Architect Slobodan Maldini assesses for N1 that the people of Belgrade “saw one big nothing” from the Belgrade on the Water project, which started 10 years ago, and did not get anything from it, and he himself was supported by sheikhs from the Emirates, who want to make it Dubai on the water.
– Today, we are witnessing a long-standing plan, which through violence imposes on the citizens of Belgrade what they do not want, what they do not need, imposes an inhumane type of housing, and all for the sake of making investors’ profits. If we sum up, in the past ten years, since the Belgrade on the water project started, the people of Belgrade have seen nothing from that project. The citizens of Belgrade did not get anything from Belgrade on the water. What did they lose? They lost the market, they lost that they cannot rehabilitate the other old parts of the city, because Belgrade on the water has taken over the market and there is not enough potential of buyers who could, as strongly as in Belgrade on the water, initiate the reconstruction of old Belgrade – he said Maldini.
He added that Belgrade today is anything but what it should have been.
– When the general urban plan was made, which lasted until 2002, and then the next one, Belgrade was supposed to be the capital of a European city, full of greenery, with limited building heights, with housing in humane conditions. Today, all that is broken, today all that is changed, and we see that there is no end to it. What we are witnessing today is the expansion of Belgrade on the water and further, unfortunately, not to those areas that are urbanistically defined, such as, for example, New Belgrade Block 18, that part opposite the Sava Center, but precisely to those locations that are without investment, when it is possible to make a large profit without investment and create a large concentration of housing – he indicates.
– New Belgrade on the water continues towards the Belgrade Fair, they occupied the Belgrade Fair, further behind the fair is the complete Ada, i.e. the arm of Ada Ciganlija, then it all goes across the road to the territory of Šećerana, which, by the way, has been declared a cultural asset and now construction is prohibited commercial buildings, we will see in the future what will happen, then it continues down the Topčiderska river, all the way, which tells us that there is no end there – said Maldini and added:
– Across the Sava, on the other side, i.e. the New Belgrade side, Belgrade on the water is expanding to all free locations, to the location where there are various concrete mixers, factories, apartments, where there is a shipyard and the like, it will also occupy the left bank of the Sava. What is surprising is that all this is happening without any urban plans.
He states that the expansion of Belgrade on the water is a matter for Belgrade on the water, and not something that the Government should make a decision about.
– If we compare today’s situation with the state of demolition in Hercegovačka Street, not much has changed, the policy of urban development in Belgrade has remained the same, which is directed urban development, directed by individuals, directed by the top of the government, supported by international corporations or sheikhs from the Arab Emirates … who want to make Belgrade a copy of Dubai – says Maldini.
He adds that in no case does it suit the citizens of Belgrade, nor our mentality, nor our social status, nor the geographical conditions of Belgrade “and Belgrade is simply sliding into a total urban chaos”.
– The profession has let it out of hand, out of the hands of the citizens, and simply the land of Belgrade is more and more ruled by individuals. We got an urbanist gorogan, what we don’t need, we closed the views of the city, we closed the panorama of the city, Belgrade no longer looks like what it used to be and what it was for hundreds and thousands of years. Belgrade is something new, it is a surrogate, it is a matrix of senselessness, bad moves, bad actions both economic and urban, and above all political, in which we lost the best quality land, and our citizens lost the opportunity to live in a quality, good organized space – concludes Maldini.
Let us remind you that on the night between April 24 and 25, 2016, a group of masked people razed everything that was in Hercegovačka Street, in the Belgrade neighborhood of Savamala, to the ground with excavators. On that spot, Belgrade was built on the water. Eight years later, Belgrade on the water is still being built, but also expanding.
