Nedovršene Modernizacije | Unfinished modernisations
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 characterized 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.
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 characterized 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.
