Skopje

Skopje Brutalism Trail: Rebuilding Social Fabric through Architecture and Performance

Authors

  • Marija Mano Velevska Faculty of Architecture in Skopje
  • Slobodan Velevski Faculty of Architecture in Skopje
  • Aleksandar Staničić Delft University of Technology
  • Blagoja Bajkovski Faculty of Architecture in Skopje
  • Holly Dale Delft University of Technology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/writingplace.8-9.7259

Abstract

The article reflects the city of Skopje from the perspective of the workshop Skopje Brutalist Trail held in late September 2022 as a part of the activities focused on fieldwork within the COST Action Writing Urban Places. The workshop departs from the general topics of brutalist architecture and solidarity, both highly relevant and related to the city and its culture. The idea of the workshop is to offer a new viewpoint by means of civic participation and activism in order to reassess forms of solidarity in the process of community building. The workshop engages creative writing and performing arts to develop urban narratives that link architectural legacy, in-situ findings and memories of people and places, juxtaposing past, present and future narratives. 

Author Biographies

Marija Mano Velevska, Faculty of Architecture in Skopje

Marija Mano Velevska – WG4 – has a PhD in Architecture and is an associate professor at Ss Cyril and Methodius University, Faculty of Architecture in Skopje, N. Macedonia. Besides teaching a course in Architectural Design, she co-leads the master studio in architectural urbanism entitled Growth 2.0. She is the editor and co-author of several books, including Conversations, which embodies a series of interviews with eminent architects and educators. With active participation in numerous workshops, seminars and conferences, concerning both the academia and the practice in architecture, the focus of her work refers to teaching and learning architecture by combining design practice and architecture theory. 

Slobodan Velevski, Faculty of Architecture in Skopje

Slobodan Velevski – Leader, WG4 – is holding a PhD in Architecture and Urbanism. He is an associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Skopje, N. Macedonia. Previously he graduated in Skopje and concluded his master studies at Dessau Institute of Architecture in Germany. In 2018, with Marija Mano Velevska, he co-curated the exhibition ‘Freenigspace’, representing the Republic of Macedonia at the 16th Architectural exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. His academic and design interests are mainly focused on research that explores the scale and complexities of architecture and urban design. 

Aleksandar Staničić, Delft University of Technology

Aleksandar Staničić – WG4 – is an architect and assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of Delft University of Technology. Previously he was a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at Delft University of Technology (2018-2020), a postdoctoral fellow at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT (2017-2018), and a research scholar at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University (2016-2017). His most recent work includes the edited volume War Diaries: Design After the Destruction of Art and Architecture (University of Virginia Press, 2022) and numerous research articles in various journals, including The Journal of Architecture, Footprint and Architecture and Culture. 

Blagoja Bajkovski, Faculty of Architecture in Skopje

Blagoja Bajkovski – WG4 – is a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Architecture at Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. He finished his PhD in Italy at Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria on the topic Operative Atlas of Brutalist Skopje: A Graphic Biography of 15 Architectures. His main research strands developed in the last years are focused on the interdisciplinary approach to Skopje’s brutalist architecture. In 2018 he participated at the 16th architecture exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia with the project SKOPJE DESTRATIFICATION ‘29’65sk14. 

Holly Dale, Delft University of Technology

Holly Dale – WG1 – graduated in 2020 from Delft University of Technology. While at Delft, she researched an alternative ‘open’ architectural approach that encourages intimate narratives to flourish in the city. After graduation, Holly co-founded RARE Collective, a space for interdisciplinary collaborations exploring values within artistic and scientific processes. Holly has worked at leading architectural practices in the UK, Australia and the Netherlands. Currently, she works in Amsterdam with a focus on sustainable design and teaches Architectural Design in the chair of Methods of Analysis and Imagination at Delft University of Technology. Through research projects and teaching within the chair, distinct methods are developed for producing, using and understanding the built environment. 

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Published

2023-11-14

Issue

No. 8-9 (2023): Writing Urban Places: New Narratives for the European City

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Marija Mano Velevska, Slobodan Velevski, Aleksandar Staničić, Blagoja Bajkovski, Holly Dale

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.