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Transition: Architects as Managers of Change Transition in a social sense is a change from one system into another. Globally, the modernist paradigm changed to the post-modern with the disappearance of central authorities, universal dogmas and foundational ethics. The post-modern world introduced fragmentation, instability, indeterminacy and insecurity. Architectural responses to these conditions occurred as a 'semantic nightmare' of the post-modern discourse and / or the attempted completion of 'the modern project'. Locally, in Croatia, transition occurred as a quantum leap from the Socialist, one-party, state-controlled market system, into a capitalist, parliamentary democratic, free-market system. In 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, disappeared the raison d'etre of the 'buffer zone', known as Yugoslavia.
A Pandora's box of political nightmares was opened. Yugoslavia disintegrated into 5 new independent nation-states: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The surprising national optimism and excitement upon which these states were formed quickly back-fired. The war, in the beginning of the 1990 s, completely destroyed the Croatian economy, especially the tourist industry.
The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the mid- 1990 s, transformed Croatia into an enormous refugee camp. The compounded effects of war and transition of the political and economic system, in fact, placed Croatia amongst the levels of Third World countries. A corresponding cultural transition, returned Croatia to the romantic nationalist sentiments of the mid- 19 th century. The transitional field within the Croatian architectural profession of the 1990 s was widened to surrealistic dimensions while a simultaneous narrowing of actual realizations occurred. In order to survive, architects had to fundamentally change their status and role within society. The architect was no longer a 'gentleman' with bow-tie and cigar waiting for a patron to develop canonical national institutions of historical importance.
Randic-Turato are able to anticipate and transform this transitional atmosphere. An Architecture of Transition is a way of intervening in the new market conditions where the 'role assignments' are no longer grounded in the established state-regulated economy. The architect becomes an 'extra', a free-lance actor without a previously assigned role, without a script. Randic-Turato are transitional architects who have fully understood and accepted these realities without 'ontological disturbances' and professional nostalgia. In the free, non-regulated market, they use even the slightest opportunity for activity. Their work is widening the traditional field of the architectural profession, whereby Randic-Turato have become dynamic managers of change.
Border Conditions The city of Rijeka represents the historical and conceptual background of Randic-Turato. Historically, geographically and conceptually, the city of Rijeka represents a border condition between sea and land, east and west, order and chaos, province and centre and the horizontality of its sea and the verticality of its mountains. Rijeka is a harbour city, where the port and its industry represent the 'urban' more significantly than the morphological organization of the city centre. Rijeka's skyline is dominated by the silhouette of numerous harbour cranes and social housing skyscrapers -- function and pragmatism dictates city form.
Sasa Randic (1964) and Idis Turato (1965) were both born in Sasa, the eastern quarter of Rijeka. Both come from 'architectural families', whereas Randic's father is an urban planner and Turato's father is an architect and grandfather was a builder. They completed primary and secondary school in Rijeka and studied architecture in Zagreb from mid- 1980 s to beginning of 1990 s. Their education at the rchitecture Faculty at University of Zagreb further attests to the particular context upon which their foundation rests. The University of Zagreb never accepted post-modernism as a dominate direction: quite contrary, it sought 'the completion' of the modern movement.
Education was based upon the concepts of the modernist tradition of the 1930 s, when the so-called Zagreb School was an active part of the European Modernist scheme. During the 1980 s, for example, students and professors would carefully study the work of Cedric Price rather than that of nearby Aldo Rossi. Paolo Portuguese's 1979 Venice Biennale, which showcased the early work of OMA, was congruent to the sensibilities of the Zagreb students. A New 'Modus Operandi' top Sasa Randic, similar to many other excellent students of his generation, not only received the solid grounding of the faculty, but also educated himself by an insatiable curiosity of the contemporary international architecture scene. In his exchange with the world, he was awarded a prize in a competition organized by RIBA Oasis competition 1989 for the re-design of Le Corbusier's Ville Radius housing tower as a new typology for future housing. Idis Turato, as a secondary technical school student in Rijeka, often spent time in his father's library, which was full of books of Oscar Niemeyer and Richard Neutral.
It was quickly became apparent that he was destined to continue the family business. He completed his studies in Zagreb as one of the best students of his generation and was awarded a prize in the Rating and Ove Arup student competition for a 'house for a media lover. ' His diploma work (1991) was for a villa in Crikvenica as a micro-version of OMA's La Villette strategy, where the different program are organized as linear strips and where the event is created as a perpendicular movement though different p programmatic fields. During their studies, Randic and Turato, together with Damir Rate, Toni Pokovic and Sasa Randic formed the student group Ax 5. The work of the group was nationally recognized within the 'salon of youth' of architecture in 1998 in Zagreb.
The group dissolved after the members graduated in the beginning 1990 s. From the fall of 1990, Randic studied at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam (a post graduate school of architecture as one of the students of the first 'heroic' generation in a conceptual environment created by Herman Hertzberger (founder and creator of the Institute) and Kenneth Frampton (history and theory chair). Randic spent 2 dynamic years together with a generation of outstanding Croatian and Slovenian young architects, including Pero Pulijz, Branimir Medic and Take Glazer. The phenomenon of the contribution and performance of the Croatian student at the Berlage is probably deserving of a separate monograph, however Randic and his comrades created (within Aldo van Eyck's orphanage) strategies and scenarios for the reconstruction for the troubled ex-Yugoslav region following the war. A very important element within the education environment of the Berlage was international competitions. European was a logical choice as a competition for the new housing typologies for young European architects.
Randic and his partner Santa Ipsec (a painter) were awarded the first prize for the site Sete, France. Following his diploma work, Turato realized the 'Prince' fashion boutique interior in Crikvenica and thereafter worked as a free-lance architect in Veneto, Italy. Upon the 1992 return of Randic from Amsterdam and Turato from Veneto, the Randic-Turato architectural office was established in Rijeka as the operational platform for architectural activities in a transitional environment. It was a strategic decision to establish the office in Rijeka; leaving 'the west' and returning to 'the homeland' was based upon possibilities to act within the completely changed conditions of the Croatian architectural market. The establishment their office in Rijeka was logical in terms of filling a gap in the transitional market -- where large state offices did not manage to transform themselves. Nonetheless, the waves upon which Randic-Turato began to sail were rough, disorientating and pulled by a strong under-current.
To a certain extent, the seas they began to re-navigate were, in many of its aspects, surreal. Croatia, in the beginning of the 1990 s, was a 'laboratory of transition' where the central authorities, universal dogmas and foundational ethics of socialism were replaced by a series of (unsuccessful) economic and cultural experiments embedded with new romantic nationalist values. Following the privatisation of state-owned companies, the so-called Croatian free market became, in fact, an oligarchical system of control where the entire market was in the hands of a number of ruling elite families. Croatia acquired a social and economic system which was very similar to the 'banana republics' of the Third World. Perhaps the only possible way to act in such an environment was to pragmatically accept the 'chaos' of transition (fragmentation, instability, indeterminacy and insecurity) while super-intelligently accommodating the context.
Randic-Turato had to create a new system of values and a new 'modus operandi' for their architectural practice. The principles of their transitional 'manifesto': Don't Bother with the Future, Keep an Open Mind, Define the Circumstances, Work in a Group, Condense the Solution, Use Existing Elements and Dispose After Use, reveals an extra-intelligence that is necessary in order to practice architecture -- when it is still considered a conceptual discipline -- in the contemporary Croatian context. All difficulties aside, one should also recognize that such a context also offers advantages: to a certain degree, everything is possible; creation of the 'new' is compulsory; the dynamism makes for never 'boring' commissions. The Production of Meaning top Randic-Turato, An Architecture of Transition, has uniquely positioned itself. In their uninterrupted struggle for the 'production of meaning', Randic-Turato are simultaneously 'flying' as a cloud above the context and in daily contact with the context.
The production of meaning is then reflected though the conceptualization of strategies in order to answer assignments and finally to realize their work. This so-called extra-intelligence from which Randic-Turato are creating their operational strategies is based upon sophisticated analytical research. This research in itself translates to the deconstruction of the process by which the project is evolving. Their analyses concentrate on the causes of changes in the context, which are defining the specificity of the place, rather than the superficial appearance of these changes.
Merely understanding the physical context and the program is not anymore sufficient. The architect has to now convincingly act as the 'problem-solver' instead of merely the 'form-provider'. Randic-Turato's most intensive work occurs in the conceptual phase of their projects, when the investors and developers do not really now what they want to build and from where they are going to finance the eventual project. Within this environment of instability, Randic-Turato operate with a high degree of openness towards the ceaseless changes of the project's development. This tactic is possible only if one approaches the project without a stable model and hypothesis but much more with an anticipatory instinct for the development of the project. Randic-Turato, very correctly, emphasize that contemporary architectural practice has to develop special strategies for performing within three very different fields: virtual, legislative and constructional.
Communication in each of these fields must be moderated according to the actors within the phasing of the project. The method Randic-Turato have developed to achieve this involves the simplification of the project to the level of its basic concept, which then can be successfully communicated within each of these...
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