A Modern Vernacular? Mass Housing as a Place-specific European Heritage

Prof. Miles Glendinning will have a public lecture entitled “A Modern Vernacular? Mass Housing as a Place-specific European Heritage” on Wednesday, 3 December 2025, at 11:00 a.m. at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Hall 7 (Ivana Lučića 3, ground floor).

The lecture starts from the premise that the role of immovable cultural heritage in shaping local cultural identities in Europe does not need to be limited to traditional categories of monuments, but can be significantly expanded by including one of the most widespread yet often overlooked categories of everyday built heritage: large-scale housing complexes sponsored by the state and constructed particularly during the decades of post-war reconstruction between 1945 and 1990. The greater part of the lecture will be devoted to defining and analysing this potential heritage from a historical perspective, with particular emphasis on the combination of thematic unity and regional diversity that characterises it. The final part of the lecture will briefly consider how mass housing, through its immediate presence in citizens’ everyday lives, could contribute to the development of locally rooted heritage accessible to all. Viewed as cultural heritage, it can actively contribute to fostering a sense of community and strengthening the resilience of local communities in addressing phenomena such as socio-spatial isolation, spatial segregation, and gentrification pressures.

Miles Glendinning is a professor at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies. His research focuses on the history of architectural heritage conservation and, in particular, on the history of modern mass housing on a global scale. He is extensively involved in the international organisation for modernist heritage, DOCOMOMO, including the establishment of its International Specialist Committee on Urbanism and Landscape. His published books include the award-winning Tower Block: Modern Public Housing in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (co-authored with Stefan Muthesius, Yale University Press, 1994), The Conservation Movement: A History of Architectural Preservation (Routledge, 2013), Mass Housing: Modern Architecture and State Power – A Global History (Bloomsbury, 2021), and Hong Kong Public Housing: An Architectural and Policy History (Routledge, 2024).

The lecture is organised as part of the project “The Right to Housing: the Production of Everyday Living Spaces in Yugoslavia (1945–1991)”, conducted at the Institute of Art History (ERC-CoG Housing.Yu, No. 101171985), in collaboration with the Chair of Modern Art and Visual Communications at the Department of Art History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and the Housing Buildings Studio at the Chair of Architectural Design, Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb.