Modernism In-Between

Socialist Yugoslavia was a country suspended between traditional cultures, competing concepts of modernization, and rivaling Cold War blocs. As a result, it produced a diverse body of architecture that defies easy classification and blurs the lines between the established categories of modernism. This book explores the historical "in-betweenness" of Yugoslav modernism and the strategies architects used to mediate different - sometimes directly opposed - concepts of culture and architecture. Surveyed here is a wide range of topics: from city building and state representation, to the typologies of everyday life. Also discussed is the work of Yugoslavia's leading architects, who transformed their in-betweenness into a new quality: Edvard Ravnikar's seamless blending of such varied influences as Jože Plečnik, Le Corbusier, and Otto Wagner; Bogdan Bogdanović's war memorials, which filtered deep-seated cultural archetypes through the lens of Surrealism; Juraj Neidhardt's efforts at forging a modern identity for Bosnia based on the vernacular Ottoman heritage; and Vjenceslav Richter's neo-avant-garde experiments, which provided some of the most convincing representations of Yugoslav socialism. Wolfgang Thaler's photographs document these and many other stand-out achievements.