5:17, 26 July 1963: the earthquake and Kenzo Tange’s city

About 5:17, 26 July 1963: the earthquake and Kenzo Tange’s city

By the ULTIMATE Skopje Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

The hands of the clock on the old railway station still point to 5:17. At that moment on 26 July 1963 an earthquake struck Skopje, and the city that grew back afterwards is one of the most interesting experiments in 20th-century architecture.

The earthquake

Early on 26 July 1963, an earthquake of magnitude 6.1 hit Skopje. In about 20 seconds most of the city was destroyed or badly damaged; more than a thousand people died and well over a hundred thousand were left homeless.

The world responds

Aid and volunteers arrived from across the world, on both sides of the Cold War. Prefabricated houses, schools and hospitals were donated by many countries, and the United Nations helped organise the plan for a new city.

The clock on the old station has not moved since 5:17.

Tange’s plan

In 1965 an international competition for the new centre was won by Kenzo Tange, one of the great Japanese architects of the century. His plan imagined a “City Gate” of transport and offices and a “City Wall” of housing blocks wrapping round the centre.

Brutalist Skopje

Only parts of the plan were built, but they changed the city: the Transport Centre with its railway station on concrete stilts, the long City Wall housing blocks, the Telecommunications Centre by Janko Konstantinov, the City Trade Center (GTC), the university campus and the Museum of Contemporary Art, a gift from Poland. Today they are admired by architecture lovers from all over the world.

Walking the plan

Start at the old railway station, now the Museum of the City of Skopje, then walk east to the Transport Centre and back through GTC and along the City Wall blocks. Finish at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Kale hill, with its view over the whole city.

Our advice: see the photographs and models in the Museum of the City of Skopje first, then walk the brutalist landmarks with fresh eyes. Look up: much of the city’s concrete is sculptural and surprisingly beautiful in low evening light.

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