Yugoslav Brutalism in the spotlight at MoMA
July 18, 2018
Yugoslavia was nestled between the capitalist West and the socialist East. The country's location influenced its architects immensely. As New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which is hosting the exhibition "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980," wrote on their website: "The architecture that emerged – from International Style skyscrapers to Brutalist 'social condensers' – is a manifestation of the radical diversity, hybridity, and idealism that characterized the Yugoslav state itself."
This is the first time the work of socialist Yugoslavia's leading architects is being shown to an international audience, with the exhibition focusing on "themes of large-scale urbanization, technology in everyday life, consumerism, monuments and memorialization."
The show includes hundreds of drawings, photographs and film reels that reflect everything from the interior of the White Mosque in rural Bosnia to the post-earthquake reconstruction of the city of Skopje or the new town of New Belgrade with its large-scale housing blocks.
The exhibition runs through January 13, 2019.
Click through our picture gallery above for more on Brutalist architecture around the world.