Violence Taking Place: The Architecture Of The Kosovo Conflict (cultural Memory In The Present)

While the construction of architecture has a place in architectural discourse, its destruction, generally seen as incompatible with the very idea of "culture," has been neglected in theoretical and historical discussion. Responding to this neglect, Herscher examines the case of the former Yugoslavia and in particular, Kosovo, where targeting architecture has been a prominent dimension of political violence. Rather than interpreting violence against architecture as a mere representation of "deeper" social, political, or ideological dynamics, Herscher reveals it to be a form of cultural production, irreducible to its contexts and formative of the identities and agencies that seemingly bear on it as causes. Focusing on the particular sites where violence is inflicted and where its subjects and objects are articulated, the book traces the intersection of violence and architecture from socialist modernization, through ethnic and nationalist conflict, to postwar reconstruction. Annotation While the construction of architecture has a place in architectural discourse, its destruction, generally seen as incompatible with the very idea of "culture," has been neglected in theoretical and historical discussion. Responding to this neglect, Herscher examines the case of the former Yugoslavia and in particular, Kosovo, where targeting architecture has been a prominent dimension of political violence. Rather than interpreting violence against architecture as a mere representation of "deeper" social, political, or ideological dynamics, Herscher reveals it to be a form of cultural production, irreducible to its contexts and formative of the identities and agencies that seemingly bear on it as causes. Focusing on the particular sites where violence is inflicted and where its subjects and objects are articulated, the book traces the intersection of violence and architecture from socialist modernization, through ethnic and nationalist conflict, to postwar reconstruction Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Note on Place Names 12 Introduction: Violence Taking Place 16 Part I. Modernization 36 1. A Relic of the Past, Fast Disappearing 38 Part II. Emergencies 60 2. It Is Not Only Vandalism 62 3. Warchitecture 90 4. The Right Place: A Supplement on the Architecture of Humanitarian War 114 Part III. Afterwar 136 5. Reconstruction/Redestruction 138 Coda: The End of Preservation 164 Notes 170 Bibliography 192 Index 208 The first history ever of violence against architecture as political violence, this book examines the case of the former Yugoslavia and the ways in which architecture is a site where power, agency, and ethnicity are constituted.