Independent Urbanism: Nostalgia and Non-places by Amy Tibbels

2016-11-24T13:41:00-05:00

The 25th issue of MONU “Independent Urbanism” provides a platform to unveil the multitude of decisions that had to be made by countries after becoming independent - and more specifically the cities within these countries. by Amy Tibbels

In 2010 we became familiar with instagram and along with it a new way to represent ourselves. In the same year, the Republic of Macedonia’s capital city Skopje decided to completely cover itself with false neo-classical facades, embodied with hundred year old representation. The 25th issue of MONU “Independent Urbanism” provides a platform to unveil the multitude of decisions that had to be made by countries after becoming independent- and more specifically the cities within these countries. The magazine’s photo essays have an indispensable heaviness within this particular issue of MONU, in it’s twelve years it has never featured as many as three. Of this we can be appreciative in largest part because these intimate images bring authenticity to some inconceivable realities. But further, what I find integral to each of these photo essays is a nostalgia, which becomes a binding agent of most articles as if being the authors’ communal grand answer to the question; what happened to thes...

MONU #25 looks at Independent Urbanism

2016-10-17T12:28:00-04:00

A city in a country that recently gained independence is likely to undergo processes of radical transformation and massive restructuring and re-imagining that are not only societal, political, and economic in nature, but can also impact the planning system of a city and influence its built-up environment. Jasna Mariotti makes this quite clear in her contribution to MONU, entitled "What Ever Happened to Skopje?". This new issue of our magazine deals with various phenomena impacting cities of countries that became newly independent which we call "Independent Urbanism". She shows how the centre of Skopje in Macedonia has been remodeled according to an image of the city that never existed as such. Obviously, many "independent" cities are facing major struggles and difficulties in finding their new identity that usually have a lot to do with the fact that the "birth of a country" is a contested process often involving political turmoil, institutional instability, and economic turbulence...

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Independent Urbanism: Nostalgia and Non-places by Amy Tibbels

MONU #25 looks at Independent Urbanism