Revelation at MoMA: Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980
Who knew?!! During the years 1948 to 1980, the now splintered nation of Yugoslavia was producing impressive design at all scales, of which many of us were unaware. While the Modern movement of those Cold War years was celebrating achievements in the “free world,” we detected virtually nothing of distinction occurring in the Communist countries. As an architectural journalist active during most of the exhibition’s years, I was completely surprised by the extent and quality of the work in this MoMA exhibition uncovering the architecture of Yugoslavia. A bit of geopolitical background may help explain how these design achievements came about. The nation of Yugoslavia, pieced together after World War I from fragments of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire, came under Communist rule at the end of World War II. But in 1948 Marshall Tito, its undisputed leader until his death in 1980, declared the nation’s independence from the Soviet bloc …
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