Many individuals, ensembles, theater groups, contemporary and folk-dance groups, orchestras, and artists from Yugoslavia and many other countries who helped the city took part. Contests in athletics, bicycling, swimming, water polo, and gymnastics were also held. Ivan Toševski, Your Aid to Skopje: July–September 1964 (Skopje: Gradsko sobranie na Skopje, 1964), 16.
United Nations Development Programme, Skopje Resurgent: The Story of a United Nations Special Fund Town Planning Project., ed. Derek Senior (New York: United Nations, 1970), 52.
United Nations General Assembly, “Official Records of the General Assembly, Eighteenth Session, 1251st Plenary Meeting.”
The immense quantity of help, both material and financial, demanded maximal centralization and control of the inflow and its distribution. In September 1963, a federal law was passed and a new body was created—The Fund for Aid and Reconstruction of Skopje. The law abolished the previous Federal Fund for Reconstruction, transferring all the rights and obligations to the city of Skopje and the Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The law stipulated that the fund should distribute the means according to the Program for Reconstruction of the City of Skopje, adopted by the City Assembly.
Much of this archival material was published in successive series of small booklets entitled Vaša pomoć Skopju/Your Aid for Skopje, distributed locally but also periodically delivered to the countries and institutions who contributed to the city’s renewal. The first publication was issued immediately after the earthquake, covering the period from July to September of 1963.
United Nations Development Programme, Skopje Resurgent.
In the process of distributing the financial assistance, a few criteria were followed, first and foremost being the wish of the donor. Where no such a wish was expressed, and especially in cases when the individual financial assistance was more modest in quantity, the funds were pooled together. Fund for Aid and Reconstruction of Skopje, Draft Program for implementation of the foreign assistance for Skopje, Skopje, September 1964, from the private archive of Kocho Bitoljanu.
In the documents issued by the Fund for Aid and Reconstruction of Skopje, the “moral and political obligation” of the city and its authorities was often mentioned.
Like many other buildings that were received as donations or were built with foreign assistance, as long as it was in use, the building had a plaque at the entrance stating the names of the donor countries: “This Universal Performance Hall was built with the help given to Skopje by citizens, humanitarian organizations, and the governments of Afghanistan, Australia, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Ceylon, Chile, Cuba, Cyprus, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mali, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Nigeria, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sudan, Senegal, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, Uruguay, Yemen, as well as the foreign tourists who found themselves in Macedonia on the day of the catastrophe. This building will remain as a permanent symbol of international human solidarity in the reconstruction of Skopje after the catastrophic earthquake of July 26, 1963.”
The Non-Aligned Movement was founded on the Brijuni Islands in Yugoslavia in 1956 and was formalized by signing of the Brijuni Declaration. In 1961, the first Non-Aligned Conference, the first official summit of the movement, was held in Belgrade, capital of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The original building was destroyed by fire in the 1980s.
For the Skopje building, the initial capacity was slightly reduced in order to be more comfortable and provide better acoustics. As occurred in other cases as well, the City of Skopje funded the other design phases—the micro-urbanism, outdoors infrastructure, landscape design etc.—which were completed locally, mainly by the Construction Companies “Makedonijaproekt” and “Granit.”
This was discussed in particular in “Strategy and Action Plan for the Cultural Development of the City of Skopje for the Period 2012-2015.” See ➝.
The former mayor, Petre Shilegov, referred to a relevant study in an interview in 2020, arguing that the Universal Hall needs restoration and could not withstand an increase of the existing structure. The study mentioned is Irena Karevska, “With the Money Thrown at Failed Projects, Universal Hall Might Have Been Renovated by Now,“ 360 degrees, July 29, 2020, ➝.
Over six hundred thousand euros have been spent so far on architectural competitions alone. Srdjan Stojanchev, "Universal Hall: Nobody Has Gotten Further Than a Project,” Radio Free Europe (Macedonia), July 29, 2020. See ➝.
“The Design for the New Universal Hall Has Been Chosen,” Porta3, December 4, 2013. See ➝.
This time, full technical documentation was completed by the Civil Engineering Institute of Macedonia and the reconstruction was estimated to cost approximately 15 million euros.
Anna Torevska, “A Modern Park will be Built on the Site of the Universal Hall,” Kanal 5, July 27, 2020. See ➝.
“Shilegov for Universal Hall: Let's Build a New Symbol of the City in a New Location,” 360 degrees, August 25, 2020. See ➝.
A. Anthevska, “City of Skopje Starts Reconstruction of Universal Hall. Shilegov Says it will be Ready for Concerts in Autumn,” SDK, October 29, 2020. See ➝.
“Zaev and Shilegov Presented the Project for the Reconstruction of the Universal Hall,” March 1, 2021. See ➝.
In July 2023, the Council of the City of Skopje accepted the initiative to temporarily hand over the credentials for the reconstruction of the Universal Hall to the Ministry of Culture. “The Ministry of Culture has formed a team that will work on the Universal Hall,” Sitel, September 28, 2023. See ➝.
Silvana Kocovska, “Skopje Named 2028 European Capital of Culture,” MIA, September 20, 2023. See ➝.