The City Remembers – a conversation with architect Yordan Milanov across time
a conversation with architect Yordan Milanov across time
Cities are not built from stone, steel and architectural drawings alone. They are created by ideas, decisions and visions of the future. Every building carries the imprint of its time, but it also tells of the people who created it, of their understanding of beauty, of function and of the place of the human being in the urban environment.
The Face of Sofia’s project “The City Remembers – a conversation with architect Yordan Milanov across time” offers a different view of the capital’s architectural heritage — through an imagined encounter with one of the key architects who shaped the face of Sofia in the early twentieth century.
Yordan Milanov designed a number of landmark buildings that remain part of the city’s visual and cultural identity today. His work belongs to a period in which Sofia was actively transforming itself — from a post-Liberation capital into a modern European city in search of its own architectural language.
With the help of artificial intelligence, the project creates an artistic conversation across time — a chance to return to the way an architect thought about the city, about its needs and about the responsibility a person carries when creating an environment for future generations.
This conversation does not set out to reconstruct a historical meeting or to reproduce Milanov’s words literally. It is a creative interpretation inspired by his life, his professional path and his architectural legacy. Through it the project raises questions that remain relevant today: How do we build our cities? What do we leave behind? And how can architecture carry memory and identity?
Sofia is a city in constant change, yet it is precisely the architectural traces of different periods that give it character. Buildings designed more than a century ago still take part in the everyday life of people today — they are not merely historical objects but a living part of the city.
This connection between past and present lies at the heart of the project — to show that cultural heritage is not only something to be preserved but an opportunity for dialogue. Digital technology gives us new tools with which to present historical figures and their ideas in a more accessible and compelling way, without replacing the research and documentary value of the archives.
The project was created especially for the forum “Digitalisation and Innovation for Cultural Heritage”, organised by the Buzludzha Project and dedicated to new approaches to preserving, interpreting and promoting cultural heritage through digital technology.
Presenting it at the forum created an opportunity for different professional communities to meet — architects, researchers, cultural organisations and people engaged with the future of heritage. The conversation showed that technology can be not only a means of preservation but also a tool for new forms of understanding and sharing history.
Our special thanks go to the organisers from the Buzludzha Project for the invitation and for the chance for this project to be part of a forum dedicated to innovation in the cultural sphere.
We also thank Borislava Palikova and Yavor Konstantinov for their contribution to the project through the sound design and the voices that bring this unusual conversation to life.
Because behind every building there is not only history.
There is thought.
And behind every city — the people who dreamed it.
Yordan Milanov
An architect who left a lasting mark on the urban character of early twentieth-century Sofia. He designed emblematic buildings that form part of the capital's identity.
The videos we produce are an artistic interpretation, generated with the help of artificial intelligence. They do not claim full historical authenticity and are created by The Face of Sofia association.
