Dom Revolucije Adaptation and Reconstruction project presented at Chicago Architecture Biennale
Type
Public and infrastructure
Design
2016 / 2017
Location
Nikšić, Montenegro
Program
Education, events, performance, garage, café, gym
Team
SADAR+VUGA, HHF Architects and Dijana Vučinić
development team:
SADAR+VUGA Jurij Sadar, Boštjan Vuga, Janž Omerzu, Tomaž Krištof, Tjaša Plavec, Rok Debevec,
HHF Architects Tilo Herlach, Simon Hartmann, Simon Frommenwiler, Matija Vuković, Mariana Santana, Marta Malinverni,
Dijana Vučinić,
Archicon
Dom Revolucije has been presented in Chicago Architecture Biennale curated by Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee
Our Dijana Vučinić with SADAR+VUGA and HHF present the map drawing of the project Reuse of Home of Revolution in Nikšić Montenegro at Chicago Architectural Biennal, Make New History from September 2017 through January 2018. The map drawing of 3.8m x 2,5m consists of three layers which construct the history of the site: the first layer is the ground floor construction drawing by Marko Mušič, upon which a construction of the building started in 1978. The second layer represents the mapping of the unfinished construction site/ruin in 2016 which serves as the base for the 3rd layer of current reuse proposal. The drawing depicts the building transformation from the unfinished construction site to the safe, covered public space. The exhibition also features the video presentation of the project with photos of Julien Lanoo and Luka Bošković.
Dom Revolucije is a spectacular, eccentric, unfinished mega-project by Slovenian Architect Marko Mušič that commemorates „the fallen fighters for freedom and socialist revolution from Nikšić and its surroundings“.
The story of the project is monumental as well — a construction committee of 90 people; the gross building area of 9’000m2 at the time of the competition in 1976, increased to 11’000m2 during conceptual design. Construction started in 1978 and when it was stopped in 1989, the size of the project reached 22’000m2 and included facilities such as cultural, education and information centers, youth club, catering facility, summer amphitheater, studios for ballet, music, drama, visual arts, design, gallery, TV Studio, library and so on.
It is very likely that the construction of Dom Revolucije would never have been finished as projected anyway due to its colossal increase in size and costs. Furthermore, the collapse of Yugoslavia terminated all reasonable hopes that the building will ever be what it was meant to be.
The reconstruction of the building is done by simple formula:
- 70% to be left as it is – visible and unusable, but ready for possible adaptations in the future;
- 20% to be made accessible and secured as a public space;
- 10% to be reprogrammed by creating new plug-ins, activators, such as a café, an auditorium, offices for university and non-governmental organizations, commercial spaces, a fitness etc.
The specific location of Dom Revolucije makes it a unique node between the pedestrian city center and car-oriented residential neighborhood. The newly established promenades inside the structure assure continuity between the building and its surroundings. This newly gained access into the ruin is intended to alter the society’s negative perception of the building while simultaneously transforming it into an open urban landscape. City life can now gradually occupy the previously forbidden area, creating a pulsing public space, while organically integrating it into the city’s tissue. The intention is not to reincarnate what Dom Revolucije was supposed to be, originally, but redefine it as an important node within the city landscape.
The result of this proposal will be the Re-Use of the unfinished Dom Revolucije as a spectacular public space – not the way it was conceived initially, but as a stabilization of what it has become since then.
The large-scale building model was presented as one of the four Montenegrin modernist architectures within the “Treasures in Disguise” exhibition at the Montenegrin pavilion of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2014. In September 2017 the project will be presented at the Chicago Biennial of Architecture as one of the cornerstone projects of its “Making New History” theme, and in August 2018 it will be presented at the annual DOCOMOMO conference in Ljubljana and published in a book on re-use projects in Montenegro.