Activist architects toolbox: Challenging the austere policies of urban governance in European periphery

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the ways in which socially engaged architectural practices contest the policies of neoliberal urban governance in post-socialist cities, permanently situated at the European periphery due to their economic and political position within global capitalism. The analysis is based on three case studies of practices from the Croatian context, whose work is geographically diverse, demonstrates a variety of approaches to social engagement in architecture, and has been shaped by the conditions of austerity in the aftermath of the post-2008 crisis. Results show a broad range of actions contesting the neoliberal urban governance and a variety of mechanisms through which socially engaged architectural practices problematized the conditions of spatial production and politicized their communities, professional networks, and public spaces. It can be argued that these efforts contributed to changes in the public discourse concerning the relation between social inequalities and spatial conditions, and the importance of articulating public and common interests in the processes of urban governance. As the struggles to protect spatial resources from enclosure and privatisation continue amid the entangled economic, political and climate crises, the slow and relational work of socially engaged architectural practices and its potential political effects continue to grow in importance.