Conner Gordon
Artist Statement
As the republic of Yugoslavia emerged from the Second World War, Belgrade’s city planners were tasked with translating the optimism of the era into concrete and stone. Inspired by principles of modernism and the Yugoslav ideals of brotherhood and unity, they envisioned a city of Brutalist structures and orderly natural spaces that would honor the country’s founding values and mark its ascendance as a modern, socialist state. Rather than modify Belgrade’s existing urban design, a centuries-old web of alleyways and competing architectural styles, the planners looked to the city’s western marshes as the perfect place to start anew–-to design an entire city, and the community it would contain, from the ground up.
Nearly three decades have passed since the Yugoslav experiment came to an end. Yet the city of New Belgrade continues to evolve as a landscape of overlapping utopian visions, with community-centered neighborhoods from the Yugoslav era competing for space with the glimmering structures of global capitalism. The Dormitories examines how these visions affect the fabric of the city and the communities who live there. In doing so, the project explores what it means to negotiate the present in the shadow of the past–to create home within an order that no longer exists
Conner Gordon | Eugene, OR