Can we assume that the meaning of architecture lies in the background of things – in that which is invisible, yet present? Are they historical circumstances, ideologies, social order or genius loci? Architecture is – ultimately – architecture. But the doubt remains: does architecture exist when stripped down to the space itself, when the background that shaped it is erased?
Reduced to its elements – wall, column, beam, roof, door, window and ultimately, space – without context, it may not exist. Or does it exist? Isn’t context precisely what changes our view? The reverse procedure is also possible: how to contextualize architecture that refuses to bow to representation? Is there architectural autonomy at all?
The idea of context – what is it really? Aren’t all great architectures an echo of their respective ideologies? Does architecture have a thematic framework, or is its freedom hidden precisely in its absence? Does it arise from outside – from the world – or from the continuity of its own self-reflection?
The multiplication of architectural elements complicates architecture. Isn't the point of today's efforts to create architecture to produce architecture that, with its simplicity, achieves an endless range of new readings, new forms of use, usefulness and, ultimately, uselessness? This is perhaps the paradox of this discipline.
How, after all, do we define the context of today's time? The world of one ideology or the infinite sum of many? Are we living, or rather, continuing, postmodernism today? What is contemporary in architecture: the subtle relationship between the vernacular and the abstract, a social role or a public good? Perhaps architecture, today, is created precisely outside the zone of the familiar and the zone of the comfortable...
My Japanese conceptual iterations attempt to unravel the above-mentioned dilemmas. The background to the Collage House project lies in the migrant crisis; inspired by it, the project does not depict it, but articulates it – it does not take a stance, but creates a space between stances. Can architecture relativize the idea of borders, transitions and prohibitions, cultural melting pots and cultural identity? Can elements of architecture participate in this act through layering, changing shapes and dimensions, superimposing motifs of the border, field, garden, the relationship of the symmetrical, asymmetrical and neutral? The perimeter becomes an element of the definition of space – permeable, diffuse, ambivalent.
Imaginary Landscape began as a meditation on a hypersensitive, omnipotent high-tech, artificially intelligent surface, intended to achieve social catharsis in the manner of Superstudio and other radical groups of the sixties. It turned, however, into an inextricable dialogue with the metropolis, with G. B. Nolli, with Piranesi and with the hidden phenomena that shape the urban fabric. The key question is: how to create a new relationship between the accessible and the inaccessible, the public and the private? How would Nolli’s map of Rome be drawn today, or in the near future? Are the themes of the decomposition of the urban fabric in the service of creating a mega-public space anticipatory for today’s society? Hasn’t O. M. Ungers’s Green Archipelago project for Berlin already hinted at this contemporary, holistic tendency to dismantle the fabric of the city?
The Disappearance of the Typical House came about as a response to the generic, unoriginal and ubiquitous housing construction – the kind that is an integral part of every culture. Driven by the ubiquitous awareness of climate change, I wondered whether its dismantling was possible. The floor plan of the house is therefore not abolished, but rather stratified; the inside-outside relationship becomes gradual and unclear. Each newly designed element carries the potential of a new spatial relationship. Through the stratification of space, the possibility of asking the question again opens up: how to live – and how to transform this everyday life into a new space of thought? The typical house has ceased to be generic...
Dynamic Reflections in Fluid Environments _Transforming Toilets through Cultural and Sensory experience finds its background in a contemporary Mediterranean city faced with climate change, where, with the assumption of the installation of an enigmatic pavilion, Mediterranean urban spaces take on a new role: they become “climate islands” — micro-oases that provide shelter from the heat, humidity and a moment of respite. However, the function of these pavilions goes beyond physiological needs. Instead of remaining pure infrastructure, they are transformed into spaces of encounter, retention and togetherness. By integrating vegetation, water and shading, the pavilion becomes an architectural gesture that connects hygiene, ecology and social interaction — a response to the growing lack of green and quality public spaces in increasingly dense urban environments.
Conclusion
Through four projects; three + one – I have sought to shape a thought about space that is not only a response to a given topic, but also a medium for self-reflection on architecture. Each proposal, although rooted in a specific cultural and competition framework, questions the boundaries of typology, program, and the social role of the architectural discipline. In this examination, architecture ceases to be just a form or function – for me, it becomes a thought experiment, thus revealing the “background” of things. Competitions like Shinkenchiku and Central Glass prove to be rare but precious laboratories that encourage thinking outside the box, opening up space for speculation, intuition, and alternative architectural narratives. It is precisely in this constant tension between autonomy and context that the very essence and contemporaneity of architecture lies.
Krešimir Damjanović
June, 2025