Knowledge City

How to exploit the spatial potential of the remains of the strict central planning system in the new equally fanatic context of market driven economy? How to deal with the dominance of private interests and articulate the efforts of the increased number of stakeholders in urban development? University campus in the emerging city center? Who cares about the knowledge anyway?

Realization of the Knowledge City is the ultimate chance for the city of Belgrade and Serbia to get back onto the World map after a devastating decade of wars and economic decay. It is a chance to exhibit the full range of its intellectual capacity and reverse the heaviest brain drain resulting in the most severe lagging behind the rest of the World in the nation’s history.

Knowledge City is designed to become an integral and respected destination of the global university network. A must-visit for every ambitious thinker! It doesn’t attract only scholars, but also businessmen, tourists and citizens of Belgrade. As such, the proposed concept enlarges the range of possible stakeholders, making the realization of the project resistant to the volatility of the market.

It defines conditions for creating an environment capable of continuously transforming and adjusting in a pursuit of the up-to-date and yet realizable scientific and social development. This is the place that inspires excellence and exchange. Open to the world, genuinely belonging to the city.

Location of the campus is in New Belgrade, a modern city built in the second half of the 20th century as the largest extension of the country’s capitol. Project was a major attempt of the new socialist regime to signify the beginning of the new society and communicate its ambition to undertake radical modernization and industrialization of the country. Population enthusiastically received realization of the plan. It became a societal project where tens of thousands of people joined forces working day and night. A genuine follower of the Charter of Athens, the plan for New Belgrade was rigorously zoned. Self-referential character of the plan where no functional nor spatial relation with the adjacent historical cities around were made, coupled with the decentralization of Yugoslavia’s political concept in 50-ies, resulted in a large portion of the plan never being realized. Unfinished modernist project turns into the ultimate chance for the development of the city today!