Just as I decided to change the record - as we boys and girls from the 60s would say - I was notified by these and those who strictly ensure that everything that needs to be reported is reported to the right person - that no one else but the respected - fanfare please: prof. Dr. Rifat Alihodžić - World-renowned architect, and also the Le Corbusier of Bijelo Polje - appeared on the show "Stav" - which he edits and hosts Saša Klikovac - and which was (premiered) broadcast the Tuesday before last (February 3rd) on RTCG.
The show was titled - fanfare please: From foundations to identities, architecture shapes lives!
From the foundations, he says, to identity...
As the president of the Association of Professional Historians and Theorists of Architecture, and Architectural Critics of Montenegro - the professional organization behind the decision to award Mr. Alihodžić - the author of the realized project of the Hadrović Mosque in Durres, Podgorica - with the flattering "Golden Trowel" Award for 2025 - an award traditionally awarded at the beginning of the year by SPIATAAKCG for the most successful architectural realization of the previous year - I therefore feel both a duty and an obligation to reflect on Alihodžić's guest appearance on the aforementioned show on behalf of SPIATAAKCG and on my own behalf.
And, as we know, there is no getting away from identity - except in cases where it turns out that something that we, from the 60s, have finally arrived at - and that we consider identity - is not identity after all - but only a pitiful illusion of identity - because boys and girls born in the 90s and younger - would not even think of relying on the ideas about identity that we, from the 60s, arrived at - just as we, from the 60s, would not even think of relying on the ideas about identity that our fathers and our mothers - not to mention our grandparents...
I want to say that there is always more - until the last hour - aside from the fact that a significant percentage of citizens of Montenegro (from whom I strongly distance myself) believe that there is more than the last hour.
As for architecture shaping lives - there is that option, of course, and it is quite legitimate - but I still lean towards the view that housing - Home & Living, in the Heideggerian sense - shapes architecture - but only where there is state and order...
Anyway, you've probably noticed that Mr. Alihodžić - the first among architects who, at this unique historical moment, primarily link their work to the territory of this rugged, mountainous and by all gods forgotten little country of ours - has been very present in the media lately - so it was only a matter of time before he would appear (also) on RTCG...
***
Saša Klikovac: “Why is it said... We can read, like, I'm not an architect, but reading literature... It is said: architecture is actually the queen of art! What does it synthesize within itself that we can call it the queen of art?”
Rifat Alihodžić: "That's right! She is the queen of art - provided that something is truly an architectural work!"
So I thought seriously about it, no joke...
OK, if I understand correctly - first we have to point the finger at something that is truly an architectural work - like the aforementioned Hadrović Mosque - or the Taj Mahal - and then immediately exclaim (with love): Architecture is the queen of art! Anyone who says otherwise is slandering and lying! - with the big question being whether something that is here "truly an architectural work" - Rabbit Hotel Podgorica aside - whether it is a "truly architectural work" in Spain, for example, or in our neighboring and brotherly Republic of Croatia - and who is invited, please, if we exclude SPIATAAKCG, to stick the labels "truly architectural work" on individual architectural works...
Anyway, I'm interrupting you, Mr. Alihodžić, sorry, please continue...
Rifat Alihodžić: "We make the mistake, as professionals, of calling every building an architectural work. So, we are talking about works, construction works that deserve the attribute of an architectural object. That form of communication that architecture conveys is permanently in the eye of the beholder. You listen to music or you don't, a painting is in a museum or on a wall, you watch a movie or you don't...".
Again, no one is telling us to occasionally feel the walls around us or to glance out our windows - although it is not unimportant, if we are talking about views, whether our windows are in Bijelo Polje, Podgorica, or... for all I know... in Rome, for example - or in Istanbul on the Bosphorus.
“There are even statements,” Klikovac states, “that architecture is actually... It's one of the freer... Here, do you agree with that, that it's actually an extended wardrobe? Do you... Is there that connection?
Rifat Alihodžić: “Let me tell you... That definition exists and it didn't accidentally enter the... er... theory of architecture, it's famous, yes, yes, yes, yes... Gottfried Semper! (not Semper, black Rifate - but Semper - Gottfried Semper - and do not invoke, black Rifate, the honorable name of Semper except in extreme necessity - op. a.) German architect and architectural theorist, said that the origin of architecture is in textiles. So, if we go back to the genesis...”.
Klikovac: “What is the connection? Where does it come from?”
Rifat Alihodžić: "Well, the connection is actually that when the man came out of the cave, he... He stumbled over something, wrapped himself in skin, then he made a tent, then he made something like a house and... stumbled over something and wrapped himself in skin...".
At the first next meeting of the SPIATAAKCG Board of Directors, I will propose that, in addition to the existing galleries at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Montenegro, which bear the names of great figures in the field of education of young Montenegrin female architects - many young, many sweet - and equally young and equally sweet Montenegrin male architects: professors Aleksandar Keković, teacher Božidar Milić and - fanfare please: professor Svetislav Gavrilovo Popović - added another gallery - in honor of retired professor Rifat Alihodžić, world-renowned architect, Bijelo Polje's Le Corbusier and Podgorica's Peter Eisenman...
Anyway, I'm interrupting you, Mr. Alihodžić, sorry, please continue...
Rifat Alihodžić: "So, architecture is the next element of protecting us from the weather, when a coat, umbrella, etc. can no longer help us. So it identifies us. But what is it? We don't give it, we don't give it... enough... I should say attention, as we give it to other attributes... That... a suit, a car, and all those attributes that make us people who fit into a given environment...".
Thank you, colleague Alihodžić - that will be quite enough for one gentleman's twin - give me the index, please...
Bonus video:
