Danilo Bulatovic


  • Tourist estate ‘Montenegro’ in Bečići, Montenegro, 1972. Designed by Pavle Popović and Vasko Đurović [image courtesy of Town Planning Institute, Podgorica, Montenegro]

Revisiting ‘Yugoslav Florida’

THIS THESIS CONSIDERS how the socio-political circumstances in the former Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia influenced the leisure architecture on the Adriatic coast of SR Montenegro between the 1960s and the 1980s. Wedged between the harsh opposites of communist East and capitalist West, it examines how the development of coastal tourism was integral to the politics of the ‘third way’. Moreover, the thesis aims to examine the role of tourism economically, and as a tool for embracing ideology, national cohesion and modernisation of the socialist society.

It also questions to what extent Yugoslav architects were allowed to design the coast ‘from above’, in line with contemporary world practice, This phenomenon is followed through the analysis of three case studies, showing the shifting architectural discourse that occurred in SR Montenegro. Such development resulted in a symbiosis of the architectural and urban language erected as a product of flirting with the practices coming from the West.

Finally, the analysis of the leisure heritage left by the Socialist Republic of Montenegro provides just a small piece of the puzzle in the wider quest for rebuilding the forgotten patterns of self-identity experienced by this ex-Yugoslav republic.

MORE is a part of Open Studio project run by the School of Architecture + Cities at the University of Westminster to make its design, research and practice-based work available online while it is happening.

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