CROATIA MODERNISM

The modenism is Croatia is out of this world.  That is because it is inspired by authentic socialist modernism.  I said this before a couple of years ago.  And I’m saying it again, now, after just getting back from more travels there.

I’ve never thought about it before, but war has been a way of opening the door for modernism.  Croatia was invaded by the Axis at the beginning of the war, and Germany continued to occupy Zadar until 1944.    The city of Zadar was bombed during WWII by the Allies.  So during the bombing,  much of the historical fabric was destroyed.  And  the Croatians did what everyone else does after a war, they rebuilt everything.

And when they rebuilt, they turned to modernism rather than rebuild things historically.  And this is not simply watered down modernism.  This is the real, authentic thing.  Just look at the photo above:  how could it get any better?  This building should be in every architectural history book every published.  This is Everyday Modernism at it’s best.

The high authenticity of these modernist pieces is a direct result of the socialist architects looking to the source.  And this source was CIAM, or International Congress of Modernist Architecture.  In fact, the second to the last congress was held in Dubrovnick in 1956.  That in itself is a testament to the purity of the modernist sources, and how important well executed modernism was.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the residential apartment blocks were built as free housing for the population.  That’s what you do when you are socialist / communist.  When these were built, Croatia was part of Yugoslavia and was therefore communist.  And it is amazing that all of this architecture for the people was done with such excellence.  Think of the utopic fervor which brought this into existence.  Buildings like this were going to save the world!

This piece borrows from the playbook of both Corb and the Constructivists, and the CIAM gang.  It has a rectilinear plan, with basic blocks of form plugging into other  forms.

There are three horizontal registers.  The roof has a floating plane above it.  The base, while not on pilotis, still has a different expression than the upper two registers.   The end of this form has a regressive massing which is balanced by the sides with the projecting balconies.  What could you really do on those balconies?  Not much but just stand there to take in the fresh air.  Project yourself thru the door and onto the balcony.  Stand there in the sun and smell the ocean for about 90 seconds, feel your spirits lift, and then retreat.

One comrade.  One balcony.  All equal.  All working together.  An architectural facade as a model of a society.

As in all great modernist pieces, it does not respond to the site.  There is no difference of expression of the side that faces the ocean than the side that faces the city.  There is no response to the sun or wind.  But who cares?  This is incredible!  The piece instead creates it’s own logic and therefore it’s own responses, true to the modernist heart.  It may very well respond to it’s designed inhabitants.  The size of the human is expressed by the expression of the balconies.  Then again, it may not.

I wonder if they every took a photo with a human on each balcony?