Narrating Nostalgia through Bricolage
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Nikola pursued his architectural studies and career in Milan. Having Serbo-Chinese multicultural background enables him to adapt to various cultural environments. He is highly organised, enthusiastic, and energetic, with experience in architectural, curatorial, editorial and creative disciplines. He is keen to continue developing his interest in a humanistic cultural narrative in architecture while integrating with the ever-advancing technological environment through research and practice.
This research proposes a design-driven approach to reimagining architecture in the post-Yugoslav context. Building on my master’s thesis Narrating Nostalgia through Bricolage, I explore how nostalgia can become a generative force in architectural narratives, grounded in cultural materiality and regional identity.
Starting from Bogdan Bogdanović’s unbuilt vision to extend his memorial park in Knjaževac with a piazzetta and čardak, I aim to reinterpret this proposal as a contemporary intervention that also responds to the growing disappearance of public space within urban development.
To support the design process, I will study architectural approaches in Vienna, Ljubljana, and Milan, where modern architects have reworked local typologies, materials, and cultural elements in context-specific ways. These studies will serve as reference points to expand the project’s formal and narrative vocabulary.
The project unfolds in three steps:
– Architectural safari to Vienna, Ljubljana, and Milan
– Regional fragment scavenging in former Yugoslav territories
– Narrating through bricolage, reassembling fragments into context-specific projects through a narrative design process
Rather than nostalgic escape, this is a call for architecture grounded in care, context, and cultural relevance — adaptable across cities where memory and transformation continue to shape the built environment.