Svetlana Kana Radević: Aggregate Assemblies

Svetlana Kana Radević’s architecture is a radical act of mediation. Rising to prominence in post-war Yugoslavia, her buildings speak on all scales, engaging geo-political and social complexities. Drawing from knowledge of materiality and vernacular traditions within her native Montenegro (formerly Yugoslavia), her work filters modernism’s globalized forces through an intimate, place-based lens. Radević’s civic spaces re-centered provincial knowledge and facilitated a socially-progressive public sphere within the Yugoslav socialist state. 

At age 29, Radević became the youngest and only woman to receive the national Yugoslavian Borba Award for Architecture in 1968 for her design of Hotel Podgorica. Prominent projects such as the Podgorica Bus Terminal, Petrovac Apartment Building, and Monument to Fallen Fighters express Radević’s commitment to generating a symbiosis between civic engagement and landscape design through the use of local building materials, bold forms, and generous proportions. Radević articulated her own cross-cultural practice, working simultaneously between the United States, Japan, France, Russia, and Yugoslavia, where she eventually returned for the remainder of her career.

The seventh Womxn in Design and Architecture Conference at the Princeton School of Architecture honors the life and work of Svetlana Kana Radević. The 2022–23 conference proceedings will call on the discipline with timely topics and inquiries, such as What is architecture’s role in times of social and political transformation? How can architecture re-center local systems of power, collective memory, and vernacular tradition? Disrupting the dichotomy between periphery and center while standing as one of the most avant-garde voices of Yugoslavian architecture, Radević’s legacy raises questions that are as pressing now as they were during her lifetime. 

Participants include Ljiljana Blagojević Ph.D., Sonja Dragović, Dr. Lina Džuverović, Anna Kats, Ena Kukić, Vladimir Kulić, Prof. a.D. Dr.-Ing. Mary Pepchinski, Dr. Dubravka Sekulić, Dr. Ljubica Spaskovska, Łukasz Stanek, and Alla Vronskaya, among others.

A full list of conference participants, schedule, and panel descriptions can be viewed at wda.princeton.edu.

Viewing information
Open to the public, but registration is required to attend. A live stream will be accessible via the WDA website: wda.princeton.edu.

About WDA
Womxn in Design and Architecture (WDA) is a graduate student group formed in 2014 at Princeton University School of Architecture. The annual WDA conference celebrates the work and legacy of a pivotal female architect or designer with contributions from international historians and scholars, in addition to artists, curators, and practitioners. Read more.

2022-23 WDA Members include Olivia Ahmadi, Jocelyn Beausire, Marie Chapa, Julia Chou, Hermine Demaël, Keren Dillard, Sophia Diodati, Vanessa Gonzalez, Laura Fegely, Patty Hazle, Luciana Hodara Rahde, Kyara Robinson, Sofia Rojo, Ewa Roztocka, Marie de Testa, Shoshana Torn, Priscilla Zhang, and Janeen Zheng. 

The WDA conference is made possible by the Jean Labatut Memorial Lecture Fund. WDA is a recognized student organization by The Graduate School of Princeton University. The School of Architecture, Princeton University, is registered with the AIA Continuing Education System (AIA/CES) and is committed to developing quality learning activities in accordance with the AIA/CES criteria.

WDA is open to all graduate students regardless of identity.