FMP - ‘Sofia - Between the Lions and the Eagles - echoes of a lost city’ - brief

‘Sofia - Between the Lions and the Eagles – echoes of a lost city’ will explore how famous historical landmarks within the downtown (symbolically marked with two bridges – one with statues of sitting lions, the others with eagles) have changed throughout the years. It would mainly focus on the social aspect of how the cultural-historical environment changes the inherited buildings and how the urban environment changes.

Sofia has a long history and throughout the past century, it has undergone many social, political and geographical changes. Whole districts appeared while other were demolished but some buildings somehow managed to stand the test of time. They exist today, squeezed in between modern shops and restaurants and they tell a different story – of a budding country that somehow managed to get out of the pit of poverty and slavery to be plunged into another pit of total control only sixty years later, within the lifespan of a generation.

That town is long-gone but I will try to trace and connect the bits and pieces of that lost world in my project to see if old Sofia still exists. To do that, I intend to work with local archive websites (and if necessary delve into the National Archives) to get access to imagery that pre-dates WWII since after 1945 the geography and architecture of Sofia was overtaken by Socialist Realism and Stalinist architecture.

I intend to focus on older buildings (created either in the interbellum period or before WWI) and select images that depict them. Then I will try to capture the place from the same angle and see how the environment around the place has changed.

The ultimate idea of the project will be to have it exhibited – old and new images of one and the same place side by side. The exhibition will have to take place in May next year. For convenience’s sake, the project will be confined only to the downtown where most of the historical buildings are located. Hence, I will not focus on building created after the 1950s since

the architectural style differs a lot and will try not to overdose the Totalitarian streak in the project.

At least, that was the idea I initially had when I needed to write my FMP proposal. However, things were not as easy as I thought since some of the modern landmarks did not exist before WWII while others existed but have not changed one bit. That is how I ended up with a various collection of landmarks on my list - buildings, monuments, bridges. Most of them have an interesting story to tell and all are now part of the mental map a citizen of Sofia uses to navigate around the town.

The interbellum condition did not completely match since some of these landmarks had been built even before WWI. The geographical restriction - that they all should be within Old Sofia (which is now the downtown) is matched. 

Some of the contrasts between now and then are stark, some mild. Most of them, however, show how a city changes though time. Sofia has seen a lot of changes since 1878 when the small then town was proclaimed the capital of Bulgaria, Back then, the position was chosen since it was roughly in the middle of the idealized version of Bulgaria, the area that was believed to cover all territories with people with Bulgarian descent.

Back then, Sofia didn't even have paved roads, at some places, it didn't even have houses to speak of  - see the pic below:

Source: http://www.lostbulgaria.com/index.php?cat=15&paged=5

In the XIX century, this was a meadow with a lone Ottoman gravestone (background, to the left of the person) which was wrongly called the 'Roman wall'. It was far away from the city center and at that time no one thought that the city would go that far to the mountain. 

Today, 140 years later, this is one of the most prestigious residential districts of Sofia, Lozenets. 

Source: http://www.lostbulgaria.com/index.php?cat=15&paged=5

This one is another very popular place now - today it is where the Architectural university is and the National Stadium. 140 years ago, it was way out of the city. 

I used these images just to show you the contrast between what Sofia used to be and what it is now. However, as much as I am interested in images that date back to the Liberation period around 1878(which reminds me that may be there is some need of a post explaining the history of Sofia) I am not able to properly use them for my re-photography project since they are dated too far back in time. The geography has changed too much for those 140 odd years so the shooting angles these people back then used are now impossible to mimic (even though I bravely tried with another pic which displays no less striking difference). 

I will be settling with more 'modern' images of Sofia - 'modern' being that the oldest of my pool are shot at the very end of the XIX century.