Focus on Modernism: Architecture of Novi Sad 1950–1985

The project “Focus on Modernism: Architecture of Novi Sad 1950–1985” represents a series of exhibitions and activities stemming from the project “Yugoslav Modernism in Vojvodina,” which aims to evaluate and present the heritage of post-war modernist architecture in this region.
The exhibition Focus on Modernism: Architecture of Novi Sad 1950–1970 is the first event of this cycle, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina from March 23 to April 9, 2017. Through a selection of the most iconic buildings from this period, the public was presented with the qualities and values of the architectural heritage from this creative era, which has not yet undergone its full re-evaluation and popularisation beyond narrow professional circles.
The first part of the exhibition presented a selection of buildings from this period, shown through architectural photographs by Relja Ivanić, while the second part of the exhibition featured presentations of works by students from the Department of Architecture and Urbanism, Faculty of Technical Sciences, and the Department of Fine Arts at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad.
The exhibition Focus on Modernism: Architecture of Novi Sad 1970–1985 continued the public presentation of the research project Yugoslav Modernism in Vojvodina.
What is common to the architectural oeuvre between 1970 and 1985 is a new, critical attitude toward the values of the first post-war modernism: functional, rational, and restrained in form and expression.
The 1970s, marked as a period of social prosperity, brought a freer approach to architectural values and an opportunity to explore the modalities of late modernism, which sporadically appeared as visual stimuli in magazines, but even more as a necessity to reconsider things within one’s own environment. At the same time, commissions reflected the optimism of the seventies—large and representative economic headquarters, university complexes, department stores, sports centres; the programs and their requirements indicated society’s readiness to continue building, through architecture that fosters this both programmatically and visually.
The exhibition is conceived through the presentation of six houses and their stories, both public and commercial in purpose; their selection is indicative of the themes of the era that they open. These houses are not perfect representatives of this space and time; they are, above all, polemical, surprising, and beautiful in the sincerity of their original intentions. Moreover, these houses represent fragments of reality in the fifteen years of creative work covered by the exhibition. Their selection was guided by the author’s desire to highlight the range of themes they represent, or open in the present, in the processes of transition, market-driven urban planning mechanisms, and the very unclear relationship of citizens to the values on which these structures were built.
The exhibition includes buildings such as the Stoteks department store, the Faculty of Philosophy, the administrative buildings of Elektrovojvodina and Novkabel, the former headquarters of OZ Vojvodina, and the Novi Sad SPENS.
The exhibition is once again presented through large-format architectural photographs by Relja Ivanić, along with a few accompanying artefacts and media records that document the works.
The final exhibition in this series is dedicated to a single building in Novi Sad—the Sports and Business Centre “Vojvodina,” also known as SPENS. There are multiple reasons for this focus. Although the previous exhibition already included this building, we felt that only a fragment of its complex and multilayered story had been conveyed. Moreover, the building itself is indicative of broader phenomena in the contemporary context. In recent years, SPENS has been at the centre of media debate regarding its future, with both renovation and demolition appearing equally likely. Labeled as a “city financial burden,” its fate is closely tied to financial sustainability and the possibility of self-financing through commercial content, which has doubled over its four decades of existence.
This process of unplanned commercialisation of its “empty” halls—originally designed to accommodate nearly 20,000 spectators—has led to the gradual deterioration of its image as an important urban space dedicated not only to sports events but also to community life. For this reason, we believe it is necessary to reaffirm the fundamental values of its architecture, which was envisioned to bring a new quality to the urban environment. The building itself, through its design and execution, was meant to serve as a “measure of Novi Sad’s urban identity.” In this sense, SPENS represents a distinctly local theme, permanently linked to its citizens—the builders—and to the city it has helped shape and urbanize.
To fully understand all the layers of its complexity and significance, the Focus on SPENS project was carried out as a research initiative in collaboration with final-year architecture students.
The exhibition and accompanying projects are the result of a collaboration between the Association of Architects of Novi Sad and BAZA – Spatial praxis platform, and the outcomes of the SPENS Studio Project, conducted during the 2018/2019 academic year at the Department of Architecture and Urbanism, Faculty of Technical Sciences, under the mentorship of part of the author team.
The realisation and attendance of these exhibitions have confirmed the belief that such exhibitions are necessary. They also highlight that the topic of Novi Sad’s modern postwar heritage is both complex and extensive, requiring multiple formats to construct an understanding of these processes in the city fully.
The Yugoslav Modernism in Vojvodina project will continue to promote these themes in the coming years and, through research, create potential frameworks for the contemporary life of these spaces and buildings.