Between Myth and Utopia

Between Myth and Utopia is an exhibition that was the culmination of a six-week intensive travel course across the Balkan peninsula. In this exhibition, students investigated three typologies in which architecture was employed as infrastructure in the former Yugoslavia: New Belgrade, Serbia; Seaside resorts along the Adriatic coast of Croatia; and Tange’s Masterplan in Skopje, Macedonia. Employing forensics, analysis, journalism, and physical documentation, students developed a methodology to separate and examine the elements which define the layers of the built environment. Students simultaneously unpacked the physical conditions of a defined site and examined the dominant ideologies that have created both its hard and soft contours.

This chapter focuses on the term and architectural element ‘slab’ and its range of normative, semi-normative, and non-normative uses across the Balkans and how its role in Yugoslavian architecture then creates an ideology.

Completed while studying at Syracuse University

Type: Research / Exhibition

Location: Faculty of Architecture, SS. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Macedonia

Date: Summer, 2019

Editor in Chief, Mitesh Dixit

Editors: Lawry Boyer, Ava Helm

Copy Editor: Lindsey Brown

Research Coordinator: Tamara Marović

Exhibition Designers: Lawry Boyer, Lindsey Brown, Margaret Frank, Ava Helm, Tota Hunter, Julia Ocejo Vivanco

Instructors: Mitesh Dixit, Tamara Marović

Researchers: Daria Agapitova, Lawry Boyer, Lindsey Brown, Jing Ying Chin, Junzhi Deng, Ximeng Luo, Margaret Frank, Ava Helm, Tota Hunter, Ecenur Menki, Eve Miserlian, Julia Ocejo Vivanco, Houston Parke, Shihui Zhu