MINISTRY OF SPACE BELGRADE

This summer semester we organize a study trip to the city of Belgrade. Belgrade is particularly interesting for its geographical, but also a geopolitical position. These characteristics offer us a view of the urban fabric that is a complex collage of how different empires and economic systems envisioned the city. This study trip is organized as a collaboration with Belgrade organization Ministry of Space and its coordinators, architects Iva Čukić and Jovana Timotijević. During our visit we will hear lectures from the protagonist of the recent urban struggles for the right to the city and housing and against neoliberal developments and housing poverty. We will also hear lectures about organizing spaces of commons and have walking tours in the spaces of squatted cultural center, as well as the biggest neoliberal urban transformation in the region - Belgrade Waterfront. In contrast to the new Waterfront development, we will have a guided tour through the part of the city called Novi Beograd (New Belgrade) that was completely planned and developed during the socialist times. Our guide, Jelica Jovanović, will show us the intricacies of socialist spatial planning and housing design, as well what it means to organize the new city that is not state and not privately, but socially owned and how such relations have been transformed after 1990’s. 

The study trip is closely connected to our Studio themed “Ruins of speculation” where we will examine how neoliberal developments can be repurposed and designed as a common.