I went to a conference at Hofstra six years ago and along the way stopped in at MOMA for a really cool exhibition–Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980. This was one of the seeds for this leg of the trip. It was a heckuva lot of Brutalism, spomeniks, and some Japanese Metabolism to boot.

Some of these buildings are gone or have been encrusted with plastic signs for mobile phone providers and had nail salons of kebab stands tacked on, but there is still plenty of beton brut and retro seventies design everywhere in the former Yugoslavia.

One of the “Five Idiots“ in New Belgrade.

Old clock on a modernist building in central Belgrade.

Wide angle view of the town center Bar, Montenegro.

And, its nearby sibling, the post office where I mailed in my ballot for Kamala.

Most often, this kind of architecture is photographed in black and white. And, it always seems to be raining or under darkened skies. Much more dramatic and ominous that way. I, on the other hand, have had an almost unbroken string of beautiful clear days. The Adriatic sun kind of takes the menace out of socialist realist architecture.

Skopje Postal and Communications Building by Janko Konstantinov and part of Tange’s masterplan from the MOMA exhibit. This building fascinated me. I knew I had to see it.

Kenzo Tange won the project to rebuild Skopje after the 1963 earthquake devastated the city. Some of his work remains, but much was marred by the kitschy 2014 nationalist revamp. After a bad fire, the post office is vulnerable to replacement and is often ranked as a highly endangered structure. Better get there and see it while I still can!

Tange with his team and the Plan for Skopje.