The Skopje Project

05/06/2023

Interview with the conference co-organizer Mitesh Dixit of DOMAIN OFFICE in YMHO see link -
https://umno.mk/ako-nekolmu-skopje-mu-e-bizarno/?fbclid=IwAR1oJYuM25oEsEe-LtRntbOTmb7G0e9z-tXTv5vsJBggUMnyH1tVhfZm2-A

Најважниот квалитет на Скопје е неговата способност да се менува, на добро или на лошо. Повеќето градови стануваат жртви на сликата на она што некогаш биле и неверо....

04/06/2023

Interview with the Dean Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM Prof. Dr Ognen Marina in the latest issue of Вечер
see link for details - https://www.vecer.press/%d0%b2%d0%b0%d1%98%d1%81%d0%bc%d0%b0%d0%bd-%d0%bf%d0%be%d1%81%d1%82%d0%b7%d0%b5%d0%bc%d1%98%d0%be%d1%82%d1%80%d0%b5%d1%81%d0%bd%d0%be-%d1%81%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%bf%d1%98%d0%b5-%d0%b3%d0%be-%d0%b2%d0%b8/

02/06/2023

Reinier de Graaf / OMA
June 8th Closing Keynote

Reinier de Graaf of OMA will deliver the closing Keynote Lecture at the Faculty of Architecture University Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje. After his talk, Mitesh Dixit of DOMAIN OFFICE will join Reiner de Graaf for a discussion.

Reinier de Graaf joined OMA in 1996. He is responsible for building and masterplanning projects in Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, including Holland Green in London (completed 2016), the new Timmerhuis in Rotterdam (completed 2015), G-Star Headquarters in Amsterdam (completed 2014), De Rotterdam (completed 2013), and the Norra Tornen residential towers in Stockholm. In 2002, he co-founded AMO, the think tank of OMA, and produced The Image of Europe, an exhibition illustrating the history of the European Union. He has overseen AMO’s increasing involvement in sustainability and energy planning. He is the author of Four Walls and a Roof, The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession.

02/06/2023

KEYNOTE 07 - Lucia Allais
June 8th “The Protective Matrix: Sandbags, Monuments, and Law in the Twentieth Century”

A remarkable protective architecture was invented over the course of the twentieth century, out of the international practice of covering monumental structures with lattices of sandbags. This lecture traces the evolving legal and technical justifications that were given for this protective matrix, including in debates about the “humanization of war”, which are still alive today, in conflicts in Ukraine among other places.

Lucia Allais is an architectural historian of the modern period. She works on architecture and internationalism and institutions; the technical and philosophical history of materials; the participation of buildings and design actors in political culture and global governance; architecture’s historiography, and epistemologies of time. Her first book, Designs of Destruction: The Making of Monuments in the Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2018) described how a new definition of “the monument” arose from various plans within liberal internationalist organizations to protect and salvage famous building from destruction in the middle of the 20th Century. This includes the making of lists and maps of monuments “not to be bombed” by American art historians during World War II, the decolonization of museums in the global South at the hands of organizations from the League of Nations to UNESCO, and the salvage of massive building complexes, such as the temples of Abu Simbel, by global multidisciplinary consortia.

Allais has published a number of essays on related themes. “Architecture and Mediocracy at Unesco House” (in Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions, ed. Massey and Berdgoll, Lars Mueller, 2018) describes the fraught collaborative design of the UNESCO headquarter in Paris. “The Real and the Theoretical, 1968” (in Perspecta 42, 2010) uncovers a never-realized plan for a “Harlem school” produced by Peter Eisenman of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) in collaboration with the New York Urban League. “Rendering: On Experience and Experiments” (in Design Technics, ed. May and Çelik Alexander, Minnesota: 2021) is an essay-length history of rendering informed by changing theories of experience, media and technology. She recently published an introduction to three translations of texts by Alois Riegl, “Mood for Modernists” (in Grey Room 80: Winter 2020).
Columbia GSAPP
Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM
Ognen Marina
Mitesh Dixit

01/06/2023

Prof. Nikos Katsikis's lecture critically examines the “operational landscape mode of production” as the basis of social and ecological inequality and environmental degradation, and explores what would be the trajectories along which an alternative configuration of a planetary urban metabolism could be envisioned. It aims to transcend popular counter-paradigms of reduced footprints and localized hinterlands, highlighting the need for a multiscalar configuration of the resource basis of planetary urbanization which would necessarily include a planetary system of exchange and a global system of production and circulation landscapes. It calls for sketching the basis upon which a truly internationalist new deal could be envisioned, escaping the Capitalocenic model exhausting human and more than human natures in the search for profit, and deconstructing the inherited postcolonial landscape of unequal exchange. Combining theoretical and conceptual exploration, elements of an alternative history of urbanization with geospatial apparatus, this contribution aspires to open up a discussion around the postcapitalist state of the planetary hinterland question.

Katsikis is an urbanist working at the intersection of urbanization theory, design and geospatial analysis. His research seeks to contribute to a geographical understanding of the socio-metabolic relations between agglomerations and their operational landscapes. He is Assistant Professor at the Urbanism Department, TU Delft and Researcher at Urban Theory Lab – Chicago, and ETH, Zurich. Previously he was a Research Tutor at the Royal College of Arts, London and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Luxembourg. He holds a Doctor of Design from Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), where he has served as an Instructor in Urban Planning and Design and was on the editorial board of the New Geographies journal and co-editor of New Geographies 06: Grounding Metabolism (Harvard University Press, 2014).
TU Delft ETH Zürich Urban Theory Lab New Geographies Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM
Ognen Marina Mitesh Dixit

01/06/2023

KEYNOTE 05 - Samia Henni
Thursday, June 8th “Wars, Built and Destroyed Environments”
The second day of the Symposium will begin with Prof. Sami Henni’s lecture “Wars, Built and Destroyed Environments”

In everyday parlance, a war zone suggests a region in which a war is being waged. In the context of international law, a war zone refers to a demarcated area, on land or at sea, within which the right of neutrality is not respected by belligerent nations. After the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, theatres of war became gradually blurred and often undeclared, and the very form of warfare changed significantly. Wars implied not only conventional symmetric models—armed conflicts between two or more military authorities in a defined battlefield—but also asymmetric conflicts and in some cases total wars. Whereas an asymmetric war is an armed struggle among state or non-state powers whose respective military resources are unequal, a total war mobilizes all civilian-associated means and ends. However, symmetric, asymmetric, and total wars do not exclude one another; they frequently interact or coexist. This lecture analyzes the impact of armed conflicts on the built environments in both urban and rural areas.

Samia Henni is a historian, an instructor, and an exhibition maker of the built, destroyed, and imagined environments. Her work addresses questions of archives, colonization, wars, nuclear weapons, deserts, forced displacement, and gender. She teaches history of architecture and urban development at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning. She received her Ph.D. (with distinction, ETH Medal) in the history and theory of architecture from the gta Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She taught at Princeton University’s School of Architecture, ETH Zurich and the Geneva University of Art and Design. She was a Research Associate at Curatorial/Knowledge PhD Program, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London. She received her M.Sc. in Architecture from the Accademia di Archittetura di Mendrisio, Universita della Svizzera Italiana. She also studied at the former Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and at the Ecole polytechnique d’architecture et d’urbanisme in Algiers. Samia was the inaugural Albert Hirschman Chair (2021-22) for Identity Passions Between Europe and the Mediterranean at the Institute for Advanced Study in Marseille; and a Visiting Professor (Fall 2021) at the Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich.
Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning

31/05/2023

Wednesday, June 7th, Sou Fujimoto will deliver the Day 01 Keynote Lecture at the Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM followed by a discussion with Dean of the Faculty of Architecture Skopje, Prof Ognen Marina
Embassy of Japan in North Macedonia

30/05/2023

Keynote 03 - Dirk Van Den Heuvel
June 7th “Building Towards an Open Society: Jaap Bakema and the Geopolitics of Architecture”
Abstract
Prof. Van Den Heuvel’s lecture will examine the work and ideas of the Dutch architect Jaap Bakema (1914-1981) and will resituate his contribution concerning large-scale modernisation of processes mid-twentieth century and post-war and post-disaster city reconstruction, all against the background of Cold War geopolitics and the vicissitudes of the Dutch welfare state, its golden years of the 1960s and later demise in the 1970s.
Dirk van den Heuvel is an Associate Professor with the chair of Architecture & Dwelling at TU Delft. He is also the Head of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam. His expertise is in postwar modern architecture and planning and its related fields of architecture theory and history, cultural studies and discourse analysis. His most recent book publication is ‘Jaap Bakema and the Open Society’ (Archis, 2018).

Van den Heuvel is an editor of the publication series DASH – Delft Architectural Studies on Housing, the architecture theory journal Footprint, and the architecture research journal VLC Arquitectura. He was also an editor of the Dutch journal OASE (1993-1999).
Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM bk.tudelft TU Delft Nieuwe Instituut

30/05/2023

KEYNOTE 04 - Konstantinos Tsiambaos
June 7th “Doxiadis’s Data-Drivenness”
Prof. Tsiambaos’s lecture will refer to the introduction and development of the science of Ekistics during the 1940s to highlight it as a theory and practice based on data to explain its implementation in the master planning of post-earthquake Skopje by Doxiadis Associates (DA). The talk will focus on how the reconstruction of Skopje as a technical endeavour with various economic, demographic, social, and cultural aspects allowed DA to launch an array of data analytics tools and methods developed and tested through the years in other projects around the world, from Accra to Islamabad and from Athens to Detroit.

Kostas Tsiambaos is an architect, Associate Professor in History & Theory of Architecture at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University in Athens (NTUA). He is Chair of do.co.mo.mo. Greece. He studied in Athens (NTUA) and New York (GSAPP Columbia University). His research has been published in international journals (The Journal of Architecture, ARQ, Architectural Histories, AΡΕΝΑ JAR) and collective volumes. His recent books include From Doxiadis’ Theory to Pikionis’ Work: Reflections of Antiquity in Modern Architecture (London & New York: Routledge, 2018 and 2020). In the fall semester of 2019-2020, he was a Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellow at Princeton University. Currently, he is working on a collective volume on animals in 20th-century architecture.
National Technical University of Athens Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM Ognen Marina

30/05/2023

Keynote 02 - Ines Tolic
June 7th “Ernest Weissmann’s World City”
Prof. Tolic’s talk will illustrate the profound impact of Ernest Weissmann’s role in the reconstruction of Skopje after the 1963 earthquake. In the first place, it aims to present the fundamental contribution of Ernest Weissmann to Skopje’s reconstruction, shifting the focus from Kenzo Tange’s project, which has too often monopolized scholars’ attention, to the one envisioned by Weissmann. By doing so, the second goal of my presentation is to highlight the universal meaning of Skopje’s reconstruction and its hoped-for transformation into an epicentre of knowledge or, as Weissmann would put it, into a “world city” Finally, by reframing the narrative in such way, the goal of this presentation is to challenge consolidated paradigms – such as centre/periphery, local/global, past/future – stressing the importance of Skopje for both the history and the historiography of contemporary architecture and urban design.

Prof. Tolic graduated in Architecture (2004) from the University IUAV and received a PhD in the History of Architecture and Urban History (2009) at the School of Advanced Studies in Venice. Her dissertation, dealing with the reconstruction of Skopje after the earthquake of 1963, was published in 2011. She has also written about post-war architecture and urban design in Japan (Milan 2008 and 2009), as well as about contemporary architecture in South Africa, understood as a reflection of a transitional process which began with the rise to power by Nelson Mandela (2010). Between 2010 and 2012, she collaborated with the international research project Unfinished Modernizations, Architecture and urban planning in Former Yugoslavia and its successor states, sponsored by the EU Culture 2007-2013 program. Furthermore, between 2010 and 2014, she was engaged in the Visualizing Venice project, promoted by the IUAV University in Venice, Duke University in Durham (NC), and Fondazione Venezia. Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM Ognen Marina

30/05/2023

Keynote 01 - Zhongjie Lin
June 7th “City And Ruins”
Kenzo Tange’s Plan for the reconstruction of Skopje represented the continuation and the transition of the architect’s exploration of the future urban form for expanding metropolises. It reiterated his approach to urban structuring that had informed his 1950 plan for the rebuilding of Hiroshima and the 1960 Tokyo Bay project, yet carefully inserted the recreated and symbolized concepts of the monument and urban core, ideas that he had previously criticized. Two threads of investigation that he had long engaged in manifested: the study and reinterpretation of national and regional traditions and the theory of Metabolism as utopian speculation of future urban form. These two distinctive architectural discourses merged at Skopje to resurrect a modern metropolis by reorganizing its mobility, flexibility, and regenerative growth. Prof. Lin’s talk will examine the plan for Skopje as a manifestation of Metabolism’s utopian urbanism and link it to contemporary practices of city building to address its implications and dilemmas.

Prof. Zhongjie Lin is a scholar and practitioner of urbanism. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of City and Regional Planning and Head of Urban Design Concentration at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. He is also a co-founding director of Futurepolis, an awarding-winning international planning and design consulting firm. Dr Lin’s research focuses on urban design, ecological urbanism, utopianism, Asian architecture and urbanism. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Urban Design in the Global Perspective (2006), Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement (2010), The Making of a Chinese Model New Town (2012), Vertical Urbanism (2018), and Rio de Janeiro (2019). In 2022, He co-curated the exhibition “Building in China: A Century of Dialogues on Modern Architecture.” In addition, he is completing a new book examining China’s contemporary urbanization through the lens of its massive new town movement.

Dr Lin is a recipient of many awards, including the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (2012), Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), and Abe Fellowship (2014). In addition, his work was recognized with three publications or research grants from the Graham Foundation in 2008, 2011, and 2019 and a New Researcher Award by the Architectural Research Centers Consortium in 2012. PennPraxis Архитектонски факултет Скопје / Faculty of Architecture, UKIM Ognen Marina University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design