Jelena Rupar
MULTIPURPOSE CITY CENTERS – SPACES WITH PUBLIC USE
The higher level of education of young architects seeks new principles for solving more complex problems in the urban environment in the design of urban wholes and blocks, at the same time respecting all their natural and acquired features, i.e., the environment and ambiance. The aim of the course is to teach future architects about the responsibility of the profession towards future users through the development of spatial interventions which, in a creative, bold, and studious way, approach the transformation of interesting and hitherto insufficiently and inadequately treated parts of the city, which again, despite their attractive positions and significant potential, as a consequence of the circumstances that beset us, have the character of decomposed pseudo-urban spaces. Due to its position and diverse morphology, Belgrade provokes the creative and emphasizes the natural. It is characterized by numerous residential enclaves, with accompanying primary features, but also contents of a more complex character – on a slope, in a cut, on plateaus near the riverbanks, on a ridge, etc. Each of these zones is characterized by specific ambient features. Additionally, again, they emphasize the built structures. They again, all together, make up the ambiance of the city. At the time of transitional changes, when ownership returned to the pedestal as the generator of development, Belgrade was destroyed by the arbitrariness of investors and individual interests. All this was happening at the time of the establishment of new (deformed) value systems and the rule of temporary (often suspicious) representatives of the law. The present moment and the time to come, with well-designed and above all respected legal regulations, can save the city from the investment disaster, respecting the authority of the profession, if it is sincerely based on the honesty of youth and the experience of maturity. Thematic framework: Multipurpose city centers – spaces with public use (business, administration, trade, catering, and recreation, etc.). Topic: City block in Savamala in Belgrade, bordered by the streets Kraljevića Marka, Karađorđeva, Svetozara Radića, Crnogorska, and Gavrila Principa, located between two important city traffic corridors (the roundabout in Karađorđeva and the square towards Branko’s bridge, i.e., Zeleni Venac). Theoretical classes are included in the accompanying seminar.