Modulverantwortung: Prof. Dr. Oliver Dufner
Lehrteam: Prof. Dr. Oliver Dufner, Dr. Marcel Bächtiger
Assistant: Tobias Furter

(Un)intended monuments: Architecture and Urbanscapes in the Balkans

Aware of current political and social trends, we examine the architecture and the urban spaces of Skopje, Pristina, and Tirana that have been shaped by the so-called „turbo-urbanism.“ In doing so, we confront the informally created with the historical representative buildings of the Yugoslavian regime.

The influence of communist or socialist economic systems is still partially visible in the urban spaces of cities in the western Balkan. On the one hand, with the dissolution of these systems, extensive construction activities have emerged. At that time, new neoliberal economic principles encountered weak state institutions, and the construction sector offered opportunities to generate significant income quickly in cities affected by war destruction and/or migration flows. This led to the informalization of urban spaces – a phenomenon that continues to evolve to this day. On the other hand, the architectural witnesses of the past have not disappeared, but still characterise the image of the cities with their sometimes monumental gestures.

Based on the reading of historical and theoretical texts as well as various lectures, we ask about the changing meanings of architecture and speculate whether the cities of the Balkans, strongly transformed over the last twenty years, might represent the European city of the future.

From March 17. to 22. we will visit the cities of Skopje, Pristina, and Tirana as part of the seminar trip. Various experts will accompany us or prepare us for the journey through several inputs.