Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)

Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

Rising from the ashes: Skopje’s post-earthquake revival (1963 – 1980)

I. Introduction

Skopje is the capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and with a population of

600,000, it is a medium-sized city, both within the Balkan or the wider European context.

However, the city can be considered special because of its tumultuous history of urban

destruction and renewal, especially since World War II.

Skopje’s development was heavily influenced by two dramatic events of the 1960s: the floods

of 1962 and the earthquake of 1963, which destroyed or rendered unusable a significant part of

city infrastructure. A process of rebuilding started in the aftermath of the earthquake, which

was largely completed by 19801. Following a Masterplan initially designed by Kenzo Tange, a

Japanese modernist architect who was also influential in the development of Tokyo, Skopje’s

renewal involved both urban planning and innovative buildings that followed modernist

architectural styles.

This paper will present and analyse the adoption of Skopje’s new plans for urban development,

as well the processes and techniques of urban planning and renewal adopted in Skopje after the

earthquake. It will attempt to show that Skopje’s renewal can be considered a unique model by

the mere process by which it came to fruition, as well as by transforming traditional communist

planning and giving an original brutalist nature to the city landscape. The paper will first

describe the events of 1962-1963 and the ensuing efforts made by the international community

and the United Nations, and will then focus on two aspects of urban development after the

events: the functional aspect (that is, proper urban planning) and the architectural aspect.

1
https://www.failedarchitecture.com/masterplan-for-the-city-of-skopje-macedonia/, Masterplan for the city of
Skopje, Failed Architecture, retrieved 29 September 2017

1
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

Finally, the paper will be concluded through e brief extension onto present-day developments

of Skopje’s urban development.

II. The events of 1962-1963 and their aftermath

Up to the end of World War II, Skopje was characterised by a tradition of neo-classical

architecture, such as the National Theatre and numerous government buildings, as well as

buildings in the neo-classical style built under the Bulgarian occupation during World War 2.2

According to a paper on Skopje’s urban planning history by Jasna Stefanovska and Janez

Koželj, after World War II, with Skopje becoming the capital of the newly-formed Socialist

Republic Macedonia, a federal entity of communist Yugoslavia, a new city masterplan was

implemented by modernist Czechoslovak architect Ludek Kubeš, influenced by Le Corbusier’s

Radiant city plan.3

The city’s development according to Kubeš’s masterplan was ground to a halt with the first

event that hit the Macedonian capital, the floods of 19624. According to the 19 November 1962

edition of the ‘Nova Makedonija’ magazine, 1,050 houses and 157 buildings were destroyed

by the floods, many of them in the downtown area, through which the River Vardar was passing.

While this put a break to urban development and turned public resources towards

reconstruction, it is indeed the next event, the 1963 earthquake, which completely turned the

tide in Skopje’s history. While the floods did affect development, Kubeš’s masterplan was not

intended to be abolished.

2
Mitrovski, Boro; Glišić, Venceslav and Ristovski, Tomo; The Bulgarian Army in Yugoslavia 1941–1945,
Medunarodna politika, 1971, Belgrade, p. 35 (courtesy of Google Books)
3
Stefanovska, Jasna; Koželj, Janes; Urban planning and transitional development issues: the case of Skopje,
Macedonia, Urbani izziv, Ljubljana, volume 23, no. 1, 2012, p. 92
4

https://mk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0_%D0%B2%D0%BE
_%D0%A1%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%98%D0%B5_1962, Macedonian Wikipedia, retrieved 26 September
2017 (automatic translation to English)

2
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

On 26 July 1963, at 5 in the morning, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1MMS hit Skopje,

followed by aftershocks. With the tremor being concentrated along the Vardar River Valley,

which cuts through the city, the possible resistance of the buildings’ structure was severely

weakened. The damage to the city’s infrastructure was extensive: it is estimated that more than

80 percent of Skopje’s buildings were destroyed in the earthquake5.

According to Macedonian news sources, 78 countries offered aid and assistance in

reconstruction to the SFRY in the aftermath of the earthquake6. And indeed, the reconstruction

of Skopje was heavily supported by the international community, under the coordination of the

United Nations and UNESCO. In 1970, the United Nations Development programme edited a

book about the international reconstruction efforts, titled “Skopje Resurgent: the Story of a

United National Special Fund Town Planning Project”. The preface to the book presents the

efforts by the United Nations and the international community as an “unique in the history of

town planning”7. Skopje’s own motto is nowadays ‘the City of International Solidarity’8.

The earthquake resulted in such extensive damage that the Yugoslav government decided create

a new masterplan of the city, with a United Nations conference on the city’s future being held

in Ohrid (Eastern Macedonia) months after the earthquake. The complete renewal of the city

would be finally implemented with the support of United Nations bodies, this being one of the

reasons for which the ‘Skopje Resurgent’ book emphasises the unique nature of Skopje’s

planning.

III. The functional aspect of Skopje’s renewal

5
https://www.rferl.org/a/25066749.html, Time Stands Still After Skopje's Quake, Despite Revamp, Radio Free
Europe – ex-Yugoslavia edition, retrieved 27 September 2017
6
http://kurir.mk/en/?p=2709, 49 years after the disastrous Skopje earthquake, Kurir News Agency
7
United Nations Development Programme: Skopje Resurgent: The Story of a United Nations Special Fund Town
Planning Project, United Nations, New York, 1970, p. 7
8
http://www.skopje.gov.mk/en/ , City of Skopje, retrieved 28 September 2017

3
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

Under the coordination of the United Nations, a competition was organised in 1965 for the

development on Skopje. Concurrently, the Yugoslav government had already organised relief

and reconstruction efforts in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, in 1963-64. There were

thus two levels on which planning was focused: a plan specific to the City Centre, and a second

one which was supposed to serve as new masterplan for the city.

Kenzo Tange, a Japanese architect known for his modernist projects of post-war reconstruction

in Japan, won the first prize of the competition, earning 60% of the prize money. The other 40%

went to a team of Yugoslav architects, who collaborated with Tange during the planning period

of Skopje’s renewal. The Yugoslav team was formed by architects Janko Konstantinov, Slavko

Brezoski and Stevan Kacin, among many others.

Tange’s masterplan for Skopje was mostly focused on rebuilding the city in a functional

fashion, in a way that would serve the city’s population to reach their workplaces and the service

sector parts of the city, and that would create a harmony between the different areas of the city.

In this regard, the street plan presented wide, straight boulevards with adjacent streets arranged

in a fused-grid-like fashion (as presented in figure 1 of the annex to this paper). At the same

time, Tange’s plan was based on a sector model urban development planning, in which different

areas of the city were supposed to have a specific nature9. This can be best seen in figure 2 of

the annex, with areas for residential, industrial, or green development.

Skopje's city centre had a dedicated section in the Masterplan of the city (Figure 3). It would

serve as an area for government and other administrative buildings, as well as for services-

related activities such as retail, telecommunications, and post. The city centre was characterised

by its separation from the other parts of the city by a "city wall" (Figure 4) made up of brutalist

residential buildings typical of communist architecture of the time. The "city wall" would act

9
Home, Robert: Reconstructing Skopje, Macedonia after the 1963 earthquake: the Masterplan 40 years on,
Anglia Ruskin University, p. 10-11 (http://www.mirkovski.com/im/skopje-anglia-ruskin-univ-paper.pdf)

4
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

as a border marking the outer side of the city ring that separates the centre from the periphery.

In Stefanovska Koželj 2012, the authors argue that the buildings that constitute the "city wall"

and the towers that mark the "city gate" (which marks itself the east-west axis of the city) are

meant to symbolise an allure to the European medieval city, where the central area of the city

is bound together10.

Large industrial areas were planned in the northern part of the city, which would lead in the

years up to 1980 to the construction of various plants which made Skopje a centre of Yugoslav

metallurgical, pharmaceutical and chemical industries, as well as Yugoslavia’s third largest city

after Belgrade and Zagreb. In the 1961 census, Skopje had a population of approximately

170,000 inhabitants. This grew to approximately 450,000 inhabitants in the 1981 census, after

most of the aspects of the masterplan had been implemented. Most of the new inhabitants were

industrial workers at the city’s plants or students at the newly-built University of Skopje, which

was also a result of Tange’s plans for the city.

Another relevant part of Tange's Masterplan were the Social Survey and the Housing sections.
11
In line with communist Yugoslavia's ideology, urban planning had to take into account the

need of social diversity, as well as the ethnic and cultural particularities of Skopje, which had

significant Turkish, Albanian, and Roma minorities within its limits, each with its own specific

architecture, type of dwelling, and lifestyle. The Social Survey revealed the resistance of these

minorities to the idea of being moved in the new, modernist apartment buildings. Highly-

religious, the Turks and the Albanians told Social Survey field-workers that they preferred to

live in their substandard slums, where communities were formed around old mosques. This was

at odds with the social and political order that the communist regime wanted to impose.

10
Stefanovska & Koželj 2012, p. 94
11
Skopje Resurgent, 1970, p. 246, 265-267

5
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

However, the authorities had to remain pragmatic, and much of the old Turkish neighbourhood

has been preserved, albeit partially modernised. At the same time, the government decided to

gradually insert the minorities into employment in the new industries, in the hope that they will

eventually accept new social conditions. The social part of the masterplan shows the big

challenges for the architects and the civil servants: reconciling their modernist and innovative

approaches to urban planning with the cultural customs of a big minority of the inhabitants. The

end-result, the mix between modernity and tradition with gradual steps towards uniformity,

proved to be innovative in itself when it came to the traditional approaches that had been used

before in communist countries.

IV. Architecture within urbanism: a symbol of Brutalist architecture

In communist Yugoslavia, the state was the main (and mostly, the only) actor in the economy.

As a result, private investments in real estate could not possibly exist. Skopje’s reconstruction,

in this sense, involved not just urban planning, but also massive state investments in the

construction of new buildings that would fill the planned streets of Skopje. The Masterplan, in

this particular case, included therefore apartment buildings, government buildings, functional

buildings as well as industrial typical of urban communist planning.

The centrally-controlled nature of the economy and planning meant that Tange and his team of

architects would also be given the task to design the buildings that would accompany the

Masterplan of the City, which was supposed to cover only elements related to urban planning

– such as the road network, transport systems, functional areas, etc. In this sense, Tange and

his team, all of them modernist architects strongly influenced by Le Corbusier’s innovations in

architecture and urban planning, designed buildings typical of modernist architecture and, more

specifically, brutalist architecture. This was a recurring phenomenon in communist countries –

which generally preferred modernist and utilitarian styles to more traditional styles considered

‘bourgeois’ – but Skopje’s buildings, unlike those built in other communist countries, were
6
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

original in themselves, and they were not meant to be mass produced or replicated in other

cities.

The light grey concrete buildings give Skopje a level of originality – and indeed the city can be

considered an international capital of Brutalism. Some of the most important works of the

architects are the University of Skopje and the main building of the Macedonian Post,

considered prime examples of brutalist architecture12, as well as the main building of the

Government, the Macedonian Radio and Television building, the National Bank, the National

Opera, the Hydrological Institute, and the Universal Hall. Some of these buildings, like the

Government Office (figure 5 in the Annex), have been given a neo-classical ‘facelift’ after

2006.

One case worthy of individual mention is the new railway station designed by Tange. It is

special not only because it is a good example of original brutalist architecture, but also because

it serves as a solution to a very pressing problem: prevent any damage that may be caused by a

future earthquake. The railway station is suspended on earthquake-resistant concrete pillars

some 6.7 meters above the ground13, and its suspension permitted the elevation of the railway

around central Skopje, as well as the construction of tunnels, which made the railway lines more

integrated with the city’s urban landscape and did not cut through it.

V. Conclusion

Skopje's reconstruction process was indeed, as the UNDP Report "Skopje Resurgent" put it,

unique in its nature. It was an example of a national government collaborating with the

international community in order to rebuild a city that was destroyed almost entirely by

unfortunate events. The resulting masterplan did not build on existing developments, and did

12
http://yomadic.com/communist-architecture-skopje-kenzo-tange/, Communist architecture : Skopje, Kenzo
Tange, retrieved 28 September 2017
13
Skopje Resurgent, 1970, p. 320

7
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

not try to transform an already existing city. Instead, it tried to come up with a concept to revive

and reinvent a city flattened by natural disasters.

However, as Stefanovska and Koželj show in their paper, the debate about Skopje's urban

development was not settled by Tange's masterplan. Instead, it continues to this day, as the

modernist-brutalist nature of the reconstruction plan is seen by many, including the former

Macedonian government, in negative terms.

In 2006, a nationalist government was elected into office, led by Nikola Gruevski. Gruevski’s

plans for Skopje included a total reshape of the city centre, and many of the modernist buildings

were hidden beneath neo-classical faux facades intended to reflect the government’s revisionist

plans and attempt to rewrite the country’s history. Many of the architects who worked with

Kenzo Tange have openly protested against the government’s plans, to no avail14.

At the end of the day, the means adopted by the Yugoslav government to revive Skopje were

also a first in many aspects: the international solidarity and the UN-related mechanisms that led

to Tange’s masterplan had not been used before. At the same time, while the process was based

on a top-down approach specific to communist regimes, social and cultural issues were taken

into account by the authorities, which preferred to adopt a pragmatic approach to social

integration and transformation. With all its shortcomings, Skopje’s reconstruction plan was an

experiment that strengthened the city’s urban identity in the world, as well as its more functional

aspects.

VI. Annexes15

14
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/architects-of-modernist-skopje-decry-retrograde-remodel-12-04-
2016, Architects of modernist Skopje decry retrograde remodel, Balkan Insight, retrieved 28 September 2017
15
The images were taken from the annex section of the „Skopje Resurgent” book, edited by the UNDP in 1970.

8
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

Figure 1: Skopje’s road network in the masterplan

Figure 2: The Masterplan’s sector model for the city’s zones

9
Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

Figure 3: Skopje’s City Centre

masterplan by stages. 1965-1970 in

brown, 1971-1975 in red, 1976-1981

in green.

Figure 4: Tange and his team in

front of their model; A panorama

picture of the City Centre’s “city

wall” and “city gates”

10
 Ciprian-Sorin Constantinescu – Skopje’s revival (1963 – 1980)
Mr. Kirkland
29 September 2017

Figure 5: Office of the Government of Macedonia. Before and after. Source:

http://cdn.yomadic.com/wp-content/uploads/skopje-2014.jpg

11