Planning Capital Cities

Designing Sofia’s city core in the context of the changing ideological paradigm 1945-1989

Since the 1970s, Sofia’s urban core planning is a playground for pragmatic

interventions on one side and delayed ideological approaches on the other

side. The international competition 1963 sets off a wave of avant-garde

and radical visions, but the unrealistic projects do rather hold back the

development than support it. The missing practicability of these visions marks

the apogee and crisis of the deductive work approach and starts preparing for

a change. The meanwhile arising pressure for new locations for cultural and

administrative functions of the growing capital is an additional factor for an

alternative development of the city centre. It is the hour of birth of the socio-

cultural and spatial development of the southern direction. The meaning of the

silhouette of the hill of Lozenec, the Southern Park and the visual connection

to the mountain Vitosha play an important role in the search for development

territories.^29 Moreover, the meaning of these elements for the urban identity

is recognized and the orientation of the center to the south turns a basic idea

for the next decades.

The contact zone between the city center and the hill of Lozenec is until the

WW II a large scaled military area with low rise barracks and an enormous

potential of open spaces. The barracks are initially located outside the city, but

in the course of the urban growth between the two world wars the whole area

is surrounded by housing quarters. The idea of conversion of former military

barracks in the capital is formulated already in the post-war plan, 1945. In the

contact zone the conversion starts in the 1950s and goes in phases, offering

interim uses, but also extending the system of open spaces. For the reason

of the 13th century jubilee of the Bulgarian estate in 1981, the government

decides to force the extension of the center to the south with the location

Fig. 9
The integration of the antique
Sv. Georg Church and the
Roman ruins in the pedestrian
pass ways is an early example
of socializing the medieval and
antique heritage.
(Doytchinov)