Jun '10 - Jul '10
Podgorica, Montenegro_ Morača Sport and Recreation Center
Architect: Predrag Dmitrović
The Morača Sport and Recreation Center, Morača referring to a nearby river , is composed of two major halls, one an indoor athletic stadium opening up towards a post-war neighborhood, while the other hall containing two public pools bows down to the river’s edge.
The two objects, formally different with some reference to Saarinen’s Hockey Ring, both rely on the structure of the roof to create grandiose interior spaces with a unique exterior presence. The objects align linearly and mingle under the canopy of a patio strengthening the dominant axis and providing a perpendicular axis from one side of the complex to the parking.
Unfortunately, the recreational facilities of the complex were short lived when an earthquake damaged the water facilities for the pools. The damage was too complicated to resolve and the pool remains off limits to this day.
View of complex from nearby bridge.
Meeting of the stadiums from afar.
View from parking lot.
Close up view of 'hinge' between stadium and enclosed patio.
View towards parking lot from under the enclosed patio.
Front entrance to athletic stadium.
Interior view of stadium.
View of indoor pool from outdoor pool/plaza area.
Interior of pool stadium.
This research is driven to uncover and examine the idiosyncrasies of the architecture that grew out of social modernism in Yugoslavia in the 60s and 70s. Through my travels to the Ex-Yugoslav republics, I will investigate the ways in which these characteristics are informed, urbanistically and architecturally, by the historical, social and –above all- built domain of the preceding decades in Yugoslavia.