Brace yourself for discoveries. After the tour, you will not think the same way about
Yugoslavia, socialism or social housing. What you assumed was just another Soviet style mass of blocks, will surprise you.
Your guide is an art historian, with whom you'll discover style elements of brutalism and socialist modernism in New Belgrade architecture. She spent her school years living in a socialist housing block, so you'll hear how it was first hand.
You’ll see the buildings for the socialist elites, buildings for socialist business, buildings to impress the Non Aligned comrades and housing blocks for the supposedly classless society. In the years from 1948 to 1980 New Belgrade, the capital of Socialist Yugoslavia, grew from 0 to 200,000 in population. The tour will show you how architecture and urban planning played a role in this socialist success story.
You'll meet the guide in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art at Ušće. You'll explore its modernist 1960s volumes and find out why its precious marble facades contradict the stereotypical expectations from socialist architecture.
The nearby Park of Friendship is our spot to talk about the Non-Aligned Movement of 120 countries, founded exactly here, in Belgrade in 1961. In the park, the heads of the Non Aligned countries planted trees as symbols of peace, the key value of the Movement.
Next, you pass by the Yugoslav Government, a telling monument of an earlier phase of YU politics, that experienced the switch away from Soviets while under construction. Hear how Yugoslav Government balanced between Soviets and Americans, in the dramatic circumstances of the Cold War.
Then you’ll have a close-up view of the Genex Tower, aka Western City Gate, a 30-floor structure that has won many instagrams. It was the first smart building in the Balkans and internationally acclaimed as excellent brutalism. This is our spot to break down brutalism as a style and have some amazing photos of the architecture. We'll touch upon the surprising specifics of Yugoslav business, as Genex company was on par with its capitalist peers worldwide.
Our next stop is the housing Block no. 23, a well-rounded example of brutalist architecture and socialist city planning. The block included public school and kindergartens, greenery, artist studios and a mini shopping mall. You’ll hear the guide's personal stories of life in the blocks in their golden decades of 60s, 70s and 80s. And the stories of living not so well in 90s.
Your final stop is a gigantic congress center, built in 1977, that had beaten all the records with its speed of construction. Nominated for the Pritzker Architectural Prize, Sava Center hosted OSCE conference and Non Aligned Summit. Unexpectedly, it was the place where the end of Yugoslavia began, at the last congress of its ruling Communist Party in 1990.
Was Yugoslavia a utopia or a dictatorship? Find out for yourself, on this dynamic architectural tour of a unique society that Yugoslavia was.
