Harbouring Uncertainty

Rijeka’s Post-Industrial Drift

Lecture series “Adriatic Futures: Exploring the Socio-ecological Transition of the Adriatic City”

05/05/2025, h. 09:30
Politecnico di Milano, Polo Territoriale di Piacenza, Campus Arata, Padiglione Nicelli

Rijeka is a port city caught in the contradictions of post-industrial transition at the periphery of global capitalism. Once a key industrial hub under socialist Yugoslavia, its trajectory was radically interrupted by the dissolution of its economic foundations, leaving behind a fragmented urban and economic landscape. Today, Rijeka bears visible traces of deindustrialization, aggressive privatization, and the dismantling of commons.

Despite its strategic position on the Adriatic, the city has struggled to reestablish itself as a vital Mediterranean port – its prospects being undermined by deregulation, automation and a logistics that privileges transshipment over local production. Rijeka is a city whose potential remains perpetually deferred, compelled to follow a developmental trajectory largely dictated by external forces beyond its control. In this ongoing drift, we must ask: Who profits, and who is excluded? What new political ecologies emerge from crumbling infrastructures? How might we reimagine life amid the ruins of modernity?

Relatore

Filip Pračić, Pravo na grad Zagreb

Responsabili

Luca Lazzarini, Stefano Stabilini

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Photo Credits: Filip Pračić