EXHIBITION
Fitting Abstraction presents Croatian architecture from the period 1914-2014. It explores how architecture, through its disciplinary autonomy, responded to the intense conditions of globally impending modernity.
Reacting to the premise of modernism being detrimental to national architectural features‘In 1914, it made sense to talk about a ‘Chinese’ architecture, a ‘Swiss’ architecture, an ‘Indian’ architecture. One hundred years later, under the influence of wars, diverse political regimes, different states of development, national and international architectural movements, individual talents, friendships, random personal trajectories and technological developments, architectures that were once specific and local have become interchangeable and global. National identity has seemingly been sacrificed to modernity.’
Rem Koolhaas, it offers a
different perspective, the one that reveals modernism not as a necessary eliminator
of national characteristics, but rather as a possible active and engaged agent in
the construction of both cultural and architectural identities. Fitting Abstraction
examines and presents specific circumstances, evolution, and effects of such complex processes.
Croatia’s small yet varied territory always spanned
diverse geographiesLošinj Island,
Risnjak Mountain,
Zagorje Hills,
Slavonia Plain
and
comprised distinct cultural spheresZagreb,
Early 20th Century
Trogir,
Early 20th Century
. Throughout history, this dense social,
cultural and political quilt persisted without a unified architectural expression.
It nevertheless shared a pronounced common proclivity towards abstraction, formal
reduction, pragmatism, rationality, and
specific design dexterity derived from an
Croatian pre-Romanesque Churches
enduring scarcity of means. The lack in the material realm, induced by demanding
historical circumstances, was regularly compensated by a heightened attention to
conceptual spatial thinking.
The period addressed with this exhibition coincides with the crucial hundred years
of Croatian history: that of the country’s gradual cultural emancipation and political
unification. If 1914 marked the beginning of the dissolution of a strong multinational
frame that most of the country had been immersed in for several centuries, that of the
Habsburg Empire
, 2014 represents the beginning of yet another immersion – of Croatia’s
accession to the European Union, a multinational congregation of an entirely different character
.
Throughout this turbulent period, Croatia underwent a whole series of frequent and
radical shifts of political, ideological, and socio-economic frames
. Yet, where political
field suffered radical changes and instability, architecture demonstrated a convincing
resilience and constancy; where political conversions were abrupt and quick, building was
persistent and slow. The fundaments for effective identity-formation thus greatly resided
in the realm of architecture. Within it, the close overlap of certain formal and procedural
features explains an apparent paradox: the continuity of local architectural culture was
preserved not by defying modernism, but precisely by embracing itZagreb, 1930s
Split, 1930s
; with its own abstract
forms and autonomous procedural apparatus, modernism overlapped with the inherited local
reductive architectural tendencies and therefore served as a genuine common platform for
the alignment of disparate architectural vernaculars. Modernism was thus suitably coopted
to form a cohesive cultural identity.
Fitting Abstraction exhibits eight fundamental attributes of Croatian architecture culture
that persist as decisive qualities throughout the hundred year period
Poetic Reduction
Latent Rhetoric
Sublimating The Regional
Meeting The International
Engaging The Landscape
Interacting With Nature
Modernizing Infills
Reinforcing The City
Generating The Social
Implanting Public Space
Artistic Alignments
Emancipating Modernity
Open Systems
Frozen Algorithms
Enacting Experiment
Extending Scopes
, constructing the
platform for the effective identity formation. These thematic lines are presented through
selected architectural case studies. Yet the analytical focus is directed not on their particular
forms, but rather on their autonomous architectural operations by which they perform and accomplish
the targeted values. Assessed in this way, such autonomous operations transcend their immediate
formal features and assume wider social and cultural relevance, affirming their potential to actively
participate in directing the imminent modernity in a desired way. All eight of these decisive thematic
lines rely precisely on modernist conceptual and instrumental apparatus, proving modernism as an effective
bearer of national architectural identity. Fitting Abstraction thus demonstrates the ways in which
modernism reinforced an existing design culture that extended its historical trajectories up to the present day.
SUBLIMATING THE REGIONAL
GENERATING THE SOCIAL
POETIC REDUCTION
MODERNIZING INFILLS
