DER SPIEGEL - FYROManian Makeover - Europe's Flailing Capital of Kitsch

Logo of Der Spiegel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We want to apologize to our readers for the reference "Macedonian" but this is a re-publication. Frappers know very well that HellasFrappe never refers to this country by that name, and rather refers to it as FYROM in respect to the interim United Nations agreement that was signed between our two countries in the mid 90s. We decided to re-publish this article because we have posted other similar stories in the past about the kitsch architecture and projects that are presently underway in FYROM. The following is a great article by Till Mayer in Der Spiegel, which just comes to confirm all our previous stories.

By Till Mayer (Der Spiegel) - The Macedonian government has spent huge sums turning its capital, Skopje, into a neo-baroque architectural nightmare. The project's gaudy excesses camouflage a disastrous economy and troubling record on human rights.

Jets of water spurt into the air in front of the warriors: red, yellow, blue, violet. The eight bronze men stare fiercely through the spray of the fountain, while far above their heads, Alexander the Great sits enthroned, raising one sword up at the sky. Wagner and Tchaikovsky blare out of the speakers and the water shoots more or less in time with the music.

Skopje has a new landmark: The Warrior on a Horse monument on the Plostad Makedonija, a square at the center of the city, is almost 30 meters (100 ft.) high, cost €10.5 million ($14 million) and is about as authentic as the imitation Grand Canal in Las Vegas (what the author really wants to say is that it is suposed to be an image of Alexander the Great). More heroes from Macedonia's colorful history pose nearby, sculpted on a large, if somewhat misshapen scale. The feet of the saber-rattling flag-bearer, for example, are disproportionally large.

On the other side of the Vardar river, near the entry to the old town, a statue of Philip II of Macedon - Alexander's father - shakes a colossal fist at the sky, while bronze horses jump out of a nearby fountain. New temple-like ministry buildings, a theater and a museum - with its own line-up of 19th- and 20th-century poets and revolutionaries - have been built between the monuments to the two kings.

And the construction project isn't finished: Numerous facades are still obstructed by construction cranes. Buildings are being retrofitted with the dictated sugarcoated new style that the local media diplomatically calls "baroque" or "neo-classical," (meaning ancient Greek design) and architects call "historical kitsch."

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