Forgotten Monuments of Yugoslavia
These retro-futurist, brutalist concrete structures are relics from another age, comissioned by former Yugoslavian president Tito in the 60s & 70s as monuments to battles from the second world war and sites of concentration camps. Tito and the Partisans managed to liberate Yugoslavia from the Nazis without direct Soviet help. After breaking with Stalin in 1948, Yugoslavia went on to lead the Non-aligned movement & set up ‘worker’s self-management’. For all it’s flaws, those years can’t help but feel a long way from the dark days of the 90s. These structures then, public works of art that used to attract millions of visitors a year now stand as delapidated echoes of the past, their utopian aesthetic, although perhaps bitter-sweet at the time, has faded with their concrete surfaces.
