Histories of
Postwar
Architecture

Issue edited by Bojana Videkanic, Vladimir Kulic

In the past decade, architecture and public art of socialist Yugoslavia have drawn considerable attention from scholars, artists, and the popular media. From the mesmerizing World War II memorials to mass housing and tourism facilities, various built manifestations of Yugoslav socialism have been the object of serious scholarship as much as of purely visual fascination. Last years’ exhibition Toward a Concrete Utopia at the Museum of Modern Art in New York gave such interests a definitive seal of legitimacy. It is natural that this initial wave of interest focused predominantly on documenting and mapping the varied architectural and artistic phenomena, as well as situating them vis-à-vis the established historical narratives. We invite contributions that would delve deeper and engage in what anthropologist Clifford Geertz has described as ‘thick descriptions’ of the social processes that have produced and continue to produce the built environments in the region.