Arhitecture as Resistance Movement/Threee Short Texts About a School

architects Veljko Olujić, Tonči Žarnić
project Tehnical School Center, Zadar, Croatia
written by Damir Rako

 

TIME - PLACE?   

 

Zagreb in the 1980s had a very dynamic subcultural and alternative scene. “Novi Val” rock, Polet magazine, comics and Novi Kvadrat, conceptual artists and street performances... It all strongly affected the generations of that time.

 

The group of architects around the Olujić&Žarnić duo was a branch of that scene. They reticently opposed the architectural establishment of the time, which had been lulled into exploiting huge socialist funds without incurring any actual responsibility.

 

A curious “underground group” was formed on the fifth floor of the Faculty of Architecture in Zagreb, where they researched, created and educated independently of the official curriculum. In that ambience of alternative research, O&Ž designed a school in Zadar in 1987 and infected the whole generation of students that found sanctuary on the fifth floor. It was precisely for that reason that O&Ž, now officially lecturers, purposely listed more than twenty students who had left lesser or greater marks on the school main project. Synergy as squared idea multiplied by collective. E = mc2