Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948–1980 maps a remarkable and largely overlooked chapter in postwar modernism — the architectural output of a socialist state that refused alignment with either Cold War bloc, producing buildings of startling ambition and formal invention.
About This Book
Published in conjunction with a major exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this volume brings serious scholarly attention to Yugoslav architecture for the first time at this scale. Positioned as a self-managing socialist "Third Way," Yugoslavia fostered a design culture that drew freely on international modernist currents while remaining rooted in local building traditions — producing an urbanism that was neither Eastern Bloc conformism nor Western liberal individualism. The book also traces Yugoslavia's significant role as an exporter of modernist architecture to postcolonial Africa and the Middle East, expanding the frame of architectural modernism well beyond Europe. New scholarship, unpublished archival materials, and a portfolio of contemporary photography make this an indispensable resource for historians, architects, and anyone tracing the global reach of postwar design.
Key Features
- 228 pages of new scholarship, archival materials, and contemporary architectural photography by Valentin Jeck
- Edited by Martino Stierli and Vladimir Kulić
- Published by The Museum of Modern Art, 2018
What You'll Discover
- How Yugoslav architects synthesised international modernist movements with local building traditions under a unique self-managing socialist framework
- The spatial and ideological logic of the "Third Way" — an architectural culture shaped by deliberate distance from both Soviet and Western models
- Yugoslavia's underexamined role as a major exporter of modernist architecture to postcolonial Africa and the Middle East
- Key projects and figures of the era contextualised through unpublished archival materials and fresh critical analysis
About the Author
Martino Stierli and Vladimir Kulić are the editors of this volume, which brings together new scholarship on Yugoslav architectural modernism. Their collaboration underpins the MoMA exhibition of the same name, situating Yugoslav architecture within a broader global history of postwar modernism.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 228
- Dimensions: 24 x 30.5 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781633450516
- Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architectural historians, practitioners interested in socialist modernism and postcolonial urbanism, students of twentieth-century design history, and anyone tracing the global dimensions of the modern movement.