Conference Unfinished
Modernizations: Outlining of Tendencies
Zagreb, Croatia, 1-2 Ottobre
L’unità di
ricerca (Architettura in Jugoslavija - 1918-1990
- Luka Skansi e Ines Tolić) partecipa alla conferenza:
Unfinished Modernizations: Outlining of Tendencies
ZAGREB, CROATIA
MOSOR MOVIE THEATER, 1 – 2 October 2010
Unfinished Modernizations: Outlining of Tendencies is a conference
organised by Croatian Architects’ Association that marks the beginning of
the two-year collaboration project Unfinished Modernizations – Between
Utopia and Pragmatism. By presenting the research topics, this kick-off
conference will try to outline the socio-political and cultural context, as
well as historical circumstances that affected the architecture and urban planning
in the region, as well as the divergent directions of their development. This
will help trigger a critical debate about the modernization processes and their
social and cultural effects, on the example of the built environment.
On the first day of conference, esteemed lecturers and guests will set the
historical and theoretical project framework of the theme from the perspective
of their respective disciplines. The lecturers include professor David Harvey
(The City University of New York), a renowned British-American urban geographer
and anthropologists, and one of the most influential theoretician of urban
space in the past few decades, dr. Ljiljana Kolešnik, ( Institute of art
history) art historian from Zagreb who, among other things, made key contribution
to the interpretation of art in the 1950s Croatia within the ideological and
social context, and dr. Dejan Jović, historian from the Stirling
University, an expert in Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav history. Dafne Berc and
Maroje Mrduljaš will host a public interview with theoretician Matko
Meštrović, founder and protagonist of numerous key events and
initiatives in Croatia, like the international movement New Tendencies, Gorgona
art group, or the Center for Industrial Design and with architect Bogdan
Budimirov, who is one of the pioneers of prefabricated construction in the
region.
On the second day of the conference, the research teams participating in
the project will present the themes of their researches, followed by a
discussion about the directions the future collaboration will take.
The conference shall be accompanied by the exhibition Frames of Modernist Heritage
by the Viennese photographer Wolfgang Thaler. In the past two years, he
traveled around former Yugoslavia, photographing socialist period architecture.
His work is a testament to the individual architectural cultures of the
countries of the former Yugoslavia, about the credibility and eloquence of
different architectural languages that were developed on a relatively small and
heterogeneous territory, as a consequence of general modernization processes
and individual poetics. For the first time in one place, Thaler’s
extensive and painstakingly collected photographic data will be shown in one
place. Very subtly and atmospherically it records the current condition and
life of architecture in the region. The exhibition is also a rather extensive,
perhaps surprising, and completely subjective view of the exciting and
extremely rich body of modernist and post-modernist architecture in former
Yugoslavia that has never before been coherently presented or systematically
processed.
1 October, Mosor Movie Theater
5pm – 5.30pm
Presentation of the project Unfinished Modernizations: Between Utopia and
Pragmatism
Maroje Mrduljaš, Vladimir Kulić (project founders)
5.30pm – 6.30pm
Dejan Jović (University Stirling, Scotland)
6.30pm – 7.30pm
Ljiljana Kolešnik
(Institute of art history, Zagreb)
7.30pm – 8.30pm
Public interview: Matko Meštrović, Bogdan Budimirov
8.30pm – 9.30pm
David Harvey
(The City University of New York)
2 October, Mosor Movie Theater
10 am – 2 pm
Presentation and introduction to the 14 research teams
2 pm – 3 pm
Break
3 pm – 4 pm
Discussion
8 pm Galerija Vladimir Nazor
Opening of the exhibition Frames of Modernist Heritage by Wolfgang Thaler