Project "Skopje 2014" - "A la recherche du temps perdu"

Piotr Majewski

Abstract

The development of the urban renewal project "Skopje 2014" has evoked one of the most controversial debates over public issues in the short history of the Macedonian Republic. It has divided Macedonian citizens into national, religious and social counter-formations. The major dispute runs along the most important identity narrations on the contemporary Macedonians ethnogenesis. It additionally overlaps with the political preferences of the parties in dispute, as well as their national attachments, religion, and stance they take on the subject of public space and its architectural function. Elite groups - politicians, architects, scientists or publicists - play a key role in the conflict, even though "casual" citizens take part in this dispute by either supporting, negotiating or opposing the development of the project. The main goal of this article is to examine some specifics of state architectonic practices and present the interrelations of the conflict and its culture modelling potential. This article summarizes four years of my research based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork, which covered the period from 2009 to 2013. Other data was acquired through research of media sources