16. Brutalist Belgrade

There is this part of Belgrade that doesn’t get to the tourists guides, or promotional websites. Because it is considered not very pretty. I beg to differ. I love the Brutalist architecture that originated after WW II, in socialist countries that needed to build houses quickly, without too much consideration for people’s choices and preferences.

Those familiar with my earlier blogs will remember the frequent references I make to ‘palatis’, a term that originated in Albania and referred to cheap four or five story high apartment buildings – so that a lift was just not necessary -, with rather small apartments, but invariably with a balcony. Which, at the initiative of the apartment owner, could be closed in to create an extra room. Or not. Which gave the building its characteristic façade, of seemingly all the same houses, but not really.

The Blokovi

In several larger cities the four-five story principle has been compromised, and we have observed much higher buildings, presumably with a lift, but still that variety of balconies, closed in or not. But in Belgrade the construction of apartment buildings took a whole different direction, in the late 1940s. Here, entire neighbourhoods were constructed, called Blokovi – Blocks -, which were designed as all-inclusive housing estates, tall so they contain a lot of residents, with daycare centres so that both parents could go to work, and playgrounds and green space, to provide the socialist ideal of a community. Although they appear all the same, they are not. They have in fact been designed according to something called the Athens Charter, published by famous early 20th C architect Le Corbusier, which, among other criteria, demands that each housing unit has at least two hours of direct sunshine in wintertime. Walking around in Block 62, which is in between Block 61 and 63 – and these three Blocks are the best examples of the Brutalist post-war housing drive -, you start to understand the strange and seemingly inefficient construction of the towers, some easily 20 stories high, others much lower. Yet, all together it is a massive amount of concrete turned into houses. Look at the details, and some top floors stick out on one side, others have protruding balconies; many have air conditioners, no doubt a new addition, and all seem to be connected by spiral metal stairs that serve as fire escape. And you know, look carefully, and many of the housing units are just a little different from others, some have their balconies closed in, for instance!

There are more Blokovi that still retain the Brutalist style. We didn’t have time to see them all, they are quite spread out across Belgrade. Block 22 and 23 are famous, and so is Block 28, and Block 30. Instead, we drove around to see some of the more extreme examples of individual Brutalist buildings. And we haven’t even see half of it!

The Individual Buildings

Then there is the Genex Building, officially known as the Western Gates of Belgrade. The second tallest building in the city is a combination of a 30 story residential tower and a slightly narrower commercial tower, connected at the top. It was built in 1977, on the road into the city from the airport, to impress new arrivals. No more. There are still people living in the residential tower, I believe, but the commercial tower is being demolished, at least from the inside. I walked in through the revolving door, but was sent straight out again, but somebody working there, who told me the building was closed, because parts of concrete have started to fall down. The inside palm garden is in a sad state, but so is the area outside, with rubbish strewn around, graffiti on the walls, a dry fountain. The concrete block in proud Serbian colours has lost much of its appeal.

Where there are Western Gates, there are Eastern Gates. Indeed all the way on the other side of town is the Rudo Building, or rather, three buildings, constructed in 1976. Each has 28 floors, and as with the earlier examples in Block 62, they are not just vertical towers, but have been built stepwise. Apparently, the three buildings are built in a circular plan, which creates the image that the middle one is always behind the other two. And here again, plenty of balcony variation at individual apartment level.

My personal favourite – so far – is the Toblerone Building, officially known as the Karaburma Housing Tower Building, from 1963. Look at the pictures and you understand the nickname; once again, there are not just sides that rise up vertically, there must be some sort of variation. This building, too, is obviously still very much in use; what strikes me is that the apartments must all be very small, as every balcony has been closed in! But not all in the same way, of course.

There are more buildings under the Brutalist heading on Belgrade, amongst them the Jugoslavia Hotel. Built in 1969, this was apparently one of the most luxurious hotels in Europe at the time. Its website says that it was once a five star hotel, now a comfortable 3 star hotel. But when I try to get in, a guard says that the hotel is closed. When I try to book a room on the website of the hotel, I get transferred to the Savoy Hotel, in a wholly different part of town. On closer look, it is indeed falling apart.

The nearby SIV3 office, which includes a police station, was built somewhere in the 1970s. I only saw it from the distance, parking problems prevented me from having a closer look, but, well, these coloured windows say it all, don’t they?

The Milan Muškatirović Sports Centre, alternatively called the Sport-Recreational Centre ’25 May’, we admired from the water, during our cruise the previous day. It was purpose-built in 1971 for the first World Water Sports Championships, which Belgrade hosted in 1973. The original name of the complex is associated with Youth Day, a public holiday in the former Yugoslavia that took place annually on Tito’s birthday, but it was later renamed after the popular Yugoslav water polo player of the 1960s, Milan Muškatirović.

The Palace of Serbia, was started at in 1947, in what we would call Brutalist style, but finished in 1959 only, in a more modernist form. It is huge, and to be honest, has nothing of the intricate variations of the housing blokovi. Just big, almost to the extend that it doesn’t fit on your camera screen.

The Sava Centre, built between 1975 and 1979, is another one difficult to approach with the car, because you cannot park anywhere, except inside the paid parking. In retrospect, we should have done so, because apparently the interior is way more interesting than the outside – of which just some quick photos from the car.

Outside Town

For pure concrete you have to get outside the city, to the TV Tower at Mount Avala. Towers don’t come more brutal than this one, originally completed in 1964, as one of the ten tallest towers in the world. The base of the tower was designed as a tripod, much like the traditional Serbian chairs. It was bombed by NATO in April 1999, to take out Serbia’s national broadcasting stations, only to be built as an exact replica – but two meters higher, at its current 204 m – some years later, to open to the public again in 2010. Six thousand tonnes of concrete, I read somewhere. There is a lift to a viewing platform, which indeed provides quite a view of the surroundings.

I was greatly helped finding these buildings by using https://www.mywanderlust.pl/belgrade-brutalist-architecture/ and https://www.greyscape.com/brutalist-belgrade/.