RETHINKING BASIC CATEGORICAL CONCEPTS CONNECTED WITH REVISION OF THE ARCHITECTURAL-URBANISTIC MATRIX OF BELGRADE

Text topic: Critical History of Transforming Belgrade Public Spaces - from the End of the 18th Century to the Beginning of the 21st Century

Text author: Бојан Ковачевић

Reviewing any historical topic, when urban architecture is concerned, invariably imposes questioning of the categorical instruments we use. By implicating that we know the subject and the instruments by which we define it, and by staying within the set boundaries of consideration, we may easily slip into misunderstanding. It is therefore necessary to precisely determine the concepts of architectural history, architectural critique and the theory of architecture. They all comprehend different timelines differently while the history of architecture and architectural critique do not provide the same kind of feedback to the concept of Architecture or the City. In this sense, a desired concept of “critical history” must be additionally profiled. Differentiating history from historiography, as well as a history of events from a history of existence of trans-temporal physical structures, are the first steps towards a more flexible, more precisely determined and a more socially useful differentiation of domains. Taking one of many possible examples, a space called Terazijska terasa in Belgrade, we can find a mishmash of logics and actions which has, due to lack of public critical dialogue about the proposed urbanistic decisions, destroyed a very rare opportunity to create outstanding topographic interventions and urban growth ideas.