Annebé Brouwer
Interiors Buildings Cities
Dreams, Power, and Indifference - Architectural Means in a Young Kosovo
Architecture plays a complex role in the history of Kosovo. Whether serving as a tool to express communist ideology or fabricate ethnic identity, its meaning has largely been dictated from above. So now, as the country tumbles into a neoliberal democracy, there is a lack of awareness that society can and should take responsibility for its urban environment. This absence of agency is mirrored by general feelings of hopelessness amongst Kosovo's young people. Unemployment and a dearth of identification lead many to dream of emigrating in search of a ‘better life’.
Within the context of a case study conducted with the UN and a critical analysis of citizen participation, the project’s question therefore concerns how a community facility might give legitimacy to what the city’s young people do and could do. It asks how the political position, architectural form, participatory construction and maintenance of the proposed timber shelters might inspire agency and reinforce the young people's relation to their place.