Brutalist headquarters of the North Macedonian postal service in Skopje, built after the 1963 earthquake, photographed in 2025.
Rest assured, it isn’t lost on me that my fascination with “brutalist” subject matter as detailed herein probably isn’t shared by more than a half-dozen denizens of the city of New Albany. The same goes for the Balkans, a region that has fascinated me for as long as I can remember.
In point of fact the offbeat narrowness of my interests, as contrasted with the prevailing zeitgeist in Hoosierland, serves to empower me. I rather enjoy living on the edge.
I’d love to have a month or more to slowly travel the countries created from the former Yugoslavia, looking for monuments and buildings detailed in the articles I’ll be linking below.
Alas, I’m no longer able to let my muse guide me while traveling. This is not a complaint, simply a wistful acknowledgement of reality.
It’s true that twice during the past six months we’ve visited locales formerly situated in Yugoslavia, first the port city of Split on the Dalmation coast (Croatia) in November, and then Skopje and Ohrid, now in North Macedonia, and Budva and Kotor (Montenegro) in February.
These were “couples” trips, rightfully balancing the interests...
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