新年除夕前两个晚上, 超过一千马其顿人聚集到雪中 握住的手，形成一个圆环 在一个大型的购物中心，在斯科普里资本市附近. 这可能听起来像开始到一些奇怪的笑话, 但人群中被组装在认真, 来表达其 爱 gtc 际特被称为现代主义建筑的, 为了抗议政府打算给它一个新, 巴洛克风格的正面.

The plan, known as 斯科普里 2014, sounds at first like a coup for a city: the construction of some 20 new buildings in the capital, including museums, concert halls, and theaters, as well as the erection of over 40 statues. Except in a city whose architecture is mostly modernist, all of the Skopje 2014 building is being done in a strictly neoclassical style, from a brand new triumphal arch to a towering sculpture of a man on a horse — presumably, but not explicitly, 亚历山大大帝 — atop a column adorned with lions, music, lights, and a fountain. It’s no wonder the project “has been criticized for constructing nationalistic historicist kitsch.”

“This is a crime against public space, culture, urbanism, and art — against the city and the citizen,” Miroslav Grčev, a professor of urban design and the creator of the Macedonian flag, told the BBC.

斯科普里 2014 has also run up significant costs, with the government admitting last April that it had already spent €200 million (~$240.5 million); the budget was originally estimated at €80 million.

And so, Macedonians gathered on December 29 to “hug” their modernist shopping mall, and to try and protect it from going baroque.

由 Jillian Steinhauer 对 一月 2, 2015