To complement the exhibition David Maljkovic: Sources in the Air at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gatsehead.

BALTIC together with Northumbria University present a seminar examining the legacy of modernist utopian architecture and design from the 1950s-70s in the former socialist Yugoslavia. Drawing upon the re-visiting of key avant-garde moments as a theme in Maljkovic‘s work the seminar moves outwards to explore how at this time (the 1950s-70s) a unique body of architecture was produced that blurred the pre-existing categories of Modernism.

Connecting this research with the present, the seminar will include presentations from architecture critic and writer Owen Hatherley; architect and design critic, Maroje Mrduljas, Faculty of Architecture, Zagreb and editor of Oris magazine; and the writer and critic, Agata Pyzik.  

A panel discussion chaired by Sebastian Messer, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at University of Northumbria, between Nic Clear, Head of Architectural Design at the University of Greenwich School of Architecture, Design and Construction and programme leader for the MSc Architectural Design (AVATAR); Matt Ozga-Lawn, Stasus and University of Newcastle and Alessandro Vincentelli, BALTIC Curator will develop the themes in Maljkovic’s work, and consider nostalgia for the future, and the role of narratives and the use of moving images in mapping the boundaries of contemporary architecture.