July 13, 2018 - The exhibition of Yugoslav architecture from 1948 to 1980, which includes more than 400 drawings, models, photographs and film footage from city archives and private and museum collections from the whole region, is being opened in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition “According to the concrete utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948 – 1980” is already opened to the members of the Museum and it will be opened to the public starting July 15th.
This is the first presentation of outstanding works by leading architects of socialist Yugoslavia to the American and international public.
"The exhibition highlights a significant, but still insufficiently explored, opus of modernist architecture, whose advanced thinking has an impact even today," representatives of the Museum said.
The exhibition explores, as pointed out, the extraordinary work of Yugoslav architects that caused international interest during the 45 years of existence of the SFRY. The architecture created in that period, from skyscrapers built in the style of international practice to brutalist "social capacitors", manifested radical diversity, hybridism, and idealism that characterized the Yugoslav state itself, according to the announcement of the exhibition.
The exhibition explores a wide range of topics - from the process of urbanization of a large scale, through technological experiments and their use in everyday life, consumerism, monuments, and memorialization, to the global reach of Yugoslav architecture. The exhibition also includes the works of the most important Yugoslav architects, including Bogdan Bogdanović (1922-2010), Juraj Neidhardt (1901-1979), Svetlana Kana Radević (1937-2000), Edvard Ravnikar (1907-1993), Vjenceslav Richter (1917-2002) and Milica Šterić (1914-1998).
From the sculptural interior of the White Mosque in rural Bosnia, through the reconstruction of Skopje after the earthquake (1963), designed by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, to New Belgrade, the exhibition explores the unique range of forms and forms of Yugoslav architecture and its character.
The Museum of Modern Art recalled that Yugoslavia positioned between the capitalist West and the Socialist East avoided the Cold War division by selecting the "third road" as one of the leading non-aligned Movement countries, established in 1961 because it formally did not belong to any block. At the same time, according to the Museum of Modern Art, the Yugoslav government has begun accelerated modernization and construction, with the aim of economic development, improvement of the daily life of citizens and affirmation of diversity of cultures in the region.
The exhibition is organized by the main curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art Martina Stierli, the guest curator is Vladimir Kulić, and the assistant Anna Kats, also from the Department of Architecture and Design the Museum.
The exhibition includes the accompanying program and it will be open until January 13, 2019.
