The Landscape_inProgress Laboratory, of the Mediterranea University, launches the 99FILES project as an open call (aimed to students, professors, artists, professionals, etc.) to develop a reflection on the modern and brutalist architectural heritage, particularly in the Balkan countries.
The goal is to fill a void that the hegemony of Western architectural culture has generated in the second half of the twentieth century, marginalizing a rich architectural production, that is still not protected, and today is at the risk of being canceled as a result of a transformation processes, particularly in the area of the former Yugoslavia.
The initiative intends to stimulate a different point of observation of this heritage, releasing it from the entailed negative connotation from the ideological legacies, while stimulating different interpretative directions of an important string in the architectural thought.
The Balkan cities are cases still to be investigated through new visions capable of recognizing the role of this important architectural production that can be considered as the last urban utopia of the twentieth century.
The focus of the first edition is the city of Skopje, capital of Macedonia, where the signs of this process are the most evident. The city is configured as an emblematic case for the contemporary architecture and the dynamics that cross the Balkan countries.
The scope of the Call is to construct a an Operative Archive that collects drawings, photos, videos and texts regarding the modern and brutalist architectural and cultural heritage of the Balkan countries.
The materials selected by anonymous reviewers will be published in a VOLUME and exhibited in a traveling exhibition starting from MoCa-Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje.