Challenging Neglect and Indifference: The Case of Skopje

Abstract

In 1963, Skopje suffered catastrophic earthquake that destroyed 75-80% of its built fund. The aftermath of the earthquake propelled unprecedented international solidarity. The process led by UN was high in ambition – to promote Skopje as an exemplary global city. The previously unknown, peripheral city became field of global cooperation and laboratory for testing latest urban and architectural paradigms. The process that in its highest intensity lasted less than 20 years, resulted with the most powerful segment of Skopje’s recent architectural history. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Skopje entered long and highly uncertain process of “transition”. Along with other challenges, linked to political, economic, social and cultural changes, this process launched dramatic and controversial spatial transformations. Already aged, to certain extent obsolete, systematically neglected, threatened with brutal alteration of their authentic appearance, many exemplary buildings of Skopje post-earthquake renewal could be considered “heritage in danger”. This paper intends to demonstrate how something that usually firmly belongs in the realm of professional preservation could become an act of individual “architectural activism”. By presenting several initiatives, we would like to show how one can act when the social and aesthetic values of the heritage are under attack. With a strong belief that the buildings are significant enough to be considered a heritage, we conducted “experimental preservation” - an extensive process of collecting archival material, research as a base for future valorisation, series of public presentations, exhibitions and publications intended to initiate discussion within the profession itself as well to raise the public awareness about the values of Skopje’s 20th Century Heritage.