Architects as Managers of Change in Croatia

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Architects as Managers of Change in Croatia

Transition in a social sense is a change from one system into another. Globally, the modernist paradigm changed to the post-modern with the disappearance of central authorities, universal dogmas and foundational ethics. The post-modern world introduced fragmentation, instability, indeterminacy and insecurity. Architectural responses to these conditions occurred as a 'semantic nightmare' of the post-modern discourse and/or the attempted completion of 'the modern project'.

In Croatia, transition occurred as a quantum leap from the Socialist, one-party, state-controlled market system, into a capitalist, parliamentary democratic, free-market system. In 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, disappeared the raison d'etre of the 'buffer zone', known as Yugoslavia. A Pandora's box of political nightmares was opened. Yugoslavia disintegrated into 5 new independent nation-states: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia- Herzegovinia, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The surprising national optimism and excitement upon which these states were formed quickly back-fired. The war, in the beginning of the 1990s, completely destroyed the Croatian economy, especially the tourist industry. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the mid-1990s, transformed Croatia into an enormous refugee camp. The compounded effects of war and transition of the political and economic system, in fact, placed Croatia amongst the levels of Third World countries. A corresponding cultural transition, returned Croatia to the romantic nationalist sentiments of the mid-19th century. The transitional field within the Croatian architectural profession of the 1990s was widened to surrealistic di...

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...e tectonic intelligence of the construction of ellipsoid steel frames and the steel mesh presents the contribution by the member of the design team, (first name) Sabljak. The bridge and its immediate surroundings, with the views on the Bay of Kvarner and the highway, indicates a new type of optimism that Randic-Turato are able to implement.

Within a transition, Randic-Turato are generating endless strategies and scenarios for activity. Their work is a link with Rijeka's cultural and architectural production of the last century as well as anticipating and embracing the nature of a transitional context. The production of meaning, as the premise of existence and operation of the office, has to transform in the future into the production of urban and architectural culture on the regional level. In spite of everything, Randic-Turato possess the energy for that task.

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