The New Atlas of the Adriatic, a project of the APSS Institute from Podgorica, supported by the British Council and the Ministry of Culture and Media, which is based on research that has been ongoing since 2022, and whose aim is to map human impact on ecosystems in the Adriatic area, from infrastructure and recreational to economic and military-defense, was presented to a professional audience.
The starting point in the research was the need to gather scattered information about heritage, modern interventions, and human influence in general in the Adriatic into a single, readable, narrative database.
“The New Adriatic Atlas is an essential research process into the strategic forces that shaped the Adriatic region. Historically, water connected where land divided, and sea travel was often easier than land travel. Although the world has changed in the meantime, this strategic stage remains active - the sea still largely defines relations between states, it still governs, sets rules and writes geopolitics. As humanity, we exploit, protect, extract and defend the sea more than ever. For humanity, the sea is much more than the endless blue, which is our first association when we think of it. The New Adriatic Atlas shows this very clearly and this is precisely the greatest contribution and impact of the entire project”, emphasizes the author of the project and founder of the APSS Institute Diana Vučinić.
The atlas consists of a total of 30 maps, which show abandoned ammunition, including recent ones from the NATO bombing in 1999, wrecks not only of ships but also of sunken warplanes, oil and gas wells in the Adriatic, planned wind farms, sewage and wastewater discharge points, places where fish are farmed, water is desalinated, and salt is harvested. Thus, as the APSS Institute emphasizes, it credibly and comprehensively depicts the great human impact on the marine ecosystem, and the importance of the sea in the political, economic, and social relations of the countries bordering the Adriatic.
"Working on the project was also a kind of archaeology of the moment: digging into the depths of digital space to find reliable traces, and geolocating and systematizing them into a common logic. While some data was officially available, others were holes that we still need to illuminate through research. The map is a testimony to the work done so far, but it remains open - ready to receive new traces and to trigger new understandings of the Adriatic space from them," said the author of the project. Ana Dobrašinović.
The maps are presented in a unique visual language, which shows the different layers of data on human impact. Author of the cartographic illustration Snezana Zlatkovic points out that the language of drawing is multi-layered in order to, on the one hand, support an abundance of precise data, while on the other hand, it does not abstract it into its own complex system of expression.
"Data on the impact of the human factor on natural resources is wide-ranging, from those mapped by carefully recording dots to those showing the density and intensity of traces on the Adriatic Sea. Depending on what they record, the dots and traces indicate the dynamics of the impact on the environment, which is depicted through expressive colors. The communicativeness of the drawings is dual, in a sense and intentionally contrasting, trying to confront us all on the one hand, through the scale of the sea, with the relationship of man to nature, and then to turn that same impact into synthetic maps, into an almost delirious display that warns us of how we should live in relation to natural resources," explains Zlatković.
In addition to maps, the New Atlas of the Adriatic also includes texts by renowned authors from the Adriatic region, each of whom, from their own perspective, describes what the Adriatic means to them and how we treat it. Among the authors are: Ida Križaj Leko (University of Rijeka), writers Ana Jeinic i Marko Pogačar, Manuelo Razzi (University of Bologna), Špela Hudnik (DELTALAB) i Marco Varucci.
As part of the project, master's students from the Faculty of Architecture of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, under the mentorship of Dijana Vučinić, conducted research on the Anthropocene and human impact on the Adriatic basin.
The research, presented through a series of data-rich maps, highlighted various aspects of human intervention in the sea, including shipwrecks, infrastructure and protected areas. In a later phase, the research evolved into an exhibition entitled “At the Beach”, held at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, in February 2025.
APSS Institute was founded in Montenegro in 2012 and is a platform for architectural research and education, with a focus on architectural heritage and transitional changes in cities. APSS originated from the KotorAPSS Summer School, through a project to revitalize the massively abandoned building of the Austro-Hungarian prison in Kotor, after which projects were developed for other unused and abandoned spaces, such as the “Fjord” hotel, the House of Revolution and the Ulcinj saltworks.
During the first years of its establishment, the focus of the School and the Institute was on the RE-USE approach, from which numerous research projects emerged, resulting in a large number of workshops, symposia and debates. Among them, the Montenegrin pavilion at the XIV Venice Architecture Biennale with the project “Treasures in Disguise”, then the Solana project – an exhibition created within the RE-USE symposium and DEBATE in Kotor, presented in the Montenegrin pavilion at the XV Venice Architecture Biennale, the exhibition “Svetlana Kana Radević: Post-war Architecture between Center and Periphery” presented at the XVII Venice Architecture Biennale, as well as numerous other projects. In addition, APSS represents a long-standing international architectural program with a focus on non-formal education, one of the most significant of its profile and scope in this part of Europe.
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