The 20th century Belgrade passages: A typological analysis and critical examination of the potentials of space

Abstract

As noted by Walter Benjamin, the spatial phenomenon of a covered glass-roofed passage, stretched between two streets and inserted inside a city block, encapsulated the extreme cultural ambivalence: by expressing repression through the ideology of consumerism and expressing freedom through the utopia of abundance. The hidden emancipatory potentials of the city passages, observed closely in a particular case, represent the subject of this paper and the analytical probe that examines the historical conditions of a particular enterprise. When the Passage of Nikola Spasić was constructed in the main pedestrian and shopping street of Belgrade in 1912, the époque of Parisian­style arcades had already passed. Observed in this broader perspective, the construction of the Passage, according to the project of Nikola Nestorović, one of the most prominent Serbian architects of the period, was only a late echo of the Parisian 18th century invention. The comparison and contention between the three chosen, realized and unrealized, transpositions of the Passage in Belgrade, designed by different prime architects of the time, in relation to Benjamin's idea of space with emancipative potential, correspondingly point out the protean capacity and open up new alternatives in the context of contemporary production of space, particularly important in the light of a changing global culture.

Kao polazna osnova istraživanja, u ovom radu, postavljen je prostorni fenomen XIX veka - pasaž (passagen, nem.) - odnosno, natkriveni (zaštićeni) prolaz između dve ulice, umetnut u gradski blok, koji je, prema opservacijama Valtera Benjamina (Walter Benjamin), predstavljao jedan od suštinskih izraza modernosti u vremenu svog nastanka. Upoređivanjem i ispitivanjem prolaza/pasaža u urbanoj istoriji Beograda tokom XX veka, rad analizira transpoziciju ovog tipa u kontekstu proizvodnje prostora u različitim društvenim okvirima, i problematizuje je kroz aktuelna pitanja savremene devastacije i redukcije javnog domena i javne sfere na globalnom nivou. Ovim radom nastavljaju se i produbljuju prethodno započeta naučna ispitivanja autorki, kroz novu predmetnu građu, problemske okvire i istraživačka pitanja proverena u redefinisanoj kritičkoj perspektivi, koja se bave emancipatorskim potencijalom prostora posebnih tipologija, izvan uobičajenih definicija i interpretacija.