Belgrade at Confluence of Influences

Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: 30, Open, 2013

The association of the geographic zone of the Balkans as a rogue zone is a relatively recent construct. This paper will trace back in time the formation of this construct in order to firstly expose the various agents that facilitated this coercive politicisation, and secondly by deploying the discourse of Balkanism to de-politicise this construct. The de-politisation process will be contextualised in respect to the history of New Belgrade’s (re)formations in general, and its post-World War Two modernist planning in particular. Considering that New Belgrade’s post-World War Two urban plan is unfinished and the building process discontinuous, a potential reveals itself to re-evaluate the politics of how history is invoked and narrated to what is (re)planned and (re)built. The re-evaluation will be prompted by Gilles Deleuze’s idea of the “objectile” in order to suggest the discourse of Balkanism as spatial tool of collaborative struggles; mobilised in an “open” and “nondetermined” outcome if a city and a society are to become a democracy-in-process.

Sociologija, 2020

Using a typology of urban symbolism, the identity of Belgrade is reconstructed on the basis of accounts by a sample of city residents, foreigners and locals, who work in international companies and organizations. The component of behavioral symbolism is found to prevail, referring to the place's atmosphere, mood, spirit, or energy. Next comes material symbolism, particularly in relation to Belgrade's location at the confluence of two rivers, and the Kalemegdan complex overlooking it. All other types of symbolism are much less prominent. Belgrade is described as having a comparatively low global visibility and lacking a readily recognizable landmark. What emerges as a pervasive motif in the different symbolic codes is the attribute of contradiction, and the related qualities of hybridity, liminality, and incompleteness. ili energiju grada. Na drugom mestu je materijalni simbolizam, naročito u vidu geografskog položaja Beograda na ušću dveju reka, uz kompleks Beogradske tvrđave koji se nad njima uzdiže. Svi drugi tipovi simbola su znatno slabije prisutni. Ispitanici smatraju da je Beograd relativno slabo vidljiv u globalnim razmerama i da mu nedostaje opštepoznato obeležje koje bi nepogrešivo simbolizovalo. Uočljivo je da se kroz različite simboličke izražajne jezike provlači motiv protivrečnosti, kao i s njime povezani atributi hibridnosti, liminalnosti i nedovršenosti. KLJUČNE REČI: Beograd, urbani identitet, urbani simbolizam, protivrečnost 1 [email protected] 2 [email protected]

When contemplating the future of cities, are we not, at the same time, critically considering its present as well as its past? And, to the extent that the focus of our vision is a modern city, how do we see the future of the city such as New Belgrade, which itself is a modern, functional city, planned and constructed in the socialist Yugoslavia in the second half of the twentieth century? Furthermore, having in view the recent change of paradigms, i.e. the break-up of the former Federation, the change of socio-political conditions and the consequent change of the concept of modernity, the fascination with the future may well benefit from closer inspection of the vacillating narrative of modernity and strategies of modernism, as they have been unfolding in the planning and construction of New Belgrade. It could be argued that the principal failure of New Belgrade is its functional incapacity, more precisely, its failure to develop as a complex spatio-urban structure of multiple functions, which has consequently put strain on the social life and movement of the community. The issue of re-functionalisation, thus, predictably becomes central in the contemporary discussion on the future of New Belgrade. Yet, could we propose that, paradoxically, the main resource of New Belgrade is that it is dysfunctional, and that its main potential for the contemporary re- functionalisation is that it is an "unfinished" modernist project? The most obvious questions which could be posed with regard to this are: How will re-functionalisation deal with the concept of the modern city?; What new/contemporary strategies of conquering the modernist open/empty space can be invented?; What impact will the new development exert on the open plan of the modern city? And, perhaps, most importantly, what new concepts are investigated and set for what is actually being designed and constructed? But, instead of generating critical concepts, New Belgrade is facing the crisis of non-concept. This being the case, would we not come to a better understanding of the contemporary situation if we were to propose that the issue of re-functionalisation calls for an invention of new and alternative strategies of modernisation, albeit those critical of the original modernist concept.

Beograd - Den Haag, About the Impossibility of Planning

‘Wild City’ (Divlji grad), one of the most exhausted newspaper headlines in Belgrade, paradoxically became a rare, if not the only genuine topic of public debate and public interest related to the city and urbanity in general. From the perspective of an architect, it is quite interesting that there is such amount of emotions about a city and about urbanism.The impression is even stronger when com- pared to the context of Western Europe, where the debate is much more fragmented and where urban issues are negotiated among very sharply profiled interest groups. A prominent Belgrade columnist framed it like this: ‘Strangely enough, the cataclysmic reality of Belgrade (it seems that the future of this city is not worth discussing at all) represents the only point of conciliation between the local independent press and its regime foster-sister.’ (B.Tirnanic, Weekly NIN, Belgrade, 27 July 2000) In a unison condemnation throughout society, ‘wildness’ was rarely explicitly linked with the performance of state, the economic embargo or the war. In the criticism given by the press, the dominantly present overtone was set by an expectation of general civil awareness, a feeling of how people should conduct themselves in a city. This civil condemnation mirrored into architectural practice. Architects, as a result, for the most part turned a blind eye on the wild building.This attitude was strengthened by a prevailing traditional-academic climate in which ‘wild building’ is simply not con- sidered an act of architecture, but quite the opposite, the destruction of it.

Art-e-fact, an on-line magazine for contemporary art and culture. Thematic issue «Glocalogue», guest edited by Žarko Paić, Marina Gržinić and Zoran Erić, 2005

The paper deals with the contemporary period and urban developments in Belgrade, Serbia. It study actual urban plans that aim to activate city waterfronts.

URBS: Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 2016

El articulo forma parte de la investigacion doctoral de la autora, desarrollada entre 2001 y 2006 en la Universidad Politecnica de Cataluna, en Barcelona, con el titulo “Arquitectura, ideologia y representacion. Analisis de los proyectos de Nueva Belgrado 1947-1959. Trata la cuestion del papel de los proyectos arquitectonicos en el contexto del cambio de ideologias, como un medio de comprender las complejas relaciones entre la arquitectura, el discurso dominante las estructuras de poder y las consecuencias sociales de las intervenciones urbanas a gran escala. La investigacion se centra en las diferentes fases del desarrollo de la parte central, e inicialmente mas representativa de Nueva Belgrado, la pretendida nueva capital de la recien creada Yugoslavia socialista, concluyendo con los cambios de los primeros 2000 que pusieron el acento en los valores de la nueva ciudad, asi como en las debilidades del concepto modernista en el contexto socialista, el cual fue su base original. Como...

Spatium, 2012

The review is concerned with a multi-disciplinary approach to spatial, regional and urban planning and architecture, as well as with various aspects of land use, including housing, environment and related themes and topics. It attempts to contribute to better theoretical understanding of a new spatial development processes and to improve the practice in the field.

At the beginning of the 21 st century, comprehensive changes in the socioeconomic relations were reflected in the spatial development of cities in Serbia. Although through the history Belgrade and Novi Sad developed under different influences, small spatial distance brought these cities to the place where they have a lot of common aspects of development. Resulting from their institutional roles and concentration of capital and power, both Belgrade and Novi Sad have recently become dominant economic centres. The main focus of this paper is to study the similarities and differences in the changes that occurred in these two cities. The specific examples of the city fortress are observed, which apart from the historical importance, have a strong cultural influence on the development of local social relations, promotion and tourist development. New concepts of functional and spatial transformation, the development of local society and the establishment of public enterprises, organization and control of activities in the city fortifications allow different use of these spaces and the creation of new urban identity. Početkom 21. veka, sveobuhvatne promene društveno-ekonomskih odnosa, odrazile su se i na prostorni razvoj gradova u Srbiji. Iako su se kroz istoriju razvijali pod različitim uticajima, ali na maloj prostornoj udaljenosti, Beograd i Novi Sad imaju danas puno zajedničkih aspekata razvoja. Specifičnih prostornih, urbanističkih i demografskih karakteristika, zahvaljujući svojim institucionalnim ulogama, koncentraciji kapitala i moći, postali su poslednjih godina dominantni privredni centri. Težište rada je na istraživanju sličnosti i razlika u promenama koje se javljaju u ova dva grada, posmatrano na specifičnim primerima gradskih tvrñava, koje pored istorijskog značaja, imaju i jak kulturni uticaj na razvoj lokalnih društvenih odnosa, ali i promociju i turistički razvoj. Novi koncepti prostorno-funkcionalnih transformacija, razvoj lokalnog društva i formiranje javnih preduzeća, organizacija i kontrola aktivnosti u okviru gradskih utvrđenja omogućili su drugačije korišćenje ovih prostora i stvaranje novog identiteta.

Mediaeval Settlements in the Light of Archaeological Sources, editors-in- chief and managing editors Tajana Sekelj Ivančan,, Tatjana Tkalčec, Siniša Krznar, Juraj Belaj, Serta Instituti Archaeologici, Vol. 6, Zagreb 2017.

In the course of the excavations at the Belgrade Fortress, a peculiar settlement zone has been uncovered in the fortified area of the former riverbank. This area was divided into two units – the Western Suburb and the Lower Town – by the rampart and the defensive ditch running alongside it. There were several successive phases of buildings with wattle and daub walls leaning on the rampart, some of them with stone retaining walls, testifying to an intensive secondary use of the ditch, which started after it had lost its original defensive function. That the time-span of this settlement was from 1427 to 1521, i.e. from the period of Hungarian rule in Belgrade, is confirmed by the chronology of the fortification, stratigraphy of cultural layers and small archaeological finds. The article analyses the features and functions of these buildings, and their inventories. Together with the relations of this settlement with the neighbouring spatial and fortified units, the circumstances which could have led to settling this ground by the river, significantly lower than the rest of bank belt, are discussed.