The human brain is a fascinating organ — it harbors our memories, allows us to think, experience our surroundings, to communicate and feel. But when it glitches, you’ve got a problem. When it overloads, you’ve got a problem. When you’re taking a lot of new information in on a daily basis, while conversing in three or more foreign languages at the same time and also watching out in order not to be hit by a bus, you’ve got a problem.

In this regard it’s not surprising that it took me five years of studying in Germany and Italy to finally ask myself how the volumes I have learnt could actually be applied to a very different context than the one my professors were always concerned with. How could I take what I’ve learned and use it to better the living environment of my Eastern European, post-socialist homeland of Bulgaria? I had experienced the differences between East and West becoming more and more noticeable with each home visit for the holidays but I was just accumulating the emotional stress that comes with these findings without having an actual outlet to deal with it. A part of the problem was the fact that the situation of Eastern European cities was never a topic discussed in class. Another part of the problem was that though I had a connection to the architecture and urban planing faculty of the UACEG University in Sofia the information I was receiving from students was that the lectures they were listening to sounded as if they were written decades ago under the rule of the socialist republic. Looking at this today I can see how paradoxical and almost tragic this situation is —

a city like Sofia, which is trying to move on from a socialist past, needs new input

At the same time the young generation of architects, who are receiving their education in the heart of said city are still being lulled with ideas from the 70s mixed with the opportunism of the 90s. Hundred of kilometers away the other young Bulgarian architects are being educated in an innovative, rational way but without any concern or exploration of the situation which post-socialist cities like Sofia are facing.

First steps in the right direction

Roughly a year before my master thesis I decided that it’s about time to face reality and start translating the principles I had learned in the West to the situation of the East. The first project I took on was a design and a feasibility study for a project development class. My idea was to supplement the historical buildings of the old sugar refinery in the northern part of Sofia. This could prevent the further destruction of this architectural landmark while meeting the need for living space, creating office and shopping space as well as room for small businesses and spurring a wave of gentrification in a city district well due.

The idea of creating a cultural center in the buildings of the old sugar refinery while giving investors the opportunity to attain apartments and business real estate was met with affirmation by my professor and is also loosely supported by the urban plan for Sofia 2020 of the city’s building committee. The problem is that the calculations of the feasibility study don’t add up. The reality of a very low standard of living and high investment costs lead inevitably to a negative interest margin making a multifaceted project like this high risk for any investor, which to some extent explains why nobody in Bulgaria is investing in culture or education for that matter.

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The disappointment of this first step only fueled my interest in the post-socialist urban reality and led me to participate in a very interesting seminar held by the architecture history department at the University of Stuttgart. The topic of discussion was socialist architecture — as portrayed by different architectural objects from that era going hand in hand with the urban planing guidelines that led to and controlled this development. During this time I decided to use Sofia as an example for the utilization of said urban planing principles. My course work followed the development of the capital to a model of a socialist city while taking into consideration the position of the Bulgarian People’s Republic to Moscow.

The rather peripheral position of the country allowed it to enjoy a fairly liberal version of the socialist urban planing manifesto, yet the city today bears the marks of the era. Projects such as the remodeling of the city center after World War II into a representative headquarter for the socialist party or the National Culture Palace, a monumental concrete giant reigning over its humble surroundings, are examples of denounced fibers of the urban fabric.

The question is how do we mend the fabric of the city? Do we cut holes in it, cut out the foul bits and replace them or do we embrace the fragmented reality and create a new pattern? I can identify with the latter, especially based on my fascination with the idea of the European city as we experience it in Italy for example —

the urban fabric is irregular, a compilation of different eras, combined into a dynamic body, bearing its own internal logic and rhythm.

In my perception there is no division between East and West — the cities are different but the questions, problems and principles are the same.

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This understanding was the basis for the photography series “1/4 sec” through which I examined the symbiosis between the urban environment and its inhabitants in three cities — Stuttgart, Sofia and Strasbourg. The seemingly contradictory urban fabrics revealed a lot of similar situations in detail. The pairing of the photographs allowed for a sometimes harmonious and seamless transition between the different contexts and at times hyperbolised the collision between two wolds.

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But let’s get back to the harsh facts — in 2018 Reporters without borders ranked Bulgaria in 111th place with a press freedom index of 35.22 compared to Germany’s global score of 14.39 (ranked in 15th place) or Norway’s 7.63 (ranked in 1st place). This means that Bulgaria ranked lower than any other European Union member with an index even lower than all the countries in the western Balkans, which are candidates for EU membership.

How can a discussion on the positive transformation of a post-socialist city as Sofia be attained in a state of virtually non-existent freedom of speech?

The transition from socialism towards democracy has ripped culture in Bulgaria from its worth to a big extent. Today mass culture, propaganda as well as demagogy have become the leading tools of the state. Culture and education are neglected and even made inaccessible for the normal citizen. There is a lack of will to confront the recent historical developments in a realistic way despite the fact that Sofia is and will always remain a city of fragments of diverse historical epochs, which are connected through the amalgam of everyday life.

The institutions, which should support the cultural life of the city, are available but fail to fulfill their task. The reading rooms (читалища) are an important part of this existing cultural infrastructure. They are small educational centers, which have played a tremendous role in the preservation of the Bulgarian ethos during the Ottoman yoke. Their transformation to culture houses during the socialist era and their exploitation as tools for the cultural propaganda during that time has led to their demise after the democratic turn in 1989. The National Palace of Culture (NDK), which was erected in 1981 as socialist representative architecture, stores a big potential in expensive infrastructure for conventions and cultural events. However the building also symbolizes the stigma of socialism and is therefor not accepted as a cultural center by the generation of the democratic turn.
It is apparent that Sofia needs a new cultural infrastructure and a new cultural institution, which would complement the existing structures while representing a clear ideological credo for the development of a civil society in Bulgaria. This was the premise of my master thesis in 2016. The idea to reinvent and revitalize the network of reading rooms in Sofia while complementing it through a central space for culture and knowledge developed from the already mentioned observations. This concept envisions the creation of a new cultural network for the city.

One of the first steps of my work was to analyze and catalogue the existing reading rooms in Sofia. I examined their position, condition and concentration as branches of a central cultural institution, while developing a concept for a new central cultural institution as a space for education, information, discussion and creation in the heart of the city.

The new institution for affordable and accessible education with the goal to inform and lead to discussion in the young Bulgarian civil society needs to have a central and visible position in Sofia. Therefore the only logical space for it became the park next to the National Cultural Palace (NDK) in the heart of the city center. This topos serves as a place where a direct confrontation with the existing malfunctioning cultural institutions could be showcased. The lot of NDK is also a place that stands for the fragmented nature of Sofia, in which different epochs coexist.

On an urban planing scale the decision to incorporate the new space for culture and knowledge in the form of a linear extrusion counteracts the monumental socialist representative and stigmatized building of NDK. It distinguishes itself from the existing building though its minimal almost industrial architectural presence. At the same time it absorbs NDK into a new system of interaction while demanding its leading position in the spacial relationship.

The intersection of park and architectural form is an important element of the concept. It is most potently presented in the ground floor of the building. There I envisioned an open exhibition on the topic of cultural infrastructure during the socialist regime and the strategies of coping with the scars of that era.

I know that a project so controversial and so wholeheartedly clashing with the present idea of out of sight out of mind could not be implemented in Sofia. This is actually beside the point. A conceptual project has firstly the role of a catalyst for change in peoples’ minds and perceptions of reality. It is then that the whole process of developing sustainable strategies for the mending of the post-socialist city can start.

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Feel free to share your experiences, ideas and hopes on the topic and start a conversation either here or on my other social network platforms.