![]() ![]() ![]() The first suite of rooms is, appropriately, devoted to the rapid urbanization and technological advancement that marked Yugoslavia’s post-war history. Instead, the galleries are divided into four broad categories: Modernization Global Networks Everyday Life and Identities. Organized thematically, rather than chronologically, it avoids the pitfalls of a teleological “rise and fall” model, which is especially tricky in the case of Yugoslavia, whose history is bookended by inter-ethnic atrocities. Toward a Concrete Utopia is packed with masterpieces of daring construction and innovative design, never before exhibited to American audiences. Installation view of Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 15, 2018–Janu(© 2018 The Museum of Modern Art, photo by Martin Seck) The worker collectives of Yugoslavia were thus able to develop a “third way” between Western democracy and Soviet totalitarian communism, one that began to crumble only after Tito’s death in 1980. Politically, Yugoslavia was a unique experiment: although it was unambiguously under Tito’s dictatorship, the country’s official policy was one of “worker self-management,” wherein collectives of workers held significant decision-making power. After a brief alliance with the Soviet Union, a 1948 conflict between Tito and Stalin resulted in the country’s expulsion from the Eastern bloc, allowing this fledgling federation of six republics - Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia (including the regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina), and Slovenia - to pursue a policy of neutrality that it would maintain throughout the Cold War. ![]() However, the exhibition title’s date range (1948–1980), chosen by curators Martino Stierli, Vladimir Kulić, and Anna Kats, is significant. The Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was formed in 1946 after the communist Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito, liberated the area from Nazi rule. Most remarkably, the exhibition focuses on the innovative projects of Yugoslav architects, rather than the ultimately doomed project that was Yugoslavia itself. It introduces audiences to a bold modernist tradition forged by radical, multi-ethnic communities with utopic, collective ambitions. This exceptionally designed show succeeds in distilling the architectural legacy of a country best known, in and outside of it, for falling apart. As such, it is all the more surprising to see MoMA - a beacon of self-congratulatory Western European narratives if there ever was one - do such a terrific job with Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, a runaway triumph of a summer exhibition, which opened to strong critical acclaim in July. Yet culturally they are often viewed as a perpetual Other, a timeless repository of negative characteristics atop which a positive, self-congratulatory image of the Western European is constructed. The Balkans are a region geographically and historically inextricable from Europe, writes Maria Todorova in her 1997 book Imagining the Balkans. Slobodan Milićević, Hotel Croatia, 1971-1973, Cavtat, Croatia (photo courtesy of Jadranski luksuzni hoteli d.d.) ![]()
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