Architecture as Metaphor: Politics and Aesthetics in the Modernist City

Architecture is not an isolated discipline but is one of the manifold manifestations of the human activity. It is effectively capable of transmitting different ideological and political meanings, using its formal and aesthetical modalities to participate in the organization of the city space and human life. Thus, architecture has always contributed as a signifier of the ideology of political power, embodying in itself the fundamental components of a political will. The organizational differences in left or right regimes are completely visible in the architectural discourse financed by political actions throughout the history. While in some cases there is a heteronomic component made possible by the openness and exchanges with the outside world, the main characteristic of architecture in certain states was formal and propagandistic autonomy, generating a strong self-referential style, outside the main stylistic debates of the time. This research aims to discuss architecture’s implication with political discourses, power and ideology, within modernity. We presume that there is a certain line of political thought, which is elevated to an ideological level and produces an architecture that is referential to that ideology. But more than simply being a product of political decisions, different architectures emerging in different historical contexts, are also used as instruments to signify and determine future politics. In this context, this research renders architecture as a metaphor that facilitates communication between aesthetics and political power, as presented in the city space. The discussion is focused on the interplay of modern aesthetics and politics in the context of Eastern Europe, particularly Western Balkans. The objective is to trace in parallel the main architectural and urban peculiarities between countries that essentially shared very different ideas of architectural aesthetics and political ideologies. Using some key historical buildings of the respective regimes, the aim is to decipher the critical points where ideology marks alternative paths in such countries. Alongside historical studies we would question if the impact of these regimes, even after their end, still continue to determine the urban development and architecture of the respective cities.