My friend and fellow photographer Wolfgang Thaler has just finished a 5 year project of photographs documenting the traces of former Yugoslavia’s socialist architecture.
The Mediatory Architectures of Socialist Yugoslavia
Socialist Yugoslavia was a country suspended between civilizations, political systems, and Cold War blocs. It produced a remarkable body of modern architecture, which similarly defies easy classification. This book explores the historical “in-betweenness” of Yugoslav modernism and the various strategies architects used to mediate their own position between the different—sometimes directly opposed—concepts of life, culture, practice, and time. The best among them created uniquely syncretic spaces and buildings that blurred the lines between the established categories of modernism. Wolfgang Thaler’s photos capture the richness and complexity of these projects, resilient in face of their often melancholy state today. Jovis Verlag
Together with Maroje Mrduljas and Vladimir Kulic, the book is as much social/cultural study as it is photographic documentation. To bring some of his images out of the role of illustration, Wolfgang has created an edit for a special edition book/print which, if you are (like me) a fan of Mepyuk, then you will be excited to find Wolfgang’s timeless style of showing these phenomenal spaces as remaining symbols of a unique time of social and political era.
The special edition consists of a 30×40 cm print plus book for 130,- Euros,
limited to an edition of 50.
To order. contact Wolfgang directly.
There are 19 to choose from, best is to see the pdf here for the entire selection, these are just some of my favorites…
In case you are in Vienna, there is a lecture tomorrow night at 7 pm.
Architekturzentrum Wien, Halle F3
Museumsquartier