[ARCHITECTURAL MODERNISM IN YUGOSLAVIA] Collection of fifty-five Yugoslav publications on architecture and urban development, 1940s–1980s.

A complete list is available on request. Item #55464

Spanning half a century of modernist architecture, this collection captures the architectural and urban development of Yugoslavia from the period of immediate post-WWII rebuilding, to the rapid construction in the 1960s, and the peak of modular construction and prefabricated housing in the 1970s and 1980s. Some projects in the collection evoke Mies van der Rohe’s fluid space design, such as the buildings in Bloc 61of New Belgrade designed by architects Darko and Milenija Marušić, while the prefabricated structural system of pillars and beams developed by the Institute of Materials of Serbia (IMS), commonly used in Yugoslavia and exported abroad, was designed “allowing for the application of Le Corbusier’s 5 points of modern architecture in the massive construction of social housing” (See: Jelena Prokopljevic, “Do not throw concrete blocks! Social and Public Housing in New Belgrade”, Fusion Journal, no. 6, 2015). The collection captures nearly every aspect of architecture and urban planning publishing, including volumes with urban development plans, construction company trade catalogues, publications of architectural competitions, exhibition brochures, theoretical publications, as well as architectural monographs dedicated to specific public buildings, monuments, or celebrated architects. All volumes are richly illustrated, most with maps, plans, architectural drawings, and photographs, many in color.

Included are the publications of general plans for cities such as Belgrade (Serbia), Klanjec, Zagreb (Croatia), Ljubljana, Maribor (Slovenia), some with foldout maps. Architectural albums dedicated to specific building projects include the National Library of the Republic of Serbia, Hotel Intercontinental (Belgrade), Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, the City Trade Center in Skopje, as well as a plan for the campus of the Islamic University of Niger supported by Yugoslavia. One album, containing the architectural plans for the Museum of the Revolution of the Peoples and Nationalities of Yugoslavia, designed by the visionary Croatian architect and artist Vjenceslav Richter, captures a project that was started in 1978 but never completed, with the building site eventually abandoned and the project existing in this album only. Theoretical texts on architecture and urban planning include three volumes by Nikola Dobrović, head architect for the city of Belgrade and director of the Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Serbia. Monographs on major modernist architects such as Milan Mihelič, and Radovan Miščević are also included in the collection.

Of special interest are catalogs published by military construction companies, showcasing neighbourhood plans and layouts of housing built for military families, as well as plans for large military infrastructure projects. Possibly due to their sensitive nature, none of these catalogs are held by any libraries. Similarly, industry catalogues published by semi-commercial construction companies such as Osnova 25, KMG Trudbenik, and RAD Belgrade, promoting the sale of specific apartment buildings, or highlighting signature projects are not held by any libraries, likely because they were considered commercial literature. A rejection of planned and commercial aspects of architecture is captured in a 1975 illustrated catalog for an exhibition “Self-made architecture” on vernacular architecture in Yugoslavia, hosted by the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade, a hub of conceptualist and neo-avant-garde in this period. Similarly, a call for more organic forms in urban and architectural design is presented in a kind of architectural research artist book, Bio–Urbanizam by an unknown author.

Most recently, this period in Yugoslav architecture was featured in the 2019 MoMA exhibition Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, with many of the architects and projects in this collection discussed also in the exhibit and catalog (See Martino Stierli and Vladimir Kulic et. al. Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, 2018).

Price: €12,500.00

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