Architecture and Ideology

94
Dr LJILJANA BLAGOJEVIĆ, Associate Professor
Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, ljblagojevic@arh.bg.ac.rs
THE MODERN CITY RECONFIGURED
POST‐SOCIALIST TRANSFORMATION OF NEW BELGRADE
Abstract |
The paper explores post‐socialist transformation of New Belgrade (Serbia) which unfolds
against the extant modern urban landscape of the new city constructed during the period of
socialism. New Belgrade was realized as a modern, functional city of socialist collective housing
in societal property, with very limited internal economic dynamics. The last two decades of
post‐socialist socio‐political and economic transition have unleashed the dynamic processes of
change such as depoliticization, privatization, gentrification, commoditization and
desecularization of urban space. With almost no historic preservation of modernist
architecture and urban plan, the under‐urbanized structure of New Belgrade allowed for far
more efficient development than the spatially and legislatively constricted historical centre.
Development programs are those deemed to have been lacking in the socialist epoch, from
churches and up‐market residential, to business and commerce, retail and leisure, banking and
gambling. In the context of eminently ideological anti‐socialist/communist discourse, the space
of the modern city is often reductively seen as the physical residue of the deposed socio‐
economic and political system, or as its ideological monument. Thus ideologically stigmatized,
modern urban landscape is either left to decay or subsumed by the rapidly developing space of
globalization. Some recent studies present the current processes of urban change in bright and
positive light of an eagerly awaited progress towards market economy, while others see the
paramount importance of protection and preservation of modernist architectural heritage. Can
it be argued that the balance between the two is to be found in sustainable development
strategies which appreciate New Belgrade's specificity of modern city urban landscape and its
waterscape?
Key words |
New Belgrade, modern city, post‐socialist city, urban landscape, sustainability, green‐blue
network