A Tour of Brutalism in Skopje, Macedonia

Welcome to Day #12 of 100 Days of Travel. It’s a new world and a new type of traveling. For the next 100 days, I’m exploring Macedonia as safely as possible. Today, I will be taking you on a tour of Skopje’s most unique buildings.

Over my stay in the capital city of Macedonia, I came to find the concrete angles and and design of the brutalistic architecture of Skopje oddly compelling. It’s certainly far more interesting than the Disneyland facades that the government has plastered across the city center in recent years.

In 1963, a severe earthquake ravaged Skopje, resulting in the death of more than 2,000 people and destroying more than 65% of the buildings. The famed brutalist architect, Kenzo Tange from Japan, was brought in to lead the reconstruction efforts. While the full vision of the “1965 Skopje City Centre Plan” was never realized, most of the iconic buildings in the city were built in the mid-seventies.

Saints Cyril and Methodius University (Designed by Marko Mušič, 1974)
Maybe the best spot in the city to see numerous examples of brutalism, the campus of Macedonia’s first state university is well worth an afternoon of wandering.

St. Clement of Orchid (Designed by Slavko Brezovski, 1972)
This is the largest largest cathedral of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

Post Office and Telecommunications Center (Designed by Janko Konstantinov, built in three stages in 1974, 1982 and 1989)
One of the most unique sights of Skopje. Supremely bizarre and highly interesting.