2023.

The starting premise that “architecture should connect the previous with the later” (Kim, 2015) aligns us with observing the circumstances in which it is necessary to harmonize the past and the present, that is, to establish continuity. By analyzing the presented projects within the event, we explore the concept of “cultural continuity” (or “continuity of memory”) that evokes the “unique identity” of a place in the architectural design of the present, which is the search for identity in architecture (Abuorf, Vafi, 2020). At the same time, following the lines of continuity and creativity of previous generations and recognizing their sets of values in the works of their followers we are aware of the presence of a positive tradition in the achievements of the representatives of the generation of architects that is just entering the scene. As part of the 18th BINA 2023 program, besides presenting high-quality contemporary architecture in our country and the world, we deal with the culture of memory and the understanding of the value of heritage.

EXHIBITIONS

DISTANCE THAT CONNECTS, BRATISLAV TOŠKOVIĆ
→ Art Gallery, 6 Knez Mihailova St

The Belgrade International Architecture Week – our ARCHITECTURAL WINDOW to the world opens its 18th window this year. This window frames Filnland, through which Bratislav Tošković stepped into our space in the spirit of Aalto – bringing from the north of Finland an abundance of projects, objects, music, and atmosphere put together in the exhibition that opens this year’s Festival of Architecture. Through this exhibition Tošković shared with us his achievements, for which the Council of Grand Prizes of the Association of Architects of Serbia awarded him the Grand Architecture Prize for the Lifetime Achievement for the year 2021, which follows on from the last in the series – the award received at the Amsterdam Architecture Festival 2018. One rare human trait that adorns Tošković is woven into his decades-long professional path, and that is consistency in the full sense of the word; a trait built on dedication. A wide range of projects with different purposes: commercial, health, manufacturing, business, from large-scale buildings to a small substation, connects Tošković’s consistency in the application of the highest criteria, which enables him to continuously achieve top architectural and construction results. Bratislav Tošković is one of the few foreigners who have reached the top from the first step – leading architect and partner in the company PARVIAINEN (now OLLA ARCHITECTURE), which has a sixty-year long tradition and is at the very top of the leading design institutions in Finland..

ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN IN THE 21ST CENTURY: GROWING WORK IN THE LOOK OF RICARDO SANTONJA
→ Cervantes Institute, Čika Ljubina 19

Ricardo Santonja participated in BINA2023 with the exhibit “Architecture in Spain in the 21st century: growing work in the look of Ricardo Santonja”. Through these photographs, Santonja explains the evolution of a growing Spain that, during this century, has learnt to adapt to the new times, creating essential infrastructures necessary for the communication and functioning of any country. Focusing on the importance that communication has in the area of Architecture and Engineering, Santonja uses photographs to communicate, to materialise, introduce and decipher a constructed project. From the simplest tangible aspects, his photographs transform, reduce, suggest, and make the spectator quiver. Santonja, ultimately, turns photography into a communication tool for civil engineering and architectural works, introducing a new way to understand the territory. Santonja generates with his framing and his “poems of light” a vision of spaces that are liveable.

Organization: BINA, Embassy of Spain in Belgrade, the Cervantes Institute

PIRANESI AWARD 2022
→ Art Gallery, Knez Mihailova 6

This year, the exhibition “Piranesi Award” was complemented by a special exhibition “Piranesi 30” dedicated to the Piranesi magazine (1st Central-European Architectural Magazine for the Culture of the Environment) celebrating its 30th anniversary (the first edition was published in 1992). Exhibition consisted of more than fifty works, realizations of architects and student projects nominated by eleven (11) national selectors from eleven (11) European countries (Austria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro) realized in the last two years. The international jury had given the prize and recognitions Piranesi 2022. In this fourth season for Serbia at the Piran Days of Architecture (PDA), the Serbian student selection was included for the third time. The selector for Serbia was the Slovenian-Serbian architect Andrej Strehovec.

BRING YOUR PROJECT
→ Scandinavian Pavillion, 1 Mila Milutinovića St

In this way, BINA wants to affirm and initiate the linking of young creators, and form the BINA ALUMNI CLUB – a creative hub for a network of young professionals allowing them to share knowledge and participate in the development and sharing of European ideas, through multidisciplinary projects, while simultaneously presenting architecture as a part of culture. This year, the works and realizations of Space Love Studio.

TO DWELL: BEST
→ Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery, Knez Mihailova 53

The architectural encounters presented during BINA 2023 in cooperation with the Federation of South Tyrolean Artists (SKB) at the gallery of the Faculty of Fine Arts gave insights into approaches of different creative spaces as well as creative periods. The exhibition pivoted around the English term „to dwell“ – referring either to a temporary stay, a prolonged period of residence, or even an existential striving for presence. Visitors were confronted with an exhibition that provides glimpses into the process and the result of architectural creation.

The six architects – including three from Belgrade and three from South Tyrol – belong to different generations. Teams of young, middle-aged, and not-so-young architects presented their creative efforts on the basis of three works each. The displayed projects allowed visitors to immerse into individual design inspirations and personal forms of representation.

Curator:  David Calas
Organization: SKB – South Tyrolean Artists Association, BINA 
Participants: Aleksandar Stjepanović, AKVS architecture, Othmar Barth, Martin Gruber Architekt, NAEMAS Architekturkonzepte, SARDO architects

ARCHITECTURE. SCULPTURE. REMEMBRANCE. THE ART OF MONUMENTS OF YUGOSLAVIA 1945–1991
→ Knez Mihailova, in front of the Culture centre of Belgrade

In mid-march 2019, Gallery DESSA, ab-Architect’s Bulletin magazine and platform Architectuul began the preparations for the exhibition and a publication named Architecture. Sculpture. Remembrance. The Art of Monuments of Yugoslavia 1945–1991. On the basis of high architectural and artistic value of the structures and the exceptional contemplative qualities of the spatial designs, the curators selected 33 monuments and memorial complexes from all the republics and autonomous provinces of ex-Yugoslavia. This was no easy task as the mentioned territory contains many more exceptional memorial creations. The exhibition and its tours, where three to five monuments from the host region are added to the basic selection, were prepared in collaboration with experts: authors, photographers, and institutions from the ex-Yugoslav region and beyond, which has also laid the foundation for future co-operation. At the exhibition in Belgrade in June 2023, 52 monuments were presented.

Concept: Gallery Dessa, ab-Architect’s Bulletin, Architectuul platform
Curators: Boštjan Bugarič, Kristina Dešman, Maja Ivanič, Špela Kuhar, Eva Mavsar, Špela Nardoni Kovač, Damjana Zaviršek Hudnik
Curator of the Serbian selection 2023: Jelica Jovanović
Co-organization: BINA

As part of the accompanying program of the exhibition, there was a conversation with the curators and a lecture on the artistic project of the Australian artist D. A. Calf on the topic of Spectral geologies: monument sites as living archives, as well as a trip during which monuments in Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Kruševac, Niš, Leskovac and Vlasotinac were visited.

WALKS

Thematic walks through the architecture of the city intended for the widest audience are organized every year in cooperation with various organizations, individuals and institutions. This year’s BINA included four walks in its program: Architecture of Mihajlo Mitrović, Bogdan Bogdanović – Architecture and memory: the Jewish cemetery in Belgrade, Solving the riddle – tracing the architecture of Aleksej Brkić, The French Embassy and the Monument of Gratitude to France and two day trips Time of architecture in Valjevo and Through the roads of the revolution: NOB monuments in Serbia today.

SEMINAR / LECTURES /
WORKSHOPS / EU PROJECTS

ARCHITECTS/DESIGNERS/PRACTITIONERS

Architects/Designers/Practitioners is a series of lectures for professionals dedicated to improving and advancing knowledge in connecting architecture and the latest technical-technological and innovative products and materials. The lectures aim to upgrade professional architectural, design and practical experiences, as well as to find sustainable solutions that are oriented towards the future of architecture. The seminar was held in the business building NCR campus with a walk through the building and a conversation with the architect Vladimir Lojanica, who designed this building.

Participants / lecturers: Vladimir Lojanica, Mapei, Eurodom, Knauf, Aco, Arhibet, Alumil, Space Love Studio

LINA PROJECT (LEARNING, INTERACTING AND NETWORKING IN ARCHITECTURE)
UNDERSTANDING CITY GROWTH, Residential program 2023

On the trail and with the experience gained during six years of existence and creative work within the EU platform Future Architecture, various European institutions and organizations operating in the field of architecture have gathered in a new platform. LINA is a network that connects prominent actors from the cultural scene with new practitioners and thinkers in architecture. The aim of the network is to steer the architecture sector towards sustainable, circular and clean practices, to link existing efforts into a unified LINA architecture program and highlight new emerging voices, giving them an international platform.
The rapid growth of the city, caused by a large population influx as a result of political and social changes in the last thirty years, has led to major changes in the urban fabric of Belgrade. Citizens of the capital city often talk about the threatened identity of the city, problems in functioning, inadequate infrastructure, pollution. In contrast, there are unquestionable qualities, 7,000 years of uninterrupted urban history, the location at the confluence of two large navigable rivers, the overlapping of numerous cultural influences, but also countless demolitions and rebuilding as a consequence of life on the borders, turbulent history and war destruction that repeats itself every 40 – 50 years. We invited representatives of young creatives to Belgrade to give an insight into the city’s development possibilities from their perspective through various media. Their interests are different, but together they touch on topics that are crucial for the development of any big city.

Participants: Francesca Cocchiara and Sergios Strigklogiannis (Greece), Rebeka Bratož Gornik (Slovenija), spaceforfuture.org (Germany / Austria)

GOOD URBAN LIFE 3
(EPHEMERAL) SPATIAL PRACTICES: KRAGUJEVAC

In 2023, the GOOD URBAN LIFE project entered its fourth year of implementation of the Good Urban Life format, which varies each year depending on the thematic focus and the location of the program realization. It was realized in Kragujevac in cooperation with the Department of Interior Architecture of the Faculty of Philology and Arts. Last year’s concept of interactions in public space remained the main thematic backbone, with the fact that in the context of Kragujevac the focus was on ephemeral spatial practices. Kragujevac was chosen for the location of this program unit as the host of a good urban life, due to current projects on the topic of ephemeral spatial practices, as well as for the purpose of decentralization of BINA, which realizes part of the program activities with institutions, associations and participants outside of Belgrade, who operate in the fields of architecture and urban planning, education and culture in general. In Kragujevac, GUL continued to test program formats in selected locations, building an increasingly rich base and vocabulary of GOOD URBAN LIFE.

Concept and text: Jelena Brajković and Natalija Bogdanović
Organizers: BINA and the Faculty of Philology and Arts, University of Kragujevac
Participants: Dr Jelena Brajković, Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade; Dr Pavle Stamenović, Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade; Natalija Bogdanović, Faculty of Philology and Arts/FILUM, University of Kragujevac Elena Džinović, Tamara Nešić, Easa Serbia; Lazar Mandić, JP Urbanism Kragujevac; dr Bojana Pašajlić, Faculty of Philology and Arts/FILUM, University of Kragujevac; Ivan Radulović, Chief city planner, City of Kragujevac;  Nevena Matić, Danijela Aksić, Katarina Todorović, Jovana-Mogić Sretenović, Ognjen Pavlović, third-year FILUM students

REVITALIZATION OF MODERNIST SETTLEMENTS –
THE CASE OF CERAK
→ Art Gallery, Knez Mihailova 6

The Cerak vineyards settlement (Cerak I and Cerak II) became in 2019 the first modernist residential settlement placed under the authority of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade. Today, this settlement, like other architecturally valuable residential settlements from that period, asks for reconstruction. The ground floor, which has been designed very carefully and functionally, needs to be restored, the facades need to be fixed, driveways, parking lots, greenery, infrastructure needs to be renovated… And the citizens who have become apartment owners in the meantime cannot finance it. Should the state, or the city, or all of them together with the residents of the settlement take the stage now? And how should it be done? Restore them archeologically, or adapt them to today’s times? Who should be in the design team? These and many other important questions were raised at the forum, and some proposals for future action were suggested.

Moderator: Snezana Ristić
Participants: Nataša Đurić (ŽAD), Jasmina Đokić (New Planning Practices), Milenija Marušić, Olivera Gaborov Lazić, Nađa Vujović and Tamara Nikolić (NGO Cultural Cerak)

BETWEEN TWO BINAs

Godišnje nagrade za arhitekturu u periodu maj 2022 – april 2023.
Annual Awards for Architecture in the period May 2022 – April 2023
Architecture and urban planning competitions in the period May 2022 – April 2023
Organizers: Association of Belgrade Architects (ABA) and the Union of Architects of Serbia (UAS)