Monuments to Modernism: Exploring the Rise and Decline of the Zagreb Trade Fair

Yugoslavia pursued its own path to socialism, straddling the line between Eastern and Western Blocs. It was the founding member of the Non-aligned Movement during the Cold War’s height.

One of the ways it aimed to demonstrate the strength of its economy and tell the world about its new, international orientation was the Zagreb Trade Fair (Zagrebački Velesajam). This walking tour explores the fair’s history and significance, tracing its evolution from a symbol of Yugoslav ambition to the neglected open-air museum it is today in independent Croatia.

Our tour through the past, present, and future of the Zagreb Trade Fair starts at one of its main entrances and weaves through the fairgrounds’ most significant exhibition pavilions, both functioning and derelict. You’ll see several Yugoslav pavilions where the country showcased its industrial achievements. You’ll not only pass gems of modernist industrial architecture, but also the place where Louis Armstrong played a concert, Orson Welles shot a movie, and Croatia’s first president practiced tennis.

At the USA pavilions, you’ll see where Yugoslavs saw the first American manned spacecraft and their country’s first American-style supermarket. At the USSR pavilions, you’ll see where a Sputnik replica shared an exhibition space with Soviet tractors. At the pavilions of other Cold War giants like China and Czechoslovakia, you’ll discover how the fair was also an arena for great power rivalries.

On this 45-minute tour of one of the most ambitious and iconic Yugoslav-era projects in Zagreb you’ll have the chance to:

• Experience the drama of the Cold War through multiple Soviet and American pavilions
• See the upside-down pyramids of the elegant Italy pavilion
• Admire the brutalist and modernist creations of some of Yugoslavia’s most notable architects such as Marijan Haberle
• Visit the China pavilion, the only preserved building in Europe built in the traditional style by the Chinese
• Stroll through the Allee of Nations arboretum and sculpture park, the fairground’s central thoroughfare
• Check out the abandoned pavilions and hear about their former glory days

By the end of this architectural tour, you’ll have gained an insight into Yugoslavia’s unique politics and witnessed the treatment of its heritage in today’s Croatia.