Closing the Circle

(Dis)Trust the Storyteller. The Case of Krvavica Children’s Health Resort

Abstract

The book (Dis)Trust the Storyteller. The Case of Krvavica Children’s Health Resort, published in 2024, is a collection of diverse textual and visual contributions that offers a comprehensive presentation of a modernist complex in the coastal town of Krvavica, near Makarska. The complex was designed in the mid-1960s by architect Rikard Marasović as a sanatorium for children with respiratory diseases coming from families with military insurance. The volume explores the history of the complex, which, since its construction, has been repurposed several times and, at the beginning of the 21st century, was abandoned, forgotten, and left to decay. It also documents the work of initiatives which, since the complex’s rediscovery in 2008, have been documenting it, presenting it to the public, and advocating for its protection and activation. The sanatorium has thus come to function as a symbol and focal point of the regional struggle for the preservation of the high modernist architecture of socialist Yugoslavia. This paper introduces the book, analyses its concept, structure, and content, and reflects on its significance in the broader context of recording and protecting modernist architectural heritage.