Introduction to the UDI special issue—Reflections on Balkan urbanism

Abstract

This special issue reflects three distinct discourses affiliated with the Balkans' period of sociocultural and urban transformation: Orientalist, Modern, and New Modern. During Yugoslavia's communist regime, modern practice imposed social standards that created a sociocultural melting potFootnote1 in the Balkans. The communist and social state adopted the Modern Movement as a model of unity based on a set of mandated universal norms. Consequently, this movement arose from a period of neglect and endangerment of traditional values and genius loci throughout the modernist social period, when religious and cultural variety were replaced by communist values.