Postmodernism in Belgrade architecture: Between cultural modernity and societal modernization

The paper explores the introduction and articulation of ideas and aesthetic practice of postmodernism in architecture of late socialism in Yugoslavia, with the focus on Belgrade architecture scene. Theoretical and methodological point of departure of this analysis is Jürgen Habermas's thesis of modernity as an incomplete, i.e., unfinished project, from his influential essay “Die Moderne: Ein unvollendetes Projekt” (1980). The thematic framework of the paper is shifted towards issues raised by Habermas which concern relations of cultural modernity and societal modernization, or rather towards consideration of architectural postmodernity in relation to the split between culture and society. The paper investigates architectural discourse which was profiled in Belgrade in 1980s, in a historical context of cultural modernity simultaneous with Habermas's text, but in different conditions of societal modernization of Yugoslav late socialism. In that, the principle methodological question concerns the interpretation of postmodern architecture as part of the new cultural production within the social restructuration of late and/or end of socialism as a system, that being analogous to Fredric Jameson's thesis of “Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” (1984).