Established by DVARP, as part of Kotor ART festival, Kotor Architectural Prison Summer School will take place this year in an Old Austrian Prison in Kotor, Montenegro from July 4-14. Set to host great mentors and lecturers, there are two main parts of Kotor APSS: the summer school workshop with final work exhibition and student presentation, and the final conference ”APSS talk” and Panel discussion based on the workshop Topic and Conclusions, which is open to the wider public. More information and images of last year's event after the break.
Big voids in planning legislations and turnovers in social, political and economic circumstances have lead to major space misuse in many coastal towns along the Adriatic. Looking for a quick return, housing and tourism oriented projects seamed to be the easiest and the most profitable opportunity. Apart from the profit lead reasons and legislation created environment, there was an obvious deficit in these categories, especially in popular touristic destinations in Montenegrin coast.
Popularity of towns such as Kotor, Budva, Petrovac, Bar and other has been rising and there was a big demand for new spaces. And while Budva has been destroyed in urban and architectural terms, there are towns, such as Kotor that somehow managed to keep form, spirit and charm it always had. Of course, this town will spread and develop as well and we want to be there, as architects, scholars and thinkers.
Topic 2013:
South Adriatic is used as a common name for a part of Adriatic coast that includes Montenegrin coast and southern Croatian regions. This space was merged by one of the first regional plans – “Regional plan for South Adriatic” proposed in the late sixties of the last century (1964-1968). The plan has been an initiative of the Government of SFR Yugoslavia, implemented together with United Nations Development Program. Many perceive this plan as the beginning of an institutional approach to spatial planning in this part of former Yugoslavia and, at the same time, a plan that initiated the modernization of this part of the former country.
The plan itself has marked the beginning of the tourism as an economic branch in the region. Tourism has been considered as an addition and insurance to the existing economy and the way to bring leisure closer to working people of industrialization. One of the key moments that have influenced urban chaos in Montenegrin coast seems to be the introduction of the apartment as a tourism unit. Apartment, or bed production has been much cheaper, faster and less demanding than hotel building. The unit itself has multiplied and shaped the architecture as well as the wider urban context and certain patterns in social behavior. During the 90s, the apartment unit has created the urban chaos in the city on the coast we are struggling to correct today.
The workshop will explore the question of “place” in wider urban context and its transformation under the influence of market demands and rapid development pushed by transition. We want to go back and examine the essence of the city and its architecture on one side, and residential unit as one of the fundamental elements of any urban environment on the other side. The workshop will investigate new elements that will redefine relationship between architecture and the city, and improve urban background by changing architectural fundamentals such as tourism housing unit
To register, and for more information, please visit here.
