New Belgrade Dominion
'Blokovi', City within the city, welcome to the 1950s
Developed on Le Corbusier's principles of the "sun city", New Belgrade has been designed and build with many green areas and infrastructure which can easily be upgraded. City developed in the style of urban modern architecture, divided in blocks and it is still considered experimental at the time.
In 1950's, first completed residential blocks were 7 and 7a (where the author of this post spent his first 30 years of life), followed with residential blocks 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30, 45 and 70, completed in first half of the 1970s. Block 19a and 70a were finished in 1980's.
From wiki: "Architects who are most deserving for New Belgrade's development are Uroš Martinović, Milutin Glavički, Milosav Mitić, Dušan Milenković and Leonid Lenarčić. They drafted the city's regulatory plan in 1962 which encompassed all the previous ideas, solutions and propositions."
Block 23 was built in 1974, under the project of architects Aleksandar Stjepanovic, Bozidar Jankovic and Branislav Karadzic.
In 2019, the depictions of Block 23 became part of the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was selected after the exhibit “Towards a Concrete Utopia – Yugoslav Architecture from 1948 to 1980”, as the only buildings not to have a destructive effect on the nature. Today, the blueprints, models and catalogs related to this block are located at the MoMA.
Meanwhile, in and around the city center
Isolated examples in the old part of the city
While 'Blokovi' ('Blocks') were designed on the then-outskirts of Belgrade and stand as an internationally recognized architectural complex, the city hosts numerous other brutalist structures, many familiar only to the local population.
One such building is the 'Samacki Hotel' ('Hotel for Singles'), a residential building composed of compact 16-square-meter studio apartments. Another is the so-called "Bajadera Building," a cutting-edge structure of its time, designed for university professors and located near Belgrade University.
Above right 'Toblerone Tower', residential housing tower | Architect Rista Šekerinski 1963, Karaburma, Belgrade, Serbia 2024
Rudo, The Eastern Gate of Belgrade
Architect Vera Cirkovic
The Eastern Gate is a complex of three skyscrapers, with the official name Rudo after the city in Bosnia. Each skyscraper, step-like and triangularly shaped, is 85 meteres high, built in a circle facing each other, with the playground in the middle. Located in Konjarnik, it is positioned on the hill overlooking the highway and with it's appearance and location symbolize the eastern entrance to Belgrade. Building started 1973 and it was finished in 1976.
