KLASSE BARANOWSKY
KLASSE BARANOWSKY
KLASSE BARANOWSKY

Reise nach Pristina zur Manifesta 14

Exkursion, 26.10.22 – 31.10.22 (Pristina)


The Grand Scheme of (Vertical) Things

In the heart of the city, there is Grand Hotel Prishtina. Located on Zahir Pajaziti Square, a meeting point for assembly, resistance and celebration, the Grand Hotel Prishtina has 350 rooms of different sizes. Everyone in Prishtina can tell you at least one story related to the Grand Hotel and the life events they have experienced there. Built between 1974 and 1978, today its structure holds little of those memories. After the Kosovo war, with the wave of state privatisation in Kosovo, Grand Hotel experienced a progressive downfall from its five-star glory days. Today, the story of Grand Hotel remains difficult to summarise in a sentence, it is now the home of numerous businesses, from a gym to a travel agency to a nightclub. 

 

Through the halls of our common dreams

The city of Prishtina cannot be understood in its entirety without looking through the lens of its past experiences as well as its urban transitions, embodied by its iconic buildings. This tour is focused on the artistic, ecological and urban interventions that are in direct dialogue with the development and transformation of the city of Prishtina. Our longest tour, through the railway tracks that Manifesta 14 transformed into a Green Corridor, bridges two sides of Prishtina, its centre with its periphery, and further to the rural area. This enables us to experience the transitions and transformations of some of the main cultural and urbanistic sites of Prishtina and witness the shifting mobility of the city laid out by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati.

 

In contact with the Past, in speculation with our Futures

“Destroy the old, build the new” – the words that citizens of Kosovo heard often from their parents and teachers in the name of modernisation and urban development throughout the second part of the 20th century. Through this itinerary, a constellation of periods and locations are brought together through the artistic and urban projects of Manifesta 14 Prishtina.