Il rinnovato interesse per l’architettura brutalista balcanica che contrassegna il recente dibattito architettonico non risponde solo alla necessità di colmare un evidente vuoto storiografico, ma ...testimonia l’emergere di un diverso punto di vista verso un patrimonio che ancora oggi rappresenta un’importante ricerca della cultura architettonica e urbana degli anni ’60 e ‘70. A partire da tali presupposti, il contributo approfondisce la città di Skopje, capitale della Macedonia del Nord, assunta come caso paradigmatico del processo di modernizzazione dei paesi dell’ex-Jugoslavia, dove il patrimonio architettonico e culturale costruito dopo il terremoto del ’63 su master plan di Kenzo Tange, oggi rischia di essere cancellato, sottoposto a devastanti trasformazioni derivate dal Piano di rinnovamento urbano (SK2014).
The recent resurgence of interest in Balkan brutalist architecture within the architectural discourse serves a dual purpose. It not only addresses a notable gap in historiography but also reflects a shifting perspective towards a heritage that continues to hold significant cultural and architectural value, particularly in the context of 1960s and 1970s urban and architectural development. This contribution focuses on Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, as an illustrative case study of the modernization efforts in former Yugoslav countries. The city's architectural and cultural legacy, from the post-1963 earthquake reconstruction guided by Kenzo Tange's master plan, currently faces the risk of erasure due to the transformative effects of the Urban Renewal Plan (SK2014).
Spontaneity is a term with a wide range of meanings in the architectural and urban context. In principal, two predominant stereotypes of spontaneity have emerged, one related to “informal” ...architecture, recognized as a condition of material scarcity, and the other to urban actions performed without premeditation, which have been commonly identified as “unplanned”. In many disciplines such as sociology, art, music, literature and natural sciences, spontaneous behaviour is largely viewed as a positive quality, identified as a natural process or act. In an architectural context, however, spontaneity is often associated with poor, deprived and dilapidated urban environments. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to determine the significance of spontaneity in the architectural and urban realm as well as its incorporation in the development of the urban landscape. The first part of this paper will focus on the definition of the term and its recognition in architecture, whereby spontaneity is portrayed as a dynamic, open and unmediated concept. Additionally, taking into account the stereotypical interpretations of spontaneous architecture as informal or unplanned, an epistemological paradox will be revealed in the interaction between the architectural project and its realization. By considering the practical example of Skopje, spontaneity is interpreted as the carrier of the city’s genetic material and hence incorporated in the methodology for the urban development of Skopje city.
On July 26, 1963, a calamitous tremor struck Skopje, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, the southernmost Yugoslav federal unit. The politically nonaligned Yugoslav government ...immediately issued a call for help for its thirdlargest city. The call was initially picked up by the Yugoslav republics, who were then followed by more than 80 states across the globe and a high number of international organizations, all providing help to Skopje and Skopjans in the aftermath of the catastrophe—an episode of human solidarity many contemporaries described as unprecedented. This paper aims to provide an overview of commemorative activities held in Skopje from 1964 to 2020 related to the 1963 Skopje earthquake. I aim to reconstruct both the commemorative events and commemorative narratives about the 1963 Skopje earthquake in Skopje as well as its major memory agents and agencies by triangulating archival materials, media and institutional discourses, and secondary literature. I identify and discuss three commemorative phases, 1963–81, 1981–2000, and 2001–20, and I structure the argument on the multidirectionality of the notion of solidarity in the public domain.
Migration is moving from one place to another place. Extraordinary situations such as wars, epidemics or natural disasters end with the displacement of people and thus their migration, which leads to ...some consequences in terms of both migration sending and receiving sides as well as social and geographical consequences. The 93 War between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian State witnessed a great migration wave. Especially with the loss of Bulgaria after the war, the Muslim people living in Bulgaria became refugee and were settled in Skopje, an important Ottoman sanjak due to its strategic location, by the Ottoman State. The Ottoman Empire used every opportunity for the Bulgarian immigrants to maintain their lives. It implemented price control, which is one of its general economic policies, effectively to that end. As in other regions within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, it continued this control which means narh policy in Skopje, and punished those who acted in the opposite direction. The aim of the study is to evaluate the Skopje during and after the 93 War within the scope of fines of narh.
Waiting for Macedonia Thiessen, llka
Waiting for Macedonia,
c2007, 20061001, 2006, 2000, 2006-10-01, 20070101
eBook
"Thiessen crafts a fine ethnography of a changing society after the fall of socialism and independent nationhood." - Anastasia Karakasidou, Wellesley College
On the early morning of 26 July 1963, a calamitous earthquake struck the Macedonian capital of Skopje, taking the lives of 1,070 people and destroying more than two-thirds of the urban fabric. The ...politically non-aligned Yugoslav government immediately issued a call for help for the earthquake-torn city, which was picked up by more than eighty states across the globe, as well as the United Nations and other international organizations. The domestic authorities, in turn, sought to reimagine post-disaster Skopje as a “City of Solidarity,” a symbol of the trans-bloc cooperation, and an “Open City” – one open to domestic and intrafederal migrations and the epitome of the trans-Yugoslav state-building slogan of “brotherhood and unity.” However, the mounting interethnic tensions in the 1980s, the Yugoslav dissolution, and the 2001 insurgency dramatically shifted the public optics over the post-earthquake urban reconstruction and demographic politics – a narrative which found a particular stronghold in the memory politics of post-2001 Macedonia. The present paper discusses one overlooked episode from the post-earthquake reconstruction of Skopje: from December 1964 to April 1965, the first ever largescale sociological survey was conducted among Skopjans as part of the Polish expert aid and the preparations for the UN-sponsored Skopje Urban Project. Although the published study contained an exclusive portrayal of the economic and demographic features of the local households and revealed some of the major interethnic issues in the city, it never received proper treatment by the authorities and – up to the Yugoslav dissolution – in the scholarship. Thus, in order to present the major outcomes of this cross-national endeavor, I reconstruct the prehistory, the fieldwork and the immediate results of the survey by triangulating a set of archival materials, semi-structured interviews with its Polish and Macedonian conveners, and secondary literature on Skopje’s urban reconstruction. Finally, I argue that the survey – its realization, results and aftermath – can be read as a key to a better understanding of the post-earthquake history of Skopje and the interethnic relations in the city.
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