The course of Architectural Composition Iii will address the theme of the
urban project in the context of Belgrade in Serbia.
Belgrade is part of the European capitals built along the great rivers of
the Balkan peninsula, real and important waterways and communication
channels but above all channels of transmigration of peoples and
cultures.
Belgrade was born, by the Romans as Singidunum, on a promontory
located at the confluence of the Sava with the Danube, in a geographical
and historical position of great importance. It represented the limes of
the Roman Empire and subsequently the border between the Ottoman
Empire and that of the Serbs and, still later, with the Austro-Hungarian
one which had an important military and commercial outpost in the town
of Zemun. The Kalemegdan fortress still controls a large territory of high
landscape value that extends into the vast plains around the Danube and
the Sava. The old city today is predominantly of a late 19th century
Central European mold with its "double" which developed in the second
half of the twentieth century with the Novi Beograd built by Tito north of
the Sava, an urban example of one of the most modernist cities in Europe
.
The laboratory will work in a marginal area of Novi Beograd, right on the
Sava front and in a context of great landscape and urban interest.
The Composition III course aims to propose a condition where the project
is able to regenerate an urban sector and where the interventions are
resilient, sustainable and consistent with the physical, social and cultural
context of the place.
Block 18
The Laboratory will focus on the regeneration of an urban sector of New
Belgrade, Block 18.
Between the two wars, the old Belgrade Fair (Stari Sajmište) settled in
this area, some traces of which remain. During the Nazi occupation, from
1941 until the end of World War II, the area of the fair was transformed
into a concentration camp where more than 40,000 people were
interned, including Jews, Roma and, since 1942, also political prisoners
and partisans. The dead were more than seven thousand.
After the war, Tito wanted to create Novi Beograd in the area on the left
of the Sava, opposite old Belgrade, in a large marshy area called
Bezanija. The whole area was divided in the postwar years into urban
blocks (Blocks) following a regular and orthogonal plot that was set on
the axis of the Federal Executive Council building.
The area of our interest was called Block 18 but was never developed
from an urban or architectural point of view.
Over the years, the area became the site of a series of illegal
settlements, small huts surrounded by a sort of spontaneous and
uncultivated green. The area became an illegal city within one of the
most modernist cities in Europe.
Working methodology
Travel diary
During the study trip to Belgrade, students will be divided into three large
groups that will work on the following papers.
1. Mapping and knowledge of the places (actual state of the buildings)
2. Critical-photographic reportage, sketches, videos, etc. (When possible)
3. Aspects of potential and criticality of places
This work will be collective and will be reported in an A3 size book that
will become the Travel Diary of the course.
Concept
Each group of students will first have to work on the development of a
concept that identifies an urban regeneration strategy. The concept will
have to present a basic idea which will be the guideline for the
regeneration of the area. The concept must be represented by a small
model of xxy size in 1: 2000 scale. The model does not necessarily have
to represent the entire project area in a realistic way, but the most
salient aspects related to the strategy.
Master Plan
This concept will subsequently be made more explicit in a Master Plan
that will address various aspects that are integrated and complementary.
The Master Plan will be represented in a scale model 1: 1000 and in a
floor plan at the same scale. In addition to the plan, explanatory
diagrams of the roads, public spaces, etc. must be produced. The Master
Plan must be a complex and articulated paper and must address all (or
part of).