Designing for the Collective: Housing and Architectural Education Under Socialism

Abstract

Architectural education in socialist Yugoslavia operated as a laboratory for ideological formation, embedding technical training within frameworks of self-management and collective responsibility. At the University of Prishtina’s Department of Architecture (1978–1991), students engaged housing design not only as a formal exercise but also as a social transformation. Through mandatory courses in Marxist philosophy alongside design studios focused on collective housing projects, the curriculum prepared architects as agents of societal change rather than autonomous professionals, demonstrating how socialist architectural education cultivated socially embedded practice, offering an alternative model with contemporary relevance for addressing the housing crisis and architectural education’s social role.