Architectural Terri(s)tories: Jajinci Memorial Park in Belgrade

Abstract

Architecture represents one of the possible ways of how territory can be marked, but it is also a permanent trace of the process of its development. As a built form it is a sign in the ground, while as an idea it represents a trace of various approaches to its development within a theoretical field. This paper examines the significance and meaning of a single architectural gesture within the context of an architectural narrative of the city territory by starting from the structural approach to observation of the territory (Gregotti) and the method of post-structuralist analysis. This study links and analyses: 1) the importance of the architectural gesture in the process of defining and developing the territory of the city, through 2) changing position from the phenomenological (formal, formative) to topographic discourse of observing architecture, which examines 3) the potential of the interpretative narrative both of the architecture and the territory. Memorial park Jajinci was selected as a case study whose primary purpose is to relate messages about the significance and meaning of the place where it is located. The aim of this kind of analysis of the interpretive potential of this example is to show the importance of the elements of the territory as a witness of the processes of development based on spatial narratives ‘written down’ in the city territory.