Exclusive Cities Inclusive Buildings

Abstract

The twentieth century was a period of modernization of the city of Skopje. From traditional Balkan town of XIX century, Skopje city became the subject of various modernization strategies. Various controversial concepts of modernization were subsequently promoted and inscribed on urban ground. But while the city of the twentieth century was the subject of exclusive functional, symbolic and spatial orders, their presence in the fragmented urban texture becomes a field of different tactics of transformations. Indeed the buildings became the scene of diverse and divergent user’s tactics of transformation. Throughout the life of a residential building from the residential neighborhood of the post-World War II reconstruction of the city Skopje, we need to trace the transformation of the different stages of life of the building from socialist beginnings to the post-socialist transition. In that way we can distinguish alternative housing scenarios, based on local sociocultural patterns and everyday practices. Thus, this article will examine the relationship between exclusive urban visions and inclusive domestic spaces, and the transition from exclusive schemes of dwelling units in an inclusive framework of a multitude of customized tactics.