Back to Monumentality: Modernisation and memorialisation in Post-war Yugoslavia

Only a few Yugoslav architects attended Post-war CIAMs, whose reception in Yugoslavia was rather lukewarm. This may perhaps suffice to question the role of Yugoslavia in the European and international architectural debate. However, to understand the importance acquired by memorials and monumental architecture in Yugoslavia, contrary to the Modernist orthodoxy, a series of historical events should come into focus. In Yugoslavia, architects internalized monuments as a specific design field, and monumentality as a quality to achieve. Along this line of thoughts, this paper ends by exploring the 1957 architectural design competition for the Jajinci Memorial in Belgrade, arguing that the architectural representation of state socialism, all but univocal, was actually defying stereotypes, and that the generation emerging in the decade 1950-1960 marked a true political, social and cultural watershed.