Monday, May 2, 2011

Retro-Futuristic Monuments in Ex-Yugoslavia


As a child of the former Yugoslavia (now Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.), I would like to present some amazing retro-futuristic monuments in my motherland. The structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place (Tjentište, Kozara, Kadinjača), and where concentration camps stood (Jasenovac, Niš).


The monuments were designed to convey the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic. Sculptors include Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few. Bogdan Bogdanović and Gradimir Medaković were the architects.

In the 1980s, the monuments attracted millions of visitors per year, especially young pioneers for their "patriotic education." After the Republic dissolved in early 1990s, they were completely abandoned and their symbolic meanings faded away.























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