ABSTRACT
The IMS Žeželj system was arguably one of the most successful prefabricated housing systems of the post-war period. However, it remains mostly unknown within construction history, because of its “peripheral” origins and distribution, which circumvented the imperial centers of the Cold War. Invented in socialist Yugoslavia in 1957, it was widely exported across Cold War divisions, especially to member states of the Non-Aligned Movement. A technology with deep colonial roots, prefabrication was recast as a tool of anticolonial solidarity, linking Europe’s semi-periphery, with its own history of imperial subjugation, and the recently decolonized countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Created by the Yugoslav constructor Branko Žeželj, the IMS Žeželj system was reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s Maison Domino: a skeleton consisting of prestressed pillars and slabs. Prestressing technology, widely applied in the construction of large-span structures, was the system’s key feature, one that had been rarely used in mass housing.
