The Museum of Modern Art will explore the architecture of the former Yugoslavia with
Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948– 1980, the first major US exhibition to study the remarkable body of work that sparked international interest during the 45 years of the country’s existence.
On view from July 15, 2018, through January 13, 2019, the exhibition will include more than 400 drawings, models, photographs, and film reels culled from an array of municipal archives, family-held collections, and museums across the region, introducing the exceptional built work of socialist Yugoslavia’s leading architects to an international audience for the first time.
Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980 is organized by Martino Stierli, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, and Vladimir Kulić, guest curator, with Anna Kats, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.
Yugoslavia’s architects responded to contradictory demands and influences, developing a postwar architecture both in line with and distinct from the design approaches seen elsewhere in Europe and beyond. Situated
between the capitalist West and the socialist East, Yugoslavia circumvented the
Cold War dichotomy, instead spearheading a “third way” through its leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement, an organization of countries formed in 1961 not formally aligned with any major power bloc.
Simultaneously, the government undertook rapid modernization at home with an array of building efforts that sought to grow the economy, improve the daily lives of Yugoslav citizens, and engage with the diverse cultures in the region. The state expanded these efforts beyond its borders, advancing urbanization and building projects throughout the developing world, notably in other Non-Aligned countries in Africa and the Middle East, where
Yugoslavia cultivated political connections and construction contracts.
The architecture that emerged—from
International Style skyscrapers to Brutalist “social condensers”—is a manifestation of the radical pluralism, hybridity, and idealism that characterized the Yugoslav state itself. Exploring themes of large-scale urbanization, technological experimentation and its application in everyday life, consumerism, monuments and memorialization, and the global reach of Yugoslav architecture,
Toward a Concrete Utopia will feature work by important architects, including Bogdan Bogdanović, Juraj Neidhardt, Svetlana Kana Radević, Edvard Ravnikar, Vjenceslav Richter, and Milica Šterić.
From the sculptural interior of the
White Mosque in rural Bosnia, to the post-earthquake reconstruction of the city of Skopje based on Kenzo Tange’s Metabolist design, to the new town of New Belgrade with its expressive large-scale housing blocks and civic buildings, the exhibition will 2 examine the unique range of forms and modes of production in Yugoslav architecture and its distinct yet multifaceted character.
The exhibition will be accompanied by one of the first in-depth publications to showcase this important and thus-far understudied body of modernist architecture. The catalogue will include scholarly essays, new photographs by Valentin Jeck commissioned for the exhibition, and archival reproductions.
