TOTALPROEKT. The Invisible Architecture of Modernity Exhibition – ArchDaily

TOTALPROEKT. The Invisible Architecture of Modernity Exhibition

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TOTALPROEKT. The Invisible Architecture of Modernity is a reappraisal of Bulgarian postwar architecture

A solid and strong 200 kg oak door with bespoke detailing and a gratifying oversized half-round timber door knob. A re-creation of coloured glass flickering over a CNC-cut 1:1 rendition of a concrete screen. The silhouette of a little girl from the balustrade of a 1950s kindergarten. These are only part of the artefacts adding materiality to the multiple stories in the exhibition TOTALPROEKT. The Invisible Architecture of Modernity - a co-production of the New Architectural Heritage Foundation and the Regional Centre for Contemporary Art Toplocentrala, which can be seen from 29 June to 21 August 2022 at Toplocentralas White Cube gallery, the newest multifunctional art space in Sofia.

At times of war and trouble in Eastern Europe yet again, this exhibition is intended as a ray of hope. It captures the collective spirit of the postwar era telling the unknown story of Bulgarian architectural modernity. The past can bring not only divisions and destruction, but also optimism, says the team behind TOTALPROEKT.

The exhibition aims to portray the modernization spirit and the total art of architecture in socialist Bulgaria following World War II. This is captured through 6 case studies, consciously chosen to be relatively obscure but that signify the ubiquity of the postwar reconstruction effort: the airport in Ruse, the art gallery and museum in Kazanlak, a housing estate and a kindergarten in Sofia, the pedestrian areas in Shumen, the central square of the small town of Loznitsa, Razgrad province. All case studies vary in use, typology and location and demonstrate the total, holistic consideration of design and architecture across a series of colour-coded layers: from urban planning through space and structure, to detail and art in the designs.

The total visual excess in the main hall is countered in the small white room at the end, where you see no images, but read only words - all the words buzzing about this architecture in the collective mind of our present-day horizontal society - from Instagram comments to newspaper headlines and scholarly analysis.

The keywords for the exhibition design are immersion, totality and surprise, achieved by large-scale photographic prints across the walls and floor and by showcasing artefacts or extensive re-creations of key design features of each case study. The exhibition encourages play and discovery and works with various scales of visual information. They offer a different and, in their own way, new focus on the urban environment - on the excitements and ideals of that time, on the economic and political constraints and, at the same time, on the quality of thought and work that we can learn from even today. All these places tell different stories and together they assemble the ideal city of the postwar modern utopia.

More photos are available here: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1u1jvuHpiD6siDAv7ZYsZcS7SvjKqOjFb?usp=sharingCredits: STUDIO BLENDA

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TOTALPROEKT. The Invisible Architecture of Modernity Exhibition - ArchDaily