Researching and planning the rural space: The work of Branislav Kojic

Abstract

An architect and ruralist, professor and academician, Branislav Kojić made a remarkable contribution to the study of village architecture and villages, their design and planning. His approach was thorough, systematic, comprehensive and interdisciplinary, and resulted in the establishment of a special trend in the study of the village in these regions — “ruralism”. His research had interregional aspect, encompassing space of all the six former republics of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, and with consideration of local and regional specificities. Creativity of Branislav Kojić united the elements of architecture, urbanism, ethnology, human geography, and allowed the filling of gaps in the former knowledge and approaches to rural issues. In order to present Branislav Kojić’s scientific opus and contribution, the paper presents the basic lines of his work, thinking and development of ideas, following the hierarchy of spatial units - from a rural house, a courtyard, through a village atar, a rural settlement, a system of settlements and a rural region, and finally to the villages in the regional spatial frames.