A Taxonomy of Liminality: Exploring Open Infrastructure Spaces in Post-Socialist Belgrade

Abstract

Urban morphological approaches to open space are often overlooked in interdisciplinary studies, particularly due to the complexity of spaces left-over or spontaneously generated. This paper focuses on these under-represented spaces, integrating the pedestrian perspective into the analysis. Belgrade, Serbia, serves as a case study, revealing remnants of open public spaces within the post-socialist context, shaped by historical urban planning principles and recent socio-economic shifts. In this paper, all of these spaces are considered as liminal spaces from a pedestrian perspective, accommodating individual and collective users with various cultural meanings. The aim is to create a potential classification of pedestrian liminal spaces in post-socialist Belgrade. The study employs a theoretical and observational approach, combining quantitative assessments of urban morphological indicators with qualitative analyses using the urban structural unit (USU) approach. By observing the use of space and detecting social dynamics, the study proposes three types of liminal spaces from both morphological and cultural aspects. In comparative analysis between these spaces, morphology and organization imply a possible measure of spatial quality. This work can contribute to a new way of reading and analysing contemporary open public spaces and help in their transformation, especially in a post-socialist context.