Jugoplastika: A Plastics Factory Created For & Run by Women

Dragana Zorić (Associate Professor, CCE) will be in discussion with Mersiha Veledar (Associate Dean, Cooper Union School of Architecture) in connection with the exhibition located in the Leo J. Kuhn Gallery, Higgins Hall.

This exhibition chronicles the story and lasting influence of the Jugoplastika factory, a production powerhouse created for, and run by women.

Jugoplastika’s designed and manufactured products became ubiquitous in Yugoslav families, defining the Yugoslav life-style and its new society. Its architecture, designed by the prolific architect Lovro Perković, straddled both late European modernism and Mediterranean regionalism. The project is considered to be of a cubist approach overlaid with structuralist functionalism – at a time when both architectural discourse and architectural form were being formulated and invented in Yugoslavia. Simultaneously, the country was also inventing itself, its political project directly fashioning the literal architectural project.

The original archival research and production of the exhibition is supported by a 2024 New York State Independent Projects Grant.