Housing for Our Conditions. A high standard of living for everyone

The making of new Yugoslavia after 1945 was marked by progress and a commitment to social change as an alternative to the country’s pre-war capitalist production and especially its way of life; this alternative was reflected in the desire to raise people’s living standards, regardless of their social status. Social progress was driven by industrialization and cultural development in the broadest sense, within which architecture and design played an important role. The Tito–Stalin split of 1948 abruptly severed the hitherto solid bond between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, prompting Yugoslavia to pursue its own political, economic, and cultural development in the form of socialist self-management. Yugoslavia’s subsequent rapid industrialization led to an increase in the number of people living in urban centres, making the shortage of residential units, and the topic of modern housing construction in general, a major issue of concern.

‘Housing for Our Conditions’, Yugoslavia’s first post-war exhibition promoting new lifestyle concepts, opened in Ljubljana in 1956, and showcased model apartments, housing construction concepts, and interior furnishings. Covering the full scope of housing construction from urban planning to household equipment and decoration, the event played an important role in the development of housing construction in Yugoslavia, and in the promotion of new lifestyle concepts. Three winning proposals for a terraced house were presented as full-scalemodels, all fully equipped with the latest furniture and fittings, including a laboratory kitchen designed by Branka Tancig (1927–2013). The first prize went to the ‘Trata house’, a proposal designed by Janez Lajovic (1932), Vladimir Mušič (1930–2014), Anton Pibernik (b. 1932), and Savin Sever (1927–2003). The 100 sqm two-storey house featured a living area connected to an outdoor atrium, a dining room, and a kitchen on the ground floor, in addition to sleeping area for six people upstairs on the first floor. The exhibition thus acted as a medium through which the functional apartment, and its rationally designed, standardized furniture and fittings, became a symbol and the promoter of progress and the modern lifestyle. The exhibition was first and foremost a vehicle for the socialist society’s democratic ideal of providing high-quality living conditions for all.