Category: Destinations

Cool Concrete: Yugoslavia's Extraordinary Abstract Monuments Scattered across the mountains and national parks of the former Yugoslavia — in countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia — are hundreds of striking brutalist monuments. These are Spomeniks: abstract brutalist monuments commissioned during Yugoslav times to honour WWII's fallen. Some look like gigantic fists, alien spacecrafts, or wings in flight. All are extraordinary. Spomeniks are most often found 'in the wild': buried in forests, rising out of national parks, and squatting on mountain peaks. This is one of rare instances where nature adventure lovers and architect enthusiasts combine: each masterpiece of brutalism can be reached on a Balkan hiking holiday or road trip. Their striking futuristic designs have several explanations: after the war and the establishment of Yugoslavia in 1963, Tito had to forge a united country from a federation that included multiple religions and ethnicities. Architects and sculptors were briefed to create something that would not offend the different sides. Instead of war heroes, neutral abstract designs were chosen, aligning with modernist trends of the 1960s to 1980s. Of the thousand-plus former Yugoslav spomeniks that once existed, only a few hundred remain. Some are well maintained, with museums and parks attached. Others were destroyed during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s; or were vandalised, forgotten, or reclaimed by nature. Some have been stripped to their concrete skeletons, like the Monument on Mount Makljen (Tito's Fist). A comprehensive Spomenik database was created in 2016 by Donald Niebyl which documents every monument of the region. Here, we narrow it down to the spomeniks you can experience along beautiful hiking routes or scenic drives – including several we visit on our small-group adventures in the Balkans – and how to incorporate these fascinating sculptures into an adventure into nature. Bosnia & Herzegovina: brutalist