This thesis addresses the issue of the loss of identity in the coastal landscape of southern Dalmatia through the case study of the former military resort in Kupari, one of the most compelling complexes of Yugoslav tourist heritage. The research is grounded in a personal and spatial experience of tourist architecture, which is further expanded through an analysis of the social, historical, and planning context of Župa dubrovačka, where Kupari is located. The thesis traces the layering of identity from its agrarian and peripheral origins, through historicist and collective phases, to its peak embodied in Yugoslav modernism and its subsequent collapse during the Croatian War of Independence.
Special attention is devoted to the typological development of hotel architecture along the Adriatic coast and to the role of tourism as an ideological, economic, and spatial catalyst. The analysis demonstrates that Yugoslav tourism produced open, publicly accessible, and landscape-integrated spaces whose values are today threatened by globalized, consumption-driven socio-spatial development. The ruins of Kupari are therefore understood as carriers of collective memory and spatial potential, rather than as empty or obsolete heritage.
Based on a comprehensive evaluation of spatial, architectural, and landscape qualities, the thesis develops a revitalization project that conceptualizes the resort as a hybrid urban and tourist center. The proposed design is based on preservation, reinterpretation, and selective demolition, whereby three hotels—Grand, Pelegrin, and Goričina—are addressed through different approaches: discreet renovation, reconstruction, and the presentation of ruins. The project seeks to re-establish a balance between tourism and the local community and positions architecture as a tool for restoring identity, continuity, and public space within a fragile coastal environment.
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