Generating "Between Security and Insecurity"
With the publication of the current issue, this is the third special edition of Memar in recent years devoted to reviewing contemporary world architecture, having examined five countries so far. In this series of studies, the selection of geographies for examination has focused primarily on countries that have, to varying degrees, remained distant from the mainstream media current, the dominant historiographic narrative, and the free global exchange of architectural theories and productions — yet have been deemed valuable and worthy of investigation for particular reasons. The historical scope has been concentrated mainly on the past two decades, while also, for the sake of contextual continuity and the interdependence of events in achieving a better understanding of issues, the study has been conducted within the contemporary horizon of these countries and, as deemed necessary, speculative forays into their more recent history have been made. In order to maintain breadth of vision, as well as to attend to the meaningful parallels or reciprocal influences among various contexts, disciplines, and domains, this survey has opened windows — however small — onto fields such as art, culture, thought, politics, society, and of course their effects on design, architecture, the city, as well as the lives and activities of architects and artists. Beyond all this, the most important idea in selecting the countries under study has been the capacity of the content of their theoretical or practical activities to reveal issues that have been deemed useful in laying the intellectual groundwork for reassessing or reproducing prevailing approaches in architectural thought and practice or architectural production — subjects and instances that describe the potential capability of so-called "in-between" positions and explain the possibilities of viewing from this perspective, or acting from this position, in effecting change in approaches or achieving different outcomes. In the editorial of Memar No. 77, titled "Between Ideal and Reality," the importance of attending to a certain alignment between ideals and realities in architects' confrontation with present conditions, as well as the capabilities and effectiveness of this approach, was elaborated. In the editorial of Memar No. 95, which reviewed architecture, the city, and design today in the Scandinavian region, titled "Individuality and Collective Solidarity," the importance, possibility, and necessity of building a bridge between individualism and collectivism, as well as the advantages and benefits of this approach in contemporary architectural, urban, and design production, were discussed. In this issue, which reviews architecture, the city, design, and art in three countries belonging to the Eastern European sphere, the editorial title refers to historical experiences of navigating unstable and constantly changing conditions, difficult circumstances replete with crises and predicaments arising from the complex political and ideological or social and cultural conditions of the contemporary era in the selected countries — which, despite the limitations imposed by these conditions, have achieved commendable successes in the aforementioned domains by relying on their capacities and talents. The "in-betweenness" of these countries does not end with the description above but also refers to their particular position of being situated between eastern and western geographical, cultural, and — more importantly — political and ideological spheres of power, which is yet another testament to their dual identity. An identity that, following the collapse of the Iron Curtain between the Eastern and Western blocs at the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century and the developments of subsequent years — up to the present day — has traversed a new path toward becoming ever more Western. This is to say, the aspiration toward democracy and a free market economy. This special edition endeavors to explore the diverse capabilities of these particular conditions in fertilizing individual or collective talents and capacities — whether in accommodation with circumstances, or in challenge and resistance against them for the sake of change — and to reflect, as far as possible, their effects on design, art, architecture, the city, thought, and culture of these countries. In closing, I wish to express my gratitude for the participation of Eastern European offices, architects, and writers, as well as all my colleagues in this issue.
Footnotes: 1- The title is borrowed from a novel by Ivan Klíma, the renowned Czech writer. 2- Meaning being amid constant changes — geographical, political, social, economic, cultural, and ideological — and also being entangled in crises and their consequences.
The cultural world of Eastern Europe is strange and complex. It appears that the cultural and linguistic distinctions of Eastern European countries have granted them a kind of marginal position relative to European culture, such that on the one hand they seek to preserve their distinctions and national identity, and on the other, they insist on their Europeanness. This cultural condition, referred to since the Age of Enlightenment by the term Otherness or alterity, was intensified by the political polarizations of the twentieth century and the formation of the Iron Curtain between Eastern and Western Europe. Nevertheless, many artists from this part of Europe achieved worldwide fame due to the overt political and social dimensions of their works, or their unique and poetic language. Setting aside the great thinkers of Eastern Europe (Lukács, Tarski, Eliade, Bauman, Tatarkiewicz, Ingarden, Žižek, and others), and its outstanding artists in literature (Kafka, Milan Kundera, Ivan Klíma, and others), in cinema (Andrzej Wajda, Kieślowski, Polanski, and others), in the visual arts (Brâncuși, Moholy-Nagy, Vasarely, Marcel Breuer, and others), and in conceptual art and performance (André Tót, Abramović, and others), lesser-known artists from this part of Europe also maintain a strong presence in the world's major biennials and museums. This, however, does not hold true for the architecture of Eastern Europe. The architecture of these countries is not widely known on the global stage and has always been marginalized from both professional and historiographic perspectives, rarely forming part of the accepted meta-narrative in architectural history. The question then arises: why, despite the flourishing of modern architecture and avant-garde movements in Eastern Europe between the two World Wars, have most prominent historians of modern architecture (from Bruno Zevi, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Sigfried Giedion, to Kenneth Frampton and Leonardo Benevolo) — with the exception of cases such as Czech Functionalism — granted not the slightest place to the architecture of this region in the historiography of modern architecture? Have political adversities such as totalitarian repression, military occupation, ethnic wars, and the repeated partition of these countries, or the ideological propaganda of architecture during the Communist era, caused the artistic creativity in their architectural works to go unrecognized? Is this due to the insignificance of the architectural achievements of this part of Europe, or is the problem with the dominant historiographic method that, by defining a meta-narrative centered on artistic capitals, dismisses all other "minor narratives"? Modernist historiography, with its presupposition of "absolute artistic value," divided the territory of art history into creative canonical centers and imitative peripheries, and thus Eastern Europe, as a region unproductive in the realm of artistic values, was placed outside history and on the margins. Contemporary historiography, however — informed by postmodern concepts such as the importance of "minor narratives" versus "meta-narratives" (per Lyotard), the importance of "margins" versus "text" (per Derrida), and the importance of the concept of "the Other" in twentieth-century philosophy — has devoted greater attention to Eastern Europe, thereby creating the ground for extensive interdisciplinary research in the architecture and art of Eastern Europe. In recent years, some studies have been conducted based on identity and contextualization, while others have been based on globalization and the entry of global currents and free markets following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Some sources, in studying the architecture of Eastern European countries through interdisciplinary methods with an emphasis on cultural studies, have addressed the necessity of discussing "architectural languages." Additionally, theoretical debates such as the crisis of modern architecture and the return of postmodern architecture to history
and critical regionalism were not without effect in drawing attention to Eastern Europe. Beyond these changes in historiographic method, with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 and the movement toward the standards of the global economy and free market, the architecture of Eastern Europe underwent fundamental professional changes as well. Pragmatism, a tendency toward projective architecture, and the provision of simple solutions to social needs in various projects enabled the architecture of these countries to achieve successes in many international competitions. Furthermore, the prominent and active presence of some Eastern European countries in international biennials and exhibitions, alongside extensive efforts in documenting and introducing the architectural values of the Communist era in these countries, and the establishment of younger offices aligned with global currents, all contributed to making the architecture of this region somewhat more recognized on the world stage. Nevertheless, the architecture of Eastern Europe still has a long road ahead before it can reclaim its true role and position in world architecture and, relying on its distinctive culture, open new horizons for the realization of another kind of unfinished modernity.