Modern Architecture in the Balkans: From Le Corbusier to Tito

This book is an attempt to comprehend the reasons for modernity in the Balkans, beginning with the famous Journey to the East undertaken by Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in 1911; a journey during which the future Le Corbusier was the first to appreciate the originality of the region’s architecture. However, the modernity that developed after the Second World War would not have existed without the figure of Josip Broz Tito. With political and cultural acumen, this partisan and charismatic leader of Yugoslavia promoted a process of “socialist modernisation” that looked both east and west, while holding fast to a faith in a political ideology interpreted with freedom and originality.

Le Corbusier and Tito are therefore the two central figures of this book. While there is no direct relationship between them, this book presents a series of intersecting relations, beginning with the interpretation of Yugoslavia’s cities and architecture, to trace a path that gives this region an unquestionably central position in the international architectural panorama of the twentieth century.