Ivan Kucina | Hochschule Anhalt (original) (raw)

Papers by Ivan Kucina

Urban planning, Apr 24, 2024

Urban Planning • Volume 9, 2024

The initial source for the continuous reproduction of contradictions in the central area of New B... more The initial source for the continuous reproduction of contradictions in the central area of New Belgrade's urban development was the mismatch between the dynamics of political and economic reforms and the static urban planning system that has been banded to the most progressive but rigid functionalist ideals that could not adapt to the emergent pace of these reforms. Consequently, during the socialist and post-socialist periods, the central area of New Belgrade grew irregularly by developing contradictory fragments rather than totality. The inconsistency of the socialist authorities in completing the capital city according to the urban plan despite political imperatives has continued with the post-socialist governing tendencies towards irregularity, privatization, and commercialization of urban development. A series of individual, short-term, and profitable urban projects that have opposed the socialist urban structure, have reused inherited socialist urban infrastructure as a fertile ground for their growth. More than presenting a new insight into the history of urban development of the central area of New Belgrade, this study uses it as the prime case to disclose the unsustainability of the urban planning system during the socialist past and post-socialist present. An alternative urban planning system would embrace the challenges of the continuous reproduction of contradiction by affirming an institutional network of platforms for collaboration among citizens, urban planners, authorities, and developers.

One of the images that has been frequently used to illustrate the uncontrolled transformation of ... more One of the images that has been frequently used to illustrate the uncontrolled transformation of Belgrade’s urban structure in the 1990s shows two newly built country houses on the top of a five-storey apartment building in the city centre (Fig. 2, p. 50).

Kucina, I. Architecture of Informality. Design as Future Making. edited by Yelavich, S. and Adams, B. New York: Bloomsbury,, 2014

Kucina, I. Citizen Collectives, Co-design and the Unforeseen Future of the Post-Socialist City. Concurrent Urbanities. edited by Miodrag Mitrasinovic. London: Routledge, 2015

Commoning the Uncommonness, Developing Urban Commons in the Post Socialist City. inTrasformazione. nr 52. pp 106-116, Universita degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, 2016

Socialism lasted on a collective belief that centralized political organization has a capacity to... more Socialism lasted on a collective belief that centralized political organization has a capacity to overcome individual interests in the pursuit of common good. However, the illusion of everlasting prosperity toward social equality was brutally shortened during the '90s by the breakdown of socialist state and proceeding regression toward capitalism. The transition process that was prescribed by neoliberal economists has been defined as a shock-therapy . During this period concept of collective emancipation was stripped down and people were left without public support to find their ways to survive collapses of the institutional system, rapid privatizations of the state-owned enterprises, commodification of public services, deregulated market competition, and spectacles of globalization that were glorifying individual freedom and wealth.

Uropean Urbanity. Europan 7 and 8, 2007

Beograd - Den Haag, About the Impossibility of Planning

‘Wild City’ (Divlji grad), one of the most exhausted newspaper headlines in Belgrade, paradoxical... more ‘Wild City’ (Divlji grad), one of the most exhausted newspaper headlines in Belgrade, paradoxically became a rare, if not the only genuine topic of public debate and public interest related to the city and urbanity in general. From the perspective of an architect, it is quite interesting that there is such amount of emotions about a city and about urbanism.The impression is even stronger when com- pared to the context of Western Europe, where the debate is much more fragmented and where urban issues are negotiated among very sharply profiled interest groups. A prominent Belgrade columnist framed it like this: ‘Strangely enough, the cataclysmic reality of Belgrade (it seems that the future of this city is not worth discussing at all) represents the only point of conciliation between the local independent press and its regime foster-sister.’ (B.Tirnanic, Weekly NIN, Belgrade, 27 July 2000) In a unison condemnation throughout society, ‘wildness’ was rarely explicitly linked with the performance of state, the economic embargo or the war. In the criticism given by the press, the dominantly present overtone was set by an expectation of general civil awareness, a feeling of how people should conduct themselves in a city. This civil condemnation mirrored into architectural practice. Architects, as a result, for the most part turned a blind eye on the wild building.This attitude was strengthened by a prevailing traditional-academic climate in which ‘wild building’ is simply not con- sidered an act of architecture, but quite the opposite, the destruction of it.

Books by Ivan Kucina

Kucina, I. Architectures of Informality, DIASeries, Dessau, 2018

Urban planning, Apr 24, 2024

Urban Planning • Volume 9, 2024

The initial source for the continuous reproduction of contradictions in the central area of New B... more The initial source for the continuous reproduction of contradictions in the central area of New Belgrade's urban development was the mismatch between the dynamics of political and economic reforms and the static urban planning system that has been banded to the most progressive but rigid functionalist ideals that could not adapt to the emergent pace of these reforms. Consequently, during the socialist and post-socialist periods, the central area of New Belgrade grew irregularly by developing contradictory fragments rather than totality. The inconsistency of the socialist authorities in completing the capital city according to the urban plan despite political imperatives has continued with the post-socialist governing tendencies towards irregularity, privatization, and commercialization of urban development. A series of individual, short-term, and profitable urban projects that have opposed the socialist urban structure, have reused inherited socialist urban infrastructure as a fertile ground for their growth. More than presenting a new insight into the history of urban development of the central area of New Belgrade, this study uses it as the prime case to disclose the unsustainability of the urban planning system during the socialist past and post-socialist present. An alternative urban planning system would embrace the challenges of the continuous reproduction of contradiction by affirming an institutional network of platforms for collaboration among citizens, urban planners, authorities, and developers.

One of the images that has been frequently used to illustrate the uncontrolled transformation of ... more One of the images that has been frequently used to illustrate the uncontrolled transformation of Belgrade’s urban structure in the 1990s shows two newly built country houses on the top of a five-storey apartment building in the city centre (Fig. 2, p. 50).

Kucina, I. Architecture of Informality. Design as Future Making. edited by Yelavich, S. and Adams, B. New York: Bloomsbury,, 2014

Kucina, I. Citizen Collectives, Co-design and the Unforeseen Future of the Post-Socialist City. Concurrent Urbanities. edited by Miodrag Mitrasinovic. London: Routledge, 2015

Commoning the Uncommonness, Developing Urban Commons in the Post Socialist City. inTrasformazione. nr 52. pp 106-116, Universita degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, 2016

Socialism lasted on a collective belief that centralized political organization has a capacity to... more Socialism lasted on a collective belief that centralized political organization has a capacity to overcome individual interests in the pursuit of common good. However, the illusion of everlasting prosperity toward social equality was brutally shortened during the '90s by the breakdown of socialist state and proceeding regression toward capitalism. The transition process that was prescribed by neoliberal economists has been defined as a shock-therapy . During this period concept of collective emancipation was stripped down and people were left without public support to find their ways to survive collapses of the institutional system, rapid privatizations of the state-owned enterprises, commodification of public services, deregulated market competition, and spectacles of globalization that were glorifying individual freedom and wealth.

Uropean Urbanity. Europan 7 and 8, 2007

Beograd - Den Haag, About the Impossibility of Planning

‘Wild City’ (Divlji grad), one of the most exhausted newspaper headlines in Belgrade, paradoxical... more ‘Wild City’ (Divlji grad), one of the most exhausted newspaper headlines in Belgrade, paradoxically became a rare, if not the only genuine topic of public debate and public interest related to the city and urbanity in general. From the perspective of an architect, it is quite interesting that there is such amount of emotions about a city and about urbanism.The impression is even stronger when com- pared to the context of Western Europe, where the debate is much more fragmented and where urban issues are negotiated among very sharply profiled interest groups. A prominent Belgrade columnist framed it like this: ‘Strangely enough, the cataclysmic reality of Belgrade (it seems that the future of this city is not worth discussing at all) represents the only point of conciliation between the local independent press and its regime foster-sister.’ (B.Tirnanic, Weekly NIN, Belgrade, 27 July 2000) In a unison condemnation throughout society, ‘wildness’ was rarely explicitly linked with the performance of state, the economic embargo or the war. In the criticism given by the press, the dominantly present overtone was set by an expectation of general civil awareness, a feeling of how people should conduct themselves in a city. This civil condemnation mirrored into architectural practice. Architects, as a result, for the most part turned a blind eye on the wild building.This attitude was strengthened by a prevailing traditional-academic climate in which ‘wild building’ is simply not con- sidered an act of architecture, but quite the opposite, the destruction of it.

Kucina, I. Architectures of Informality, DIASeries, Dessau, 2018