Use-Re-Use: New Belgrade

Abstract

Workshop titled “Use-Re-Use” immediately caught our attention be- cause of the direct connection with our previous scientific work as well as our current research projects. The immediate association was New Belgrade, the huge laboratory of socialist society’s quest for moderni- ty. Unlike so many other modernist projects that are nowadays serving as static monuments of past era or slowly decaying into oblivion, New Belgrade is a dynamic city, constantly changing its face, adapting to the shifts in the society, loosing some unique qualities along the way, but also gaining some unexpected ones showing that city is a live fabric. For generations of architects, New Belgrade has been the primary, first- hand experience of “modernist” architecture and sometimes it seems that there are more architects trying to explore the phenomena of New Belgrade today, then those that were designing it in 1960s and 1970s. As the construction activity during those decades was extraordinary, so is the current theoretical involvement of architects, bringing us numerous publications of high documentary and analytical quality, opening new perspectives in various fields of expertise. This modest book has no pre- tensions to make new, significant contribution to the topic; it’s merely an ad-hoc collection of texts, gathered along the way, in few short weeks during May 2014, while preparing the presentation for the Biennale workshop. Its purpose is to be used as an illustration of variety of issues currently being explored, hopefully opening some interesting topics for the discussions and debates. The workshop presentation is structured as 3x3 matrix, following three “evolution” phases (concepts, realization and current/perspective condi- tion) intertwining with three spatial aspects (the city, buildings and open spaces), and the texts in this booklet are organized accordingly.