brotherhood and unity highway

The proposed work arose from the author’s experience during a road trip on the “Brotherhood and Unity Highway”, a motorway that runs more than 1180 km through the old Yugoslavia, connecting the four constituent states. From the Austrian border, through Liubliana, Zagreb, Belgrado and Skopie to the border with Greece in the south-east. It was the first and only modern roadway in the country.

During the 60s and 70s, the road became a busy, dangerous route used by Turkish, Greek and Yugoslav immigrants (called “Gastarbeiter”, “guest workers”) on their way to Western Germany and Austriaand in order to visit their home country during the summer holidays and by tourists heading for south-east Europe. Entering the communist, but non-aligned Yugoslavia was much easier for people coming from NATO countries such as Germany and Turkey than entering any of the Warsaw Pact communist countries of the Balkan region, which could have provided alternative routes.

The main aim of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway project is interdisciplinarity. The project brings together different forms of perception in order to reach a panorama of overall perspectives of the countries that made up Yugoslavia. The complexity of the region crossed by the motorway combines historical, architectural, political, cultural aspects, for which reason an approach to this reality can only be achieved by proposing the broadest viewpoint possible.