After an architectural competition in 1961 to commemorate the founding of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party, architect Georgi Stoilov revised his designs, separating the saucer-shaped body from the star mounted in a conjoined tower to give it better stability against wind and the risk of earthquakes. We’ve heard from a Bulgarian contact that the entrance to the towers’ stairs and ladders has now (late 2020) been closed off with a brick wall. In 2015 there were no such impediments.
A comparison between Budludzha monument in Bulgaria as pictured in 1970’s publications and its abandoned state in 2015. The Getty Foundation’s investment of $185,000 in July 2019 to support the creation of a conservation and management plan for the monument hopes to reverse its sharp decline.
After an architectural competition in 1961 to commemorate the founding of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party, architect Georgi Stoilov revised his designs, separating the saucer-shaped body from the star mounted in a conjoined tower to give it better stability against wind and the risk of earthquakes. I’ve heard from a Bulgarian contact that the entrance to the towers’ stairs and ladders has now (2020) been closed off with a brick wall. In 2015 there were no such impediments.
In 1961, architect Georgi Stoilov submitted a design inspired by the Roman Pantheon and 1950s sci-fi films for a monument to commemorate the founding of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party. The party was established by Dimitâr Blagoev’s group at a gathering at Buzludzha Peak 70 years earlier. Construction began a decade later. Within two decades it had again become symbolic – of the decline of the Soviet Union and Bulgaria’s unwillingness to memorialise its political past. The Getty Foundation’s investment of $185,000 in July 2019 to support the creation of a conservation and management plan for the monument hopes to reverse its sharp decline. The circular form of the Buzludzha monument appealed to Stoilov “as it seemed to symbolize infinity, and thus echoed the popular communist theme of building an eternal future and eternal glory.” [https://buzludzha-monument.com] It also seems to speak of a more inclusive, egalitarian politics. Wild acoustics were an unexpected discovery in this exploration shot in 2015.
One’s ability to walk freely into this petite Bulgarian ossuary is somewhat unsettling and confronting in relation to patterns and codes of behaviour around human remains that exist elsewhere. However, the artful calligraphy on the skulls, and our desire and that of others before us – and presumably after us – to leave them undisturbed affords some welcome sanctity. Memento mori: we remember death – both as a concept and the personalisation of it – in these bodily fragments of individuals who have passed away.
U R B E X C E N T R A L 