The divergent legacies of the Yugoslav architectural heritage: The afterlives of “mesna zaednica” in Taftalidže, Skopje

Ongoing urban developments and contemporary social challenges increase the need for different typologies of new urban and architectural concepts, where the issue of built heritage, specifically in the case of Skopje, has become a vast problem. With the decomposition of the former Yugoslavia states in the 1990s, each of these new states inherited a significant amount of built heritage, including monuments, buildings, landscapes, and infrastructure, constructed according to the prevailing socialist urban-planning and architectural doctrines, and directed within and towards the immediate contexts of the Yugoslav community. Most of this inherited architecture vanished across the ex-Yugoslav space, while a large part of it is still left in a state of limbo.

This article aims to show the socialist built heritage's adaptation, or transformation, into new urban scenarios, using the case of Skopje to reveal more about the relationship between the heritage and the local inhabitants. It will closely examine the socialist architecture and its relation with the local memory communities, or the locals’ memories. More precisely, we will focus on one unique construct that has slowly vanished in the modern-day living: the notion of mesna zaednica. In focusing on this notion in the urban district of Taftalidže, Skopje, we will discuss the means of transposing socialist communal features into the new, post-socialist architectural rhetoric and way of life, as well as engage with various discourses about urban heritage emerging in the urban context. Finally, we will argue in favor of several heritage and urban development theses, which can be applied to the particular case study. The article is part of an ongoing research project that presents its results in English for the first time.