Beauty and the Beast: Brutalist architecture in former Yugoslavia

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Beauty and the Beast: Brutalist architecture in the former Yugoslavia

Eyesore or iconic architecture? Brutalism blossomed under Yugoslavia's communist leader, Marshal Tito. The epic concrete housing towers and civic buildings are still in use today and have become Instagram stars.

Aviation Museum, Belgrade

Josip Broz Tito became leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslav in 1945 in the aftermath of World War Two. Faced with the task of rebuilding the cities devastated during the war, Tito often opted to create a concrete utopia of the future via massive Brutalist structures that would symbolize a virile new communist state. The above Aviation Museum was built in Belgrade in 1969.

Bizarre memorial

This memorial built on the highest peak of the Petrova Gora mountain range in central Croatia is in danger of falling into disrepair. The monument to the uprising of the people of Kordun and Banija celebrates the resistance of the civilian population against the Nazi regime.

Industrial aesthetics

The New York Museum of Modern Art dedicated an exhibition to photographs to Brutalist architecture in 2018, in effect rehabilitating a style of building that many would rather see disappear. The Clinical Hospital Dubrava building in the Croatian capital Zagreb has decidedly industrial overtones. The clinic has a trauma center and functions as a teaching hospital.

War memorial

The concrete monument on the Sutjeska River in Bosnia and Herzegovina commemorates one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War. Known as the Tjentiste memorial, it commemorates the killing of 7,000 members of the Yugoslav army by Nazis bombers in 1943. Like other Brutalist relics in the region, the memorial was in a state of disrepair until it was renovated in 2018.

Huge cupola

Hall 1 of the Belgrade Fair grounds was opened to the public in 1957 — at the time, its dome was the largest in the world. It remains a testimony to the architectural adventurism of the postwar modernists, another massive Brutalist structure that has piqued the interest of Instagram users globally, with #brutalism offering fresh perspectives on these 20th century concrete monoliths.

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