If Donald Niebyl created a calendar with these images I’d snatch one up.
My only visit to Yugoslavia when constituted as such came in 1987, for only a couple of weeks, and these buildings fascinated me, as did the “Spomenik” monuments Niebyl has been chronicling the past few years. This link from March, 2020 also includes a summary of my chronology on the topic: “Farewell to the Hotel Zlatibor in Užice, Serbia … and further tales of the spomeniks (memorials) in former Yugoslavia.”
I’ve never had a sufficient grounding in architecture to know very much about any of this. But the interest remains just as strong.
Among the most monumental and landmark structures ever built during the era of Yugoslavia were its many soaring high rise towers and skyscrapers, of which many pushed the envelope of engineering and inspired a nation to look towards the future. While the country of Yugoslavia has ceased to exist for nearly three decades now, the many iconic and charismatic skyscrapers built during that era continue to inspire and speak to not only the old Yugoslav generation, but also the new youth generation who never lived in that former nation, as well as people around the world who are drawn in by their unique and bold architecture. However, for all of the fame and fan-fare surrounding many of these structures, many have barely been written about and few meaningful words dedicated to their history. In fact, my entire impetus for writing this article was that when searching for a listing of the seemingly straightforward query of “what were the tallest buildings of the Yugoslav-era”, I found no authoritative articles related to that question or any serious investigation into the topic.
