Architecture, Culture and a Yugoslav Kiosk

The latest episode of The Green Route with MAREDI Design is here! Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or click here.

In the 1960s, architect Saša Mächtig designed a small modular kiosk for the streets of socialist Yugoslavia. It was a simple, hexagonal unit meant to sell newspapers, flowers, and everyday goods. It was never meant to be a monument. It was meant to be ordinary, the kind of structure you’d walk past a hundred times without a second thought. Decades later, most of these kiosks had vanished, quietly discarded as the world around them changed. But one architect saw something worth saving.

For our 26th episode, we speak with Dijana Handanović, architect, professor at the University of Houston’s Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design, and founding principal of Studio IJA, about her work restoring the Kiosk K67 and bringing it back into public life through exhibitions and community installations. Her research asks a bigger question: what does it mean for architecture to carry memory, identity, and history forward, long after its original purpose has faded?

One of the most moving moments in our conversation came when Dijana told us about the first time she presented the restored kiosk to the public. She didn’t have the words to explain what it meant, not in a placard and not in an artist’s statement, so she wrote a poem instead, and had it displayed on the kiosk’s window for visitors to read as they approached. During our conversation, we read that poem. It’s quiet, spare, and devastatingly beautiful, and by the end of it, there wasn’t a dry eye in the virtual recording studio. It’s one of those rare moments in this podcast where the conversation moves beyond design and becomes something closer to grief, memory, and love for a place that no longer exists in the way it once did.

We talk about the origins of this project, what it revealed to her about collective memory and cultural heritage, and why something as small and unassuming as a street kiosk can say so much about who we are and where we come from.

Tune in to hear the remarkable story behind Kiosk K67, and why this quiet piece of design might change how you think about memory, place, and what we choose to preserve.

After tuning in, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a review, share your favorite takeaways, or tell us what topics you’d like us to dive into next.

See you down the Green Route 😊