The world is unique and the greatest personal fiction. In the simplest terms, he is made up of what we see and what we have experienced. This means that it exists only while we are alive and that with each person a whole world dies.
Fortunately, it is born with every new human being...
"The World", Miloš Bobić ("Vreme" 794, March 23, 2006)
Do you know who Ranko Radović was?
Kudos to you who know - and to those who don't - and there are plenty of them, I know, especially among members of the youngest generations - I would like to single out a quote from the text "Man of Communication", written by Miloš Bobić on the occasion of the death of his "good friend and Professor" Ranko Radović. The text was published in the Belgrade weekly "Vreme" on March 3, 2005.
"A man of the Renaissance, Professor Radović was a figure, professionally exceptional and human, by local terms, quite unusual: warm, benevolent and principled. Behind him remains a great void, the silence of the infinite. His words and his mere presence in the 'deserted village' will be missed by all who bequeathed themselves to searches beyond the banal interpretation and arrogant use of architecture".
Professor Ranko Radović, it should also be said, held around 150 lectures, in several cycles, in the large Concert Hall of the Kolarč National University in Belgrade. During the nineties of the last century, during those dark, war years, at a time when the living word of architecture had difficulty finding its way to the stony elevation above the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, Radović's lectures in Kolarac inspired entire generations of architecture students, who were always the most in the audience. .
"It was a meeting place," writes Miloš Bobić, "Ranka with students, architects, housewives, people eager to expand their horizons, understandable, witty and smart words, in short with the bazaar that he was happy to 'stand on the line'. He does not remember that "any of the Belgrade architects managed to fill that large hall without leaving a crowd of others who were a little late at the door. Yes, Ranko was a man of communication - through words, drawings, projects, and no one before him did so much for the promotion and popularization of architecture."
Ranko Radović died on February 17, 2005, and the following year it was founded, i.e. established, and awarded for the first time the "International Award for Architecture Ranko Radović". The award is traditionally given at the end of December - in the building of the Ilija Milosavljević Kolarc Foundation - but not in a large, but in a small hall.
The award was founded by the Association of Fine Artists, Artists of Applied Arts and Designers of Serbia (ULUPUDS), and the co-founders are: Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade, Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad - Department of Architecture and Urbanism, Institute of Architecture and Urbanism of Serbia (IAUS) and the aforementioned Endowment of Ilija Milosavljević Kolarc.
From 2008, the Urban Institute of Belgrade and Potisje Kanjiž AD joined the status of co-founders of the award, and from 2009, the Chamber of Engineers of Serbia also received the status of co-founders of the award.
The prize is awarded in three categories (in which Ranko Radović worked): for critical-theoretical texts about architecture - for reviews, essays, books, lectures and the written word in general - then for television shows, exhibitions or multimedia presentations - and, finally, for the realized architectural work
The prize is awarded in three categories (in which Ranko Radović worked): for critical-theoretical texts about architecture - for reviews, essays, books, lectures and the written word in general - then for television shows, exhibitions or multimedia presentations - and, finally, for the realized architectural work.
Prizes in each of the categories are decided by a separate jury - so on December 21 last year, the esteemed Ranko Radović Award Jury awarded Branislav Mitrović and Jelena Kuzmanović for the Family House in Koste Vojinovića Street in Belgrade in the category of realized architectural work.
That house, that is. the authors of that house - received the Salon Award in the architecture category at the 34th Salon of Architecture this spring - and then the Plaque of the 44th ULPUDS May Exhibition. It is obviously an interesting house - you can find its presentation on mitarh.rs - and it seems to me that it is characteristic of the work of the design team gathered around Branislav Mitrović - but I would not go into the analysis of that house on this occasion - I must first I'll verify it live - I have to take a walk on Kosta Vojinovića Street.
I'm actually interested in how that house relates to its surroundings. I'm afraid, to be honest, that this is a radical cut, whatever that means - and I have problems, I must admit, with that "typical basis", which was given in the aforementioned presentation.
The staircase, in particular, bothers me - it seems to me that a single-legged staircase, complete with a stairwell as we find in collective housing buildings (with a floor landing of a minimum width of 180 cm), instead of the existing two-legged one, would better suit its external character, i.e. the materialization of the facade - and it would draw the whole thing more clearly towards the typology of the town villa - i.e. house-studio. Not to mention that a single-leg staircase, with a fair landing in the length of the entire leg, would release the modernist, robust nature of the house - which is latent, probably on purpose, but certainly felt.
I also think of the so-called Ed's Shed (also known as Sunken Shed/House) by British architect David Adjaye. Does it even make sense to compare that house with the house of the Mitrović/Kuzmanović tandem? I would say that there is - especially if you have a rigorous ideology, that is, the logic of minimalism close to your heart - so you don't tolerate unnecessary moves - no matter how well-founded those moves are, i.e. justified.
OK, let's move on...
The jury for awarding the Ranko Radović Award - in the category of television shows, exhibitions, multimedia presentations - made the decision to award the award to a ten-member team of young architects who represented the country of Serbia at last year's XIII International Architecture Exhibition - Biennale in Venice: Aleksandar Ristović, Janko Tadić, Marko Marović, Marija Miković, Marija Strajnić, Milan Dragić, Miloš Živković, Nebojša Stevanović, Nikola Andonov, Olga Lazarević.
A lot has been written about that setting, everywhere and on all sides, but still no one managed to surpass, I am convinced, the simple explanation given by the authors themselves, along with the competition proposal.
"The solution is a table that almost fills the pavilion with its surface.
By negating or twisting the scale, we wanted to bring the object to its ultimate meaning, i.e. to the general, indivisible, sculptural, banal. Size translates it to surface, while height connects it to the word table. We occupied the interior of the pavilion with a projected void. The solution is sculptural because it is emphasized, i.e. one dimension of the object magnified to monumentality. We wanted to emphasize the large empty area. The relationship between the surface of the table and the volume of the pavilion creates tension and defines the dimensions. Visibility appears as a theme, which mostly belongs to the atmosphere. It is simply associative and subject to difference in perception. The impossibility of seeing the object in its entirety and its transition to the surface is what makes it beautiful. The large area is nice."
Therefore, in Serbia, at the beginning of March last year, a General, public, non-anonymous Competition was announced for the selection of the concept and design of the Serbian installation on the topic "Common ground", which was given by David Chipperfield, the director and curator of last year's Biennale. .
Then, at the end of April, the esteemed Jury made a decision to represent Serbia at the Biennale with the aforementioned project. 34 competition projects were submitted to the competition, and it should be said - which could be seen on the website of the Association of Belgrade Architects - dab.rs - but, in the meantime, for who knows what reason, they were removed.
Immediately after the announcement of the results of the competition, the standard speculations about the alleged bias of the jury began in the backroom - but the Serbian media, for their part, still wholeheartedly supported the project - which, frankly, few among the more visible people from the Serbian architectural scene sincerely believed .
And when, after the opening of the XIII Biennale of Architecture, at the end of August - the first, extremely positive reviews from respected architectural critics active on the international scene - began to arrive in Serbia - everyone in Serbia began to compete in the interpretation of the setting - and it is precisely this simplicity, which very naturally initiates semiotic polyvalence - what marked the presence of Serbia at last year's Biennale.
When Jeffrey Kipnis, for example, deigns to freely express his opinion - and a very emotional one at that - about an installation from the Biennale - then it can be considered a great success of that installation
When Jeffrey Kipnis (Jeffrey Kipnis), for example, deigns to express his judgment - and a very emotional one at that - about an installation from the Biennale - then it can be considered a great success of that installation.
It is also important that at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade - where all the authors of the presentation respectively graduated - for the past ten years, a very special style of conceptual thinking has been developed and nurtured, supported by formal determinants very close to current trends - and very readable in the context of those trends.
If you don't believe me, try to analyze, respectively, the installations in the Serbian Pavilion at the XI, XII and last year's, XIII Architecture Biennale. That conceptual line is more than obvious - although it would be difficult to define it, especially ad hoc. It is a serious story, which will definitely be told one day.
The jury for awarding the Ranko Radović Prize - in the category of critical theoretical texts on architecture, urbanism and the city - decided that the prize should be awarded to Zlata Vuksanović-Macura for the book "Life on the Edge: Housing of the Poor in Belgrade 1919 - 1941" (Orionart, 2012). .
More about that book in the next issue.
Bonus video:
