Reading the City. Urban Space and Memory in Skopje
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Transcript of Reading the City. Urban Space and Memory in Skopje
CONTENTS
Introduction Stephanie Herold, Benjamin Langer, Julia Lechler
History, identity, and urban space. Towards an agenda for urban research Maximilian Hartmuth
Luna Park Antonio Dimitrov, Elena Dinovska, Polina Goldberg,
Aleksandar Jurgec, Rudi Kunstmann, Teodora Mladenova, Elizabeta Poljonska, Iris Trostel Santander, Ruža Tokić,
Reading Skopje 2009. A City between Amnesia and Phantasia Julia Lechler
Parallel Readings Sasho Andreevski, Ken Gericke, Novica Nakov,
Jovanka Popova, Marina Reissner, Aneta Spaseska, Gunn Irja Wålberg
Authenticity of Places and Construction of Images Biljana Stefanovska
Timeless Skopje Jelena Donević, Bojan Gruevski, Biljana Ivanova,
Peter Koziel, Jilliane Pollack
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Urban space and memory. The Old Business Quarter of Skopje Konstantin Dimitrovski
Central Public Spaces in Skopje Karolina Nacoska, Nina Nestorovska, Jasmina Lajmanovska,
Martin Schwemin, Roman Soike
Notes on the reconstruction of Skopje after the earthquake of the 26th July 1963 Ines Tolic
The Disappearance of Djuro Djakovic Snezana Domazetovska, Leonora Grceva, Dragan Krstevski,
Maja Lukarevska, Elena Pazardzijevska, Haris Piplas, Stjepan Skoric, Mladen Stilinovic, Simona Veselinska
The Exotic Place. Skopje as a Topic of Western Travelogues and Literary Texts Benjamin Langer
Images of History. On the emotional motivations to reconstruct Stephanie Herold
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Introduction The following publication
shows the results of an interna‑tional project which took place in Skopje in May 2009 and led to two exhibitions showed in Skopje and Berlin in May and July 2009.
Bearing the title “Reading the city: Urban space and memory in Skopje”, the project followed the hypothesis that every historical, political, and social development and trend is mirrored in the city’s built environment. Cities, accord‑ingly, consist of a multitude of layers of narratives and thus be‑come an image of individual and collective memory.
Due to the intimate relation‑ship between memory and iden‑tity, the city itself and its urban fabric play an important role in the shaping of collective identi‑ties. The city, its urban spaces and architectural shape, are sub‑ject of politics of identity and memory, its “sites of memory”1 and the cityscape turn into “symbolic capital” (Pierre
Bourdieu), which is used to ac‑complish political agendas.
The importance of this topic has increased across Europe in recent years. At the same time, the focus on memory phenomena increases the awareness of the relationship between the past and the present by highlighting how our memories shape our identity as well as our present. This is best reflected in places where breaks occur and different memory constructs clash, leading to open controversies, as is cur‑rently the case in Macedonia, which was established as an own national state in 1991 after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Since its foundation, the young state has been facing vari‑ous problems. Beside the internal conflicts and tensions between the Macedonian and Albanian population which escalated in 2001, when the country found itself close to a civil war, Mace‑
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donia faces a lot of difficult rela‑tions with its neighbouring coun‑tries, especially with Greece, which doesn’t accept the name of the country because of its north‑ern part, which also belongs to the geographical and historical region of Macedonia. Further‑more Macedonia is still in the process of shaping itself a na‑tional and cultural identity.
Its capital city Skopje, which is ethnically very diverse ‑ the two largest population groups in the city are Macedonians (ca. 64%) and Albanians (ca. 25%), reflects very obviously the cur‑rent political and societal devel‑opments and discourses.
The project “Reading the city: Urban space and memory” exam‑ined how Macedonia copes with the profound changes and con‑flicts of the recent decades.
Accordingly the objective of the workshop was to explore monuments and “sites of mem‑ory” in Skopje, including the not yet materialized. Who is using these “sites of memory”, how,
and why? Which roles do they play in the texture of the city?
In picking up the questions advanced and the problems iden‑tified in the study of „sites of memory”, the workshop was to discuss how history is mirrored in the urban space of Skopje to‑day, how it is perceived and con‑structed, and which historical pe‑riods influence the city’s current planning discourse; how the city deals with its material “lieux de mémoire”, the historical architec‑tural heritage, and what kind of history is remembered in ongo‑ing urban and architectural trans‑formations.
Especially the question of the community‑founding function of memory is of special importance in Skopje. Which common his‑tory does the diverse society of Skopje identify itself with? How does this relate to the ambivalent memories? Not just in relation to the differences between individ‑ual and collective memories, but also in relation to the parallel memory constructs of different societies or in the same society.
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The question, therefore, is not only how different events are re‑flected within the city, but also how they are perceived and so‑cially constructed by the different societies.
The analysis focused on a physical and a symbolic level, whereas the transitions between them can often be smooth. For example, the specific material (be it size, shape, location) often serves as a vehicle for a certain symbolism. To explain these links was also one of the tasks. Apart from evaluating the actual and the desired meanings, their potential impacts were consid‑ered, particularly with regard to the different residents of the city. Which story(s) do the residents of the city connect with different places? Why are they relevant to different groups of the popula‑tion, why not?
Therefore, the workshop did not only focus on the sites them‑selves, but also on their stories, which express a particular mem‑ory (or create it). This approach is especially useful if one assumes
that there is no single, universal valid interpretation, but that dif‑ferent groups interpret history differently and consequently construct different memories. Thus, the main topics of the workshop were the different per‑spectives on memory, which can be found within the city in the form of idealized constructs as well as in a substantial way. Par‑ticularly in relation to a city such as Skopje, with its culturally very heterogeneous population, such an approach is reasonable.
After a general introduction to the topic by several “experts” the participants split up in different groups and developed their own topics and methods to investigate the city under the questions men‑tioned before. Doing so, they chose very different approaches, subjects and methods, which put together show a very heteroge‑neous picture of the city of Skopje.
This book recapitulates the re‑sults of the workshop, combining the introductions given to the
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participants and the results of the group‑work.
The result is a very multi‑perspective volume, which show the variety of different issues all connected to the general question of “urban space and memory”.
The project “Reading the City: Urban Space and Memory” con‑sisted mainly of students from the TUB (Technische Universität Berlin) and the University Ss. Cyril and Methodius Skopje and was funded by the foundation Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zu‑kunft (Remembrance, Responsi‑bility, Future), the Ge‑schichtswerkstatt Europa (History Workshop Europe), the Goethe‑Institute and the Technische Uni‑versität Berlin.
We would like to say special
thanks to Felix Ackermann and Bernd Vogenbeck from the Geschichtswerkstatt Europa for their support and advice, Jovan
Balov from Prima Center Berlin and the Cultural Center Tocka in Skopje for providing us with the necessary space for the workshop and the exhibitions in Skopje and Berlin, and Sunny Raisig, Benedikt Alder, Johanne Lisewski, Polina Goldberg and Peter Koziel for their supporting work for the publication.
And finally we want to thank all the contributors and partici‑pants of the workshop for their commitment and dedication dur‑ing and after the workshop.
Berlin / Skopje, November 2009 Stephanie Herold, Benjamin Langer, Julia Lechler
1 Using Pierre Nora’s concept oft the „Realms of memory“ (“lieux de mémoire”) on a concrete spacial level
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