It is a truth universally acknowledged, that everything in Belgrade was better in the past.
This permanent lament for the supposed long-gone “Golden Ages”, whether it’s the Socialist Yugoslavia or the rarified pre-WWII bourgeois Belgrade, can make us blind to the good things that are happening around us now.
However, instead of despairing, in hard times, it is especially important to celebrate examples that buck the trend of (sub)mediocrity, as they show that greater, more ambitious things are indeed possible.
As architecture is one of the best indicators of the state of the society (and looks pretty in pictures), I turned to my architect friends, Gorana Trbic and Andjela Karabasevic, to help me appreciate a recent architectural gems in Belgrade.
Muzej Macura, Ivan Kucina, 2008
Legat Colakovic, Zoran Radojicic, 2010
Square Nine, Isay Weinfeld, 2011
Kula Nebojsa reconstruction, Dejan Miljkovic, Jovan Mitrovic, Branko Pavic, 2011
Affordable Housing in Blok 23, Branislav Mitrovic, Marina Sibalic, 2004-2008
Kabinet Brewery, Djordje Gec, 2012(?)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bib5POkgpsm/?hl=en&taken-by=kabinetbrewery
Building in Bregalnicka, Dejan Todorovic, 2015
Although I wanted to focus on large project, other notable contemporary architecture includes some of Belgrade’s fantastic interiors, especially those made by studios AUTORI ( GIR store, Pristan) and Petokraka (Cvece Zla) and wonderful reconstructions of Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Serbian National Library.