on the other. Discussions will be organized in two panels: on the technologies of socialist urban planning and on the multifaceted relations between architecture and political ideology. In addition, a public interview will be held with the protagonists of socialist construction. The conference will also feature eminent international guests, theorists of modern architecture and culture: Ljiljana Blagojević (Serbia), Hilde Heynen (Belgium), Jerko Denegri (Serbia) i Andreas Ruby (Germany).
Programme:
UNFINISHED MODERNISATION – BETWEEN UTOPIA AND PRAGMATISM
CONFERENCE: RETHINKING SOCIALISM: TWENTY YEARS LATER, MAY 6-7th 2011
FILM PROGRAM: MYSTERIES OF MODERNISM: Images of modernization of the society in Yugoslav cinema, MAY 6-8th 2011
MAY 6th 2011
CULTURAL CENTRE OF BELGRADE AUDITORIUM
10:00 AM - 04:00 PM FILM PROGRAM: MYSTERIES OF MODERNISM: Images of modernization of the society in Yugoslav cinema
DAY 1: Stories from Factories and Scenes from the Lives of Shock Workers
Ivan Rašković and Ružica Sarić, Association of Belgrade Architects
Dinko Tucaković, Yugoslav film archive
Vladimir Kulić i Maroje Mrduljaš, project leaders of Unfinished modernizations – between utopia and pragmatism
LECTURES
05:00 PM Belgrade Architecture Between Cultural Modernity and Social Modernisation
Ljiljana Blagojević (Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade)
05:45 PM Specificities of Postwar Yugoslav Art Space: “Socialist Modernism” from Moderate to Radical Positions
Jerko Denegri (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade)
06:30 - 07:00 PM BREAK
Andreas Ruby (Textbild, Berlin)
07:45 PM Architecture, modernity and socialism. Shifting constellations.
Hilde Heynen (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
08:30 – 09:00 PM DISCUSSION
MAY 7th 2011CULTURAL CENTRE OF BELGRADE AUDITORIUM10:00 AM - 06:00 PM FILM PROGRAM: MYSTERIES OF MODERNISM: Images of modernization of the society in Yugoslav cinema
DAY 2: The last missions of demolition men in cloudsMUSEUM OF YUGOSLAV HISTORY, 6 BOTIĆEVA STREET
12:00 AM – 01:30 PM WORKSHOP: Technology of Socialist Urban Planning: Historical Development and Institutional Critique
Participants: Milica Topalović (Basel, Belgrade), Marko Sančanin (Zagreb), Ivan Kucina (Belgrade)
DISCUSSION
01:30 - 02:15 PM BREAK
Participants: Nika Grabar (Ljubljana), Aleksandar Ignjatović (Belgrade), Vladimir Kulić (Belgrade/USA)
Nika Grabar: Architecture And Language: From Federal To National Without Memory
Aleksandar Ignjatović: Architecture and Legitimization: Architectural Historiography in Socialist Yugoslavia
Vladimir Kulić: Pragmatism Trumps Utopia: Architecture, Ideology, and Representation in Socialist Yugoslavia
DISCUSSION
04:00 - 05:30 PM PUBLIC INTERVIEWS: Protagonists of socialist planningParticipants: Miodrag Braca Ferenčak, Dragomir Dik Manojlović, Branislav Jovin
Moderator: Ivan Kucina
05:30 - 06: PM BREAK
Participants: Mihajlo Mitrović (taped), Darko Marušić, Aleksandar Stjepanović
Moderator: Vladimir Kulić
CONFERENCE CLOSING
MAY 8th 2011CULTURAL CENTRE OF BELGRADE AUDITORIUM10:00 AM - 06:00 PM FILM PROGRAM: MYSTERIES OF MODERNISM: Images of modernization of the society in Yugoslav cinema
DAY 3: Love, Fashion and Saturday Night
- entrance for all programs is free - reserve a seat at: nedovrsenemodernizacije@gmail.com
Conference: Learning from Modernisations
Unfinished Modernisations 9/03/2011
SKOPJE, MACEDONIA
CULTURAL INFORMATIVE CENTRE (SALON 19/19)
1 - 2 April 2011
The Conference Learning from Modernisations, organised by the Coalition for Sustainable Development, forms part of the two-year collaboration project Unfinished Modernisations: Between Utopia and Pragmatism, designed to systematically document and interpret modern architecture, built environments, and social landscapes of the former Yugoslav countries within their broader social contexts.
The built environment in the countries of the former Yugoslavia is essentially characterised by operations carried out after World War II. From their scope and impact, it can be concluded that modernist architecture and urbanism are one of the dominants of the environment that today belong to the register of “historical urban landscape”. But to understand the real achievements of modernist architecture and urbanism, it is necessary to take into account the objectives that preceded their construction, the ways in which they were accepted in its time as well as their status today in the post-socialist system and its values.
The effects and reception of the inheritance of modernisation are changing, the conceptions that were once operational are today infeasible, but the idea of modernity, has the presumption of lasting research, re-examination and tending towards more advanced models, which requires continuity of both practice and critical thinking. But this continuity was broken off or brought seriously into question in all the countries of the former Yugoslavia in the trauma of transition from a socialist to a capitalist system.
At the Conference there will be an endeavour critically to identify the lessons of modernisations and to endorse their productive achievements. Also, reference will be made to new practices in architecture, town planning and the political space that share the ideals and progressive aspirations of historical modernisations, but also improve and update them in order to be able to face up to the contemporary moment.
On the first day of the Conference, esteemed lecturers and guests will present their views about the political aspects of the Yugoslav urbanism during self-managed socialism, and the outcome of that complex reality which clearly shows the initial intentions but also the consequent inability to implement them. The lecturers include Vedran Mimica (Director of the Berlage Institute), and dr.Vlatko Korobar (Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the Faculty of Architecture, Skopje). Divna Pencic will host a public interview with Prof. Georgi Konstantinovski and Arch. Olga Papesh, the doyens in our architecture. The public interview with the new urban activists Aneta Spasoska, Dragan Krstevski and Slavica Chavdarovska from Prva Arhi Brigada (the First Archi Brigade) and Jane Stojanoski, Nevenka, Mancheva and Vesna Mitanoska from Podmladuvanje (Rejuvenation) will be hosted by Biljana Stefanovska
The second day programme will include two panel discussions aimed to raise the questions about progressiveness and architecture, as well as to try to identify the original achievements of modernisation processes and initiate a re-examination of those actions that in various ways proved to be unsuccessful in terms of their basic objective: prosperity for the society. The panel discussions will be followed by a lecture of dr.Lukasz Stanek (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich), a researcher at the Faculty of Architecture and curator of the exhibition PRL™ Export Architecture and Urbanism from Socialist Poland (Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, 2010).
In addition, the Conference will be accompanied by an exhibition of the Borba Federal Award for Architecture. The exhibition will show the winners of the only federal award for architecture in socialist Yugoslavia, presented by the daily newspaper Borba. This prestigious award was the main official benchmark of architectural excellence in former Yugoslavia, but it also reflected and promoted the concept of "brotherhood and unity" and a formation of pan-Yugoslav identity. The aim is to present an insight in the political, social and economic context written by the language of the built environment, but also to provide an opportunity to asses how architectural values of the socialist society fare in today's radically changed conditions. This exhibition will be the first ever that presents all Borba Federal Award winners between 1965 and1990 in one place.
Conference programme:
1 April, Cultural Informative Centre (Salon 19/19)
5pm-5.30pm Registration
5.30pm-6pm
Conference opening
Sonja Damchevska (Coalition for Sustainable Development, Skopje)
About Unfinished Modernisations project
Maroje Mrduljas, (Architectural Faculty, Zagreb)
6pm -10.30pm
Utopian Journeys, Political aspects of Yugoslav urbanism during the self-managed socialism
Vedran Mimica (Berlage Institute)
Grande Travail - Skopje: Something normal or outcome of one heroic time?
Public interview with Prof. Georgi Konstantinovski, Prof. Boris Cipan and Arch. Olga Papesh, hosted by Arch. Divna Pencic
Aerodrom Revisited
Vlatko Korobar (Faculty of Architecture, Skopje)
Re-examining the language of architecture
Public interview with Aneta Spasoska, Dragan Krstevski and Slavica Chavdarovska from Prva Arhi Brigada (the First Archi Brigade) and Jane Stojanoski, Nevenka, Mancheva and Vesna Mitanoska from Podmladuvanje (Rejuvenation) hosted by Arch. Biljana Stefanovska
Discussions
10.30pm Reception
2 April, Cultural Informative Centre (Salon 19/19)
2pm-3pm
Workshop: “Speakers Corner” - project research teams progress
3.30 pm-5pm
Panel discussion: Progressive Architecture?
Panellists:
Emil Jurcan (the Pula group): Project: Rujevac Platforms
Miranda Veljacic and Dinko Peracic (Platform 9.81):
Divna Pencic, Jasna Stefanovska and Biljana Spirkoska: A Quest for Public Space
Guests: Dritan Shutina (Co-Plan, Albania), Besnik Aliaj (University Polis, Albania),
Sandra Kapetanovic (Expeditio, Montenegro)
Moderator: Nebojsa Milikic and Maroje Mrduljas
Discussion
5pm – 6.30pm
Panel discussion: Another Modernity
Panellists:
Elsa Turskusic: The Way from Tradition to Modernity
Dubravka Sekulic: Constructing Non-Alignment: The Sun Never Sets for Energoprojekt
Divna Pencic, Jasna Stefanovska and Biljana Spirkoska: Skopje - The Phoenix city
Guests: Dritan Shutina (Co-Plan, Albania), Soir Dhamo (University Polis, Albania),
Sandra Kapetanovic (Expeditio, Montenegro)
Moderator: Ines Tolic and Maroje Mrduljas
Discussion
6.30pm-8pm
PRL™ Export Architecture and Urbanism from Socialist Poland
Lukasz Stanek (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich)
Discussions
8.30pm
Exhibition Opening: Cultural Informative Centre
Borba Federal Architecture Award: A Pan -Yugoslav Discourse Between Regional Identities
(02-08.04.2011)
Unfinished Modernisations- Between Utopia and Pragmatism is a collaborative, two-year research project on architecture and urban planning. It brings together partners from both institutional and non-institutional sectors from South-Eastern Europe: TrajekT and Maribor Art Gallery (Slovenia), the Croatian Architects’ Society and the Institute for Contemporary Architecture (Croatia), the Belgrade Architects Society (Serbia) and the Coalition for Sustainable Development (Macedonia).
The project is aimed at fostering interdisciplinary research (14 research teams) on the production of built environment in its social, political and cultural contexts. It encompasses the countries that succeeded former Yugoslavia, spanning the period from the inception of the socialist state until today. The topic of the researches is the way in which divergent concepts of modernization conditioned architecture, territorial transformations, and urban phenomena. The project seeks to detect effective, resilient, and socially responsible models of architecture and urban planning. While largely unexplored and lacking appropriate interpretation, many of the models created in the region were original and experimental and may be used as inspiration for a progressive current practise both inside and beyond the regional borders.
Unfinished Modernisations will be carried out through a variety of activities: conferences (Zagreb, Skopje, Beograd, Split, Ljubljana), exhibitions, film festival and publications. All efforts will culminate in a final exhibition in Maribor (Slovenia), the 2012 Cultural Capital of Europe.
The project is supported by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), European Cultural Foundation [ECF], ERSTE Stiftung, Croatian Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia, the City of Skopje, Cultural Informative Centre, Kingdom of the Netherlands, First Archi Brigade, Association of Architects of Macedonia, Trench doo, Tajfa Architects and the daily newspaper Nova Makedonija.
Exhibition: Frames of Modernist Heritage
For the past three years, Wolfgang Thaler has traveled through the region of former Yugoslavia on a quest to photograph the architecture of the socialist period. We, the authors of this text, have navigated him on this journey, guided by our supposed expertise as a critic and a historian of architecture.
Maroje Mrduljaš and Vladimir Kulić
The exhibited photos belong to a larger project on the architecture in socialist Yugoslavia, on which Wolfgang Thaler is working in collaboration with Maroje Mrduljaš and Vladimir Kulić. The project will result in a book, scheduled to come out in the fall 2011.
The show took place at Galerija Vladimir Nazor from Oct. 2nd till 9th 2010 in Zagreb.
