Skopje : The capital city gets a controversial facelift

 

 

Aug 26th 2010 | skopje

Here comes the equestrian statue

ITS charms are many, but architecture is not usually seen as one of them. Rebuilt after an earthquake in 1963 wiped out most of the city, Skopje, the capital of the ex-Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, was for years characterised by ugly concrete blocks and strange empty spaces. But earlier this year Nikola Gruevski's conservative government produced a video that revealed the full ambition of “Skopje 2014”, its plan for a radical reinvention of the city centre.
It was hard to take the scheme seriously. Fifteen grand buildings, including a new foreign ministry and a constitutional court, were to be built from scratch. Older structures, such as the parliament, were to be tarted up with domes and other accoutrements. In the city's main square, the government would erect a giant statue of Alexander the Great.
Supporters of the plans said that, after decades of stagnation,
Skopje would at last get the regeneration it deserves, its heroes commemorated in marble and bronze. Sceptical critics, used to a city where nothing much happens, sarcastically asked which triumph the proposed triumphal arch would be celebrating.
Yet it is happening. New buildings are sprouting up along the banks of the Vardar river and a fresh statue is unveiled every few weeks. Workmen have begun preparing the ground for the Alexander sculpture, which should be completed some time next year. For the moment, at least, the naysayers are in retreat.
But that is not the end of the controversy. For one thing, the proposed Alexander statue has enraged Greece, which says that its northern neighbour is appropriating symbols of Greek identity, evidence of Macedonia's designs over a northern Greek region of the same name. (The two countries have been rowing over Macedonia's name for 19 years.)
Macedonia's Muslim Albanians, a quarter of the population, are also griping. If there is to be a new city church, they argue, then why not a mosque? And if Macedonian heroes are to be celebrated in statue form, surely space can be found for a few more Albanians (Skopje-born Mother Teresa and Skanderbeg, a medieval hero, are already represented).
For Saso Ordanoski, a local commentator, Skopje 2014 is an “ugly, money-wasting, architecturally failed and politically lunatic project.” Be that as it may, says Radmila Sekerinska, an opposition deputy, Mr Gruevski has laid a clever trap. Politicians will struggle to contest plans that underscore nationalist and religious values and poke fun at Greece.
But a source close to the government who asks for anonymity says that the building projects are not just a way of giving a tired-looking city a facelift; they also keep people in work. As for the Greeks, he says, it is time they accepted that Macedonia is “an independent country which can at least decide on its own interior decoration.”

Source : The Economist