Dardania Neighborhood Apartment Building

The Dardania neighborhood was developed during the 1970s and features architecture common during socialist Yugoslavia characterized by blocks of apartment buildings with parks, schools, and shops all in close proximity. This apartment building was developed during this time period and faces both a busy street and a pleasant courtyard. The apartment building has been inhabited through several periods of Kosovo’s recent history (the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Kosovo War, and the Republic of Kosovo), and witnessed the transformation of Kosovo from a Serbian province to an independent country. In addition, political symbols abound in the neighborhood: including its name Dardania (an ancient kingdom in Roman times that is linked to Kosovar Albanian heritage), architecture from the Yugoslav era, and a statute and photo of former American president Bill Clinton. Thus, the apartment building is a site of history itself, insofar as its residents experience, negotiate, and make sense of these political ideologies and transformations in public life in the private space of their apartment. The apartment building captured in this soundscape is much like the other apartment buildings in the neighborhood, and by capturing the experience of being inside a particular apartment building in Dardania, listeners may recognize the universal sounds of communal residential experiences that many of us share.