The South-Eastern Europe: Four Cities initiative (or SEE:4C) brings together a group of architecture researchers, PhD candidates, and master’s students, who, over a two-year period, traveled back and forth between Turin and the cities of Belgrade, Podgorica, Skopje, and Tirana. Studying fragments of the latter four cities through specific perspectives and objectives, this exchange yielded heterogeneous and multifaceted narratives that intertwine through shared investigative methods, recurring diagrammatic forms, the empirical density of fieldwork, and a series of cross-references between the diverse locations explored.

However, the true subject of this story is the transnational research group, which proved capable of working cohesively and effectively. As soon as potential topics and objects of study were shared, a series of urban stories, controversies, and situations emerged that were dense and highly charged. There were countless experiences to unfold as a collective, along with multiple ways to access places, documents, and processes that otherwise would have been unreachable. This constituted the “capital” of the research upon which the working hypothesis was built, starting from several preliminary questions:

What can architects do to contribute to the transformation of urban space in contemporary Europe? What agency do they possess, and how can they wield it? What urban agenda can we conceive using the tools of architectural design within the entanglement of institutional practices, material modifications, economic and bureaucratic constraints, and civic mobilizations?

The aim wasn’t to produce actual projects but to trace the enabling conditions within the process of city-making through shared knowledge. In this line, the objective was to develop a set of tools to highlight the potential of these heritages within the contemporary Southern Balkan scenario, both regionally —fostering common ground between neighboring European countries— and locally —addressing urban development and identity enhancement.

To capture the complexity of these processes, the research team was composed of scholars from architectural design, history, heritage studies, technology, and urban design, driven by fundamental questions such as: How do contemporary transformations value existing heritage? What strategies can reconcile sustainability with memory and identity? What improvements can be proposed for urban governance and implementation tools? And finally, how can we construct an accurate, accessible narration of these controversial urban histories?

Attempting to answer these questions —and having already confirmed that sufficient fieldwork could be conducted— the initiative focused on how select places in Belgrade, Podgorica, Skopje, and Tirana function internally. This focus considered everyday routines and the ongoing transformation of these places. The study examined small-scale changes (legal and illegal), maintenance and repair work, condominium meetings, the daily lives of residents, the operations of public offices, neighborhood civic actions, real estate transactions, and property speculation. These overlapping activities were assumed to constitute the practical sphere in which architectural projects develop and gain impact. This applies not only to small, everyday projects, but also to the broader forces shaping most of the city —especially residential sectors.

The neighborhoods explored were built primarily between the 1960s and 1990s. These areas were neither “historic” centers nor peripheries or ghettos. Instead, they were read as rather coherent urban fragments, often the result of medium- to large-scale public residential projects. Unbuilt plots of land and recent buildings were also considered, but always in relation to established parts of the city. Soon, it became clear that terms from architectural and urban planning jargon —such as “expansion,” “consolidated fabric,” or “growth”— did not fit the observed phenomena. This was not because the four cities lacked cases of land consumption or troubling real estate speculation. Rather, these new processes of densification, often very rapid, are no longer the result of collective or institutional projects. Consequently, they do not “establish” anything. Nor can they be interpreted as stages of “growth” within a broader vision, as they fail to generate new relational structures, ground connections, or fabric reconfigurations. Conversely, what acquired the quality of a stable structure in these neighbourhoods —capable of generating proximity and enabling diverse forms of coexistence— was the outcome of older, public urban projects. This led to the definition of four minimum requirements for our case studies:

• Duration: fragments with already stabilized spatial layouts during the socialist period.
• Context: areas with articulated relations between enclosed and open spaces, private and public domains —that is, settings characterized by openness.
• Contemporaneity: sites of ongoing transformation, albeit at different degrees of formalization and institutionalization.
• Empirical traceability: cases with at least some access to sites, archives, documents, the actions of those involved, and their accounts.

We express our sincere gratitude to all institutions and individuals who, with unwavering commitment, participated in this multi-nodal collaboration, including researchers, PhD and master’s students, authorities, and administrative staff. Without this collective effort and their invaluable contributions to this endeavor and exchange, such a stimulating experience could not have been possible.

We especially thank the Office for Internationalization at the Politecnico di Torino, especially Licia Masoero, Augusta Roux, Silvia Carosso, Linda Beltrami, Marta Pognant, and others who supported and guided us every step of the way. We also appreciate the coordinating team from the University of Bari Aldo Moro: Fabio Mavelli, Silvana Mariel Sirico, Manuela Sportelli, and others, who skillfully managed a large network of Italian and international partners.

This initiative, along with all activities under the TNE DesK project, was made possible by the support and funding from the Italian Ministry of University and Research and the European Union’s NextGenerationEU program.