Mapping the Croatian Coast

Constructing a Travel Landscape
Opposing Ambitions Shaping the Ground
of the Eastern Adriatic Coast
Melita Čavović
•
Melita Čavlović,
postdoctoral associate
at the Department of
Theory and History of
Architecture at the
Faculty of Architecture,
University of Zagreb. She
was an active researcher
on the scientific project
“Atlas of the 20 th Century
Croatian Architecture”.
Her scholarly work is
devoted to the research
of the circumstances
informing and guiding the
architectural and urban
postwar production.
Once finally traced on the ground, the winding route of the more
than 800 km-long Adriatic Highway has permanently transformed
the territory of the Eastern Adriatic coast. Connecting the scattered
sequence of coastal towns and settlements for the first time since
antiquity, it initiated a series of irreversible processes we witness even
today. This brief account will merely accentuate some of the crucial
developments of the numerous conflicting visions that arose both
from the ground and the planning tables, exasperated even further by
numerous economic, political, legal and societal ambitions that are yet
to be resolved.
The narrow coastal strip of the Eastern Adriatic has a complex
heritage marked by profound historical and political discontinuity.
It was comprised, primarily, of a multitude of towns and villages
separated by large swaths of uninhabited or even inhospitable
Mediterranean landscape marked by natural characteristics distinctly
different from one region to another. Furthermore, this sliver of
coastal terrain is physically cut off from the hinterland by a series of
mountain ranges stretching from north to south, with only a handful
of geographically viable connections to the Pannonian basin. These
strategic linkages were traditionally more important and far easier to
construct than the continuous route along the coast. This journey, and
with it the experience of travelling along the Adriatic as a totality,
was made possible only after World War II, and the completion of the
highway. Previously, this was possible only to a privileged few who
were so fortunate as to perceive this territory from the deck of an elite
tourist steamship.
Adding to the complexity and inhospitality of the topography are the
political obstacles to any sustained attempt of connecting this territory.
From a historical perspective, this territory was never under a single
political governance, with a multitude of empires, dominions and
independent municipalities vying for supremacy. It was only after the
end of World War II that the conditions for its actual unification were
met. Prior to it, there was no common national interest that would
build the necessary transport network since the people inhabiting
the coast lived separately, traditionally inheriting opposing cultures,
they were subjected to divergent and often opposing strategies of
development stemming from the varying priorities of colonial centres
that governed them.
104