THE HOUSES OF YUGOSLAV CULTURE

Text topic: Changes

Text author: Драгана Константиновић

This paper deals with the Houses of Culture in former Yugoslavia, which are anticipated as a reflection of concepts and goals of (new) Yugoslav culture, in the complex socio-political context of the Yugoslav socialist community. It builds on the assumption that a specific type of institution – House of Culture – was taken for a basic unit for developing infrastructural network for culture, and refined into specific, almost autochthone modalities. These modalities represent specific contributions within autochton type, considering its programme concept, its multiple socio-political functions and its aspirations to reflect particularities of the Yugoslav cultural project. Such a broadly set framework of Yugoslav culture opened up an equally wide interpretative field for architecture, through which the belonging to European (avant-garde) cultural space was emphasized. These works of architecture, whether just competition entries or actual buildings, have condensed the newly established social values through creative programme and visual researches of social realities and their reflections on the body of architecture. Various approaches of different authors, found between the two ends of the spectrum, the experiment and the social realm, have left behind some authentic layered works and designs, which are paradigmatic for understanding the relations of social realms, culture and architecture.