AN ETHICAL READING OF VISUAL SYMBOLS OF ARCHITECT BOGDAN BOGDANOVIĆ

Text topic: An Ethical Reading of Art

Text author: Александар Јоксимовић

Analyzing various interviews given by the architect Bogdan Bogdanović, which were compiled in a book Glib i krv (Mud and Blood), we could discern two different images of Belgrade that he cherished in his mind. One was an image of a mythical city of old Celtic civilization, raised between the two rivers – the Danube and the Sava as male and the female symbols – which was a mixture of a futuristic modernism and prehistoric necropolis and settlements. The other image was imprinted with rough changes that the Yugoslav society underwent after 1983, which he had anticipated saying that almost all Balkan cities would end up like archeological sites, buried under ruins of a culture and history of many nations. This paper will also analyze the first monument raised in Belgrade in honour of the Jewish victims to fascism, and will try to discover a universal symbolic of the memorial monument this eminent architect built from 1960-1980. The intent is to offer an ethical reading of the almost forgotten language of symbols, visual signs and arts which partially justifies the nature of Man/Builder and Man/Destroyer found in all of us.