APSS is a summer school of architecture located in Boka Bay, Montenegro, For six years now it has been acting as a platform for architecture, urbanism, informal education with studies and research that has lead to more projects such as Montenegro Pavilion at Venice Biennale in 2104 and 2016 that has originated from APSS work. After our Re-Use series in APSS, we have continued our journey with the topic of TEMPORARY in architecture, this year extended to CROSSING TEMPORARY.
Kotor is an ancient fortified city located in a secluded bay on Montenegro's Adriatic coast. It has been Venetian, Austrian and—most recently—part of the former Yugoslavia. Today, as part of an independent nation, it's narrow streets, small squares, and warm stone buildings define the character of a UNESCO World Heritage Site which, each summer, becomes one vast cruise terminal as tourists arrive in their droves to bask in it's dry heat and spectacular natural environment. At this time, however, it also plays host to KotorAPSS (Architectural Prison Summer School) – an eight day-long gathering dedicated to infusing contemporary cultural life into the city by means of temporary architectural installations.
Is it a pop-up, a folie, an installation? Does it have a function? What is it made of? Does it challenge technology? What is the methodology? How long will it stay? After our Re-Use series in KotorAPSS, we continue our journey with the topic of TEMPORARY in architecture. Inside the city walls of UNESCO site and within the vicinity of Old Austrian Prison - the mothership of KotorAPSS we have decided to break up with the permanence and talk about its significance in architecture.” Temporary structures might be designed to disappear shortly or just host an event, might have to be set-up quickly - but they do become part of the public space, part of
With its upcoming double symposium KotorAPSS further establishes a small Montenegrin town as an international hot spot for architectural thinking and advances the debate on decaying places of the recent past and their possible futures.
Boka Kotorska Bay cuts the Adriatic Montenegrin coast like a Norwegian Fjord. Once a hideout for pirates and smugglers it also was an important commercial trade hub and naval base.
The region once belonged to the Illyrian Kingdom, the Roman Empire and later to the Byzantine Empire. The Venetians ruled until the late 18th century, followed by the Austrians, and troops of Napoleon. From here Mediterranean cultures spread into the Balkan. Especially since UNESCO declared the natural and culture-historical region Kotor a world heritage site in 1979 the city and the bay have become an increasingly popular daytrip location for cruise ship tourism along the Adriatic coast.
