January 3, 2018 Comments Off on Skopje, an urbanscape of “temporary buildings” Views: 3775 Skopje, Virtual Memoirs

Life starts anew in Skopje following the disastrous earthquake as of 1963. Help and donation arrive from almost all parts of the world, and by the end of the decade, the capital rises from the rubble, gaining new urban morphology. The photos below reveal many of the current existing municipalities, how they looked at day 1, or likely before people started to move in the donated buildings.

Caption from Aerodrom, with new apartment housing, here pictured as of 1964:

Dolno Nerezi in 1964; the housing development was a gift from the people of Norway.

Housing in Butel thanks to Bosnia and Herzegovina!

Activities had ended in Butel by the end of March 1964.

The settlement of Dracevo was as well ready by 1964.

While Serbia helped with housing in Dracevo, the health facilities there (see photo below) was a gift from Switzerland.

A Special Directorate for Housing coordinated all reconstruction and construction efforts as well as the General Directorate for Reconstruction and construction of Skopje. They used newly built facilities on the Orce Nikolov street.

Many of these barracks can still be spotted in Kozle today; these were also built after the earthquake.

Prefabricated buildings dotted the landscape of Madzari too.

More or less each end of Skopje got temporary housing; this is Gjorce Petrov II:

Kisela Voda looks slightly different. Here’s a caption from 1964:

Life after the earthquake was not easy.

And here’s caption of Novo Lisice, its prefabricated apartments that were donated by Montenegro.

By the end of 1963, the settlement of Zelezara was also ready to take in people who were left without a shelter after the earthquake. The buildings are still there today.

Vodno was undergoing construction too.

Last but not least, a temporary building for the National Theatre was built on the JNA boulevard.

We also thought to remind you that it was a Polish architect who supervised the reconstruction of Skopje after the earthquake in 1963

Tags: 1963 earthquake, housing, Skopje