The district of Novi Zagreb, located south of the Sava River in Zagreb, Croatia, teems with midcentury, socialist-era housing. Musician Josh Nalis, a producer of classical music concerts and festivals, grew up in such working-class developments, and once he anchored himself in the center of the Croatian capital, he vowed he’d never return to the sleepy residential area. “I’m shocked by how I changed my mind,” he says.

When his mother died a few years ago, the old neighborhood tugged at him. She had resided in one of these buildings, and while he considered merely sprucing up her “practical and not very attractive” apartment, as he puts it, to ready it for the rental market, he ultimately decided to move back in. He had lived in that exact unit for a time, beginning in high school, and this was a chance to leave his own imprint on the space. Long compelled by the pared-back beauty of brutalism, Josh embarked on a renovation courtesy of Sofia, Bulgaria–based Simple Architecture.

The buildings in this stretch of Zagreb exhibit a pragmatic structural synergy. Constructed from prefabricated concrete blocks accented with sheets of corrugated steel, they exude a raw, industrial energy that Josh was keen to mirror in the interiors by revealing the space’s “original skeleton,” as he puts it. “There’s no break from the concrete inside.” In its pure, naked state, shorn of ornamentation and dominated by swaths of concrete, microcement, and glass, the apartment stays true to its 1960s roots, serving, Josh adds, as “a statement of the time.”

Alexander Yonchev, founder of Simple Architecture, knows Josh well—their Bulgarian mothers had a close-knit relationship—so the project is a personal one for him, too. “Josh is open-minded and disruptive in his thinking, and he allowed us to push the concept as much as possible, then soften the idea as needed,” Yonchev explains.

Although Josh’s minimalist interior design vision dovetailed with the apartment’s architectural context, there was the “risk of it being too harsh,” continues Yonchev. “How could we make a livable atmosphere and at the same time not let it feel as if the physical space was complete, that there was room for expansion and more furniture in the future?”

Finding that balance was especially challenging given the space measures a compact 732 square feet. Even Josh and his partner, Visnja Vukov, a political science professor at the University of Zagreb, were concerned about everyday functionality. From the get-go, Visnja relished Josh’s plan to “acknowledge the legacy of the apartment,” she says, but worried over the amount of concrete. “Once I saw the layout, it grew on me. The apartment has a lot of light, and with the contrast between the modernist style on the inside and the view of the trees outside, it’s comfortable to live in.”

The couple are especially at ease now that two formerly cramped rooms have been transformed into one open living and dining area, lending the apartment a much-needed sense of spaciousness. Storage, like the capacious modular wardrobe in the bedroom, was also cleverly woven in, hidden away behind a curtain that adds a cozy touch.

“At first, we tried to go absolutely monochrome with everything,” says Monica Stoykova, Simple Architecture’s interior designer and managing partner, noting how the metal dining table and chairs are a way of “reinterpreting the building through furniture.” But Josh and Visnja craved a few splashes of color amid the barrage of cool gray, reflected in eye-catching additions like a pink armchair and yellow lamp that offer jolts of warmth.

Previously, the bathroom was small and strangely configured with a toilet placed at a 45-degree angle. “It was super narrow and dark, so we broke a wall where the shower is and put glass there that stands between the bathroom and bedroom,” explains Stoykova. “When the lights in the bathroom are switched on, they backlight the wardrobe and it looks like a white box, which is interesting and futuristic. During the day, the bathroom is full of natural light coming through from the bedroom window.”

The empty pockets of space Yonchev encouraged leaving in the apartment will surely come in handy when Josh and Visnja welcome their first child this spring. It’s an apartment steeped in memory, yet it continues to evolve.

Brutalist structures are celebrated around the world—from Switzerland to Brazil—but in Eastern Europe they are synonymous with socialism, often prompting the embrace of wallpaper, paint, and carpeting to help conceal the physical traces of a turbulent political past.

“It’s a small apartment, but it can be translated into a much broader kind of thinking,” says Yonchev. “What we try to do as architects is look at buildings objectively, in terms of proportions, materials, and light. Let’s take away the symbolism, and maybe we will see that there is potential—that you can imagine a different kind of reality.”

Related Reading:

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A Brutalist Behemoth Left Deserted for Decades Comes Back to Life for €102K

Arcs of Concrete Swoop Down Like Curtains in This Crisp Belgian Home

Project Credits:

Architecture and Interior Design: Simple Architecture / @smplarchitecture

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Going Back to Brutalist Was the Plan for This Concrete Croatian Flat