From Utopia to Decay: Rethinking Periodization and Restoration in Socialist Modern Architecture

Abstract

This paper uses critical theoretical methodology rooted in historiography and heritage theory to reinterpret socialist architectural and heritage narratives, while blending conceptual critique (rethinking periodization), contextual comparison (socialist vs. Western modernities), and philosophical inquiry (decay, temporality, restoration) to build an argument about how we understand and preserve modernist heritage today. It applies critical reading and hermeneutic interpretation to examine how architecture, ideology, and temporality intersect in socialist contexts. The approach emphasizes decay, transformation, and hybridity as integral aspects of heritage, proposing a dynamic understanding of modernism and restoration in post-socialist environments. Finally, this paper challenges rigid art-historical periodizations, emphasizing that ideological shifts, more than historical phases, shaped its boundaries. In Yugoslavia, this synthesis gave rise to a hybrid modernism, blending international aesthetics with local politics.