Perspectives on Modern Movement's Architectural Heritage of the early XX Century in Western Balkans

Abstract

The main architectural histories of the XX Century trust little or no space to modernist architects, critics and theorists in Balkans, while they have played an important role in the cultural life that nourished the background in which Modern Movement born and developed. In the cultural turmoil which characterized European cities in the early XX Century Balkans architects were in contact in Paris with the circle of artists and architects that gravitate around personalities like Le Corbusier, Peter Behrens, and many others. Theorists like Emil Szyttya, Karel Teige, or Miloutine Borissavlievitch played at that time a crucial role in cultural interpretation and diffusion of modern movement in other European countries, and particularly in the Balkan area. Also, the constitution of many "associations" that worked on the application of Modernist ideas in other European countries, like the Group of Architects of Modern Expressions (Grupa Arhitekata Modernog Pravca, GAMP) in Serbia, foster the introduction of a new "practice" in the architectural panorama of the early XX Century.