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Essay about Architects as Managers of Change in Croatia

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Architects as Managers of Change in Croatia

Transition in a social sense is a change from one system into another. Globally, the modernist paradigm changed to the post-modern with the disappearance of central authorities, universal dogmas and foundational ethics. The post-modern world introduced fragmentation, instability, indeterminacy and insecurity. Architectural responses to these conditions occurred as a 'semantic nightmare' of the post-modern discourse and/or the attempted completion of 'the modern project'.

In Croatia, transition occurred as a quantum leap from the Socialist, one-party, state-controlled market system, into a capitalist, parliamentary democratic, free-market system. In 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, …show more content…

The architect was no longer a 'gentleman' with bow-tie and cigar waiting for a patron to develop canonical national institutions of historical importance.

Randic-Turato are able to anticipate and transform this transitional atmosphere. An Architecture of Transition is a way of intervening in the new market conditions where the 'role assignments' are no longer grounded in the established state-regulated economy. The architect becomes an 'extra', a free-lance actor without a previously assigned role, without a script.

Randic-Turato are transitional architects who have fully understood and accepted these realities without 'ontological disturbances' and professional nostalgia. In the free, non-regulated market, they use even the slightest opportunity for activity. Their work is widening the traditional field of the architectural profession, whereby Randic-Turato have become dynamic managers of change.

Border Conditions

The city of Rijeka represents the historical and conceptual background of Randic-Turato. Historically, geographically and conceptually, the city of Rijeka represents a border condition between sea and land, east and west, order and chaos, province and centre and the horizontality of its sea and the verticality of its mountains. Rijeka is a harbour city, where the port and its industry represent the 'urban' more significantly than the morphological organization of the city

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