The formal, the temporal and the modern
Author: Dasara Pula
Affiliation: POLIS University, Albania, and University of Ferrara, Italy
Following Walter Benjamin’s thinking of “the modern” – which is an important theoretical contribution to the study of form – one could understand that the term designates both a formal temporal structure and the diverse range of its historical instances, past and present, whose reinterpretation and critical reading can stimulate possible future scenarios for urban spaces, or the understanding of specific developments related to them. For Benjamin’s theory to be applicable in the discipline of architecture, particular knowledge and methods are required, through which unfold the processes of modernity in relation to the temporal and formal phenomenon. Thus, the aim of this essay is to re-read Benjamin’s modernity within the discussion on temporality, by using architectural form and language as tools. Temporality and modernity are widely discussed topics of scientific research, particularly linked to the tradition of the Frankfurt School. However, we are interested in deciphering these two topics through a historical category, as an object through which the scientific architectural research is crafted. And in order to connect this category to a practical level contextualized within an urban setting, this essay studies the urbanization of modernist cities, the historical events impacting it, and the stages of modernity, focusing on the city of Prishtina in Kosovo. Prishtina is used as a case-study on account of its particular history in the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century. It is the capital city of a post-socialist state that experienced a radical shift in ideological and political systems, characterized by a complex architectural and urban form with distinguished modern features. This paper will study the unfinished modernism in Prishtina (1945-ongoing), – interrupted by politico-ideological instances – which led to a fragmentation of the urban form and the presence of multiple urban realities. In so doing, this paper will decipher specific events from different time periods, to be defined as critical junctures of Prishtina’s modern history, which had a particular outcome in architecture and its urban setting. The study of the temporal and the formal in modern architecture and city planning will focus on two plans: 1) The political and economic context in Prishtina, within former Yugoslavia, which produces an ideological condition within which architecture becomes ideological; 2) The discipline of architecture, which impacts the form and aesthetics of buildings and cities through modern ideology and normativities.
Reference List
Benjamin, A. (2000). Architectural Philosophy. The Athlone Press;
Benjamin, A., & Rice, Ch. (Eds.). (2009). Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity. re.press;
Bohman, J. (2021). Critical Theory. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Spring 2021 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/critical-theory/;
Gokmenoglu, B. (2022). Temporality in the social sciences: New directions for a political sociology of time. British Journal of Sociology, 73(3), 643-653;
Goonewardena, K., Kipfer, S., Milgrom, R., Schmid, Ch. (2008). Space, Difference, Everyday Life. Reading Henri Lefebvre. Routledge;
Gjinolli, I. (2019). From Ottoman to Modern – Transformation of Prishtina 1945-1990. In L. Rossi, B. Aliaj et al. (Eds), Prishtina New European Capital. Images of a City to be Discovered (pp. 50-63). Polis Press;
Hays, M. (1998). Architecture Theory since 1968. Columbia University Press;
Heynen, H., & Loosen, S. (2019). Marxism and Architectural Theory across the East-West;
Divide. Architectural Histories, 7(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.5334/ah.401;
Hasimja, D. (2016). Kosovo: A Spatial Portrait. TU Wien;
Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press;
Jerliu, F., & Navakazi, V. (2018). The Socialist Modernization of Prishtina: Interrogating;
Types of Urban and Architectural Contributions to the City. Mesto a Dejiny, 7(2), 66-74;
Jerliu, F. (2013). Prishtina Reinterpreted – Interrogating heritage-memory-identity triad in the contemporary context. University of Sarajevo;
Mack, M. (2009). Modernity as an Unfinished Project: Benjamin and Political Romanticism. In A. Benjamin & Ch. Rice (Eds.), Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity (pp. 59-76). re.press;
Markus, G. (2009). Benjamin’s Critique of Aesthetic Autonomy. In A. Benjamin & Ch. Rice (Eds.), Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity (pp. 111-121). re.press;
Mele, V. (2022). City and Modernity in Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin. Fragments of Metropolis. Palgrave Macmillan;
Navakazi, V., & Jerliu, F. (2019). Modernization Tendencies in Architecture and Street Infrastructure During the Tanzimat Reforms. Pollack Periodica, 14(2), 73-84. https://doi.org/10.1556/606.2019.14.2.7;
Osborne, P., & Charles, M. (2021). Walter Benjamin. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Spring 2021 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/;
Papa, D. (2019). Envisioning the future of Prishtina An image shaped by the spatial experience. In L. Rossi, B. Aliaj et al. (Eds), Prishtina New European Capital. Images of a City to be Discovered (pp. 34-41). Polis Press;
Rancière, J. (2022). Modern Times: Temporality in Art and Politics (, Trans.). Verso. (Original Work published in 2018);
.
Rossi, A. (1984). The Architecture of the City. MIT Press;
Sadiki, A. (2019). Reflection of sociopolitical developments in the architecture of Prishtina during 1945-1990. In: L. Rossi, B. Aliaj et al. (Eds.), Prishtina New European Capital Images of a City to be Discovered (pp. 18-24). Polis Press;
Sadiki, A. (2020). Arkitektura e Ndërtesave Publike në Prishtinë (1945-1990). Blendi;
Sussman, H. (2009). Booking Benjamin: The Fate of a Medium. In A. Benjamin & Ch. Rice (Eds.), Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity (pp. 9-38). re.press;
Tafuri, M. (1976). Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development. MIT Press.
