The Fourth BINA

By Natasa Tepavcevic

Belgrade, July 03, (Serbia Today) - The Fourth Belgrade International Architecture Week - BINA '09 was held in past week on variety of places in Belgrade: The ARTGET Gallery (Belgrade Cultural Center), O3on Gallery, GRAD Cultural Centre, Italian Cultural Centre, Austrian Cultural Forum, French Cultural Centre, Goethe Institute, Vračar Municipality, Windows in Knez Mihailova Street, Institute of Urbanism Belgrade.
It was a collaborative project of Society of Architects Belgrade and Cultural Center Belgrade.
Belgrade International Architecture Week 09 gathers various professionals involved in REthinking of the urban and architectural context, various generations ready to share the old with the new ideas, and the representatives from different countries across Europe and the USA.
BINA RE…- defines the post-war residential architecture of Europe, with a special focus on the architecture of New Belgrade, thanks to the help of eminent architects from Italy, France, Germany, England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Romania, the USA and Serbia
The Society of Belgrade Architects and the Belgrade Cultural Centre have named this year’s BINA “RE…“. This prefix implies an acute issue regarding our attitude towards the existing architectural and urban environment and potentials of its constant REproduction, REconstruction, REvitalisation, REgeneration, REaffirmation, REintegration….into the pulsating courses of our life.
The turbulent history of Belgrade tells us that our city has often passed through all the above-mentioned RE-phases.
Let me explain the purpose of BINA RE… Fourth Belgrade International Architecture.
Thinking is performative act, but re-thinking is connected with an emancipator claim.
That’s why it is necessary to distinguish between the terms “thinking” and “re-thinking”.
History is not given. The restruction of society throughout changes of laws as well as changes of social mind we called transition process. Transition means legal restructive of the society, accepting laws that will enable and guarantee changes not only in economical sphere but also in domain of culture, education, architecture, medical services…
Restructive process in culture is actually transferring, both political and contextual. What we accept as cultural articulation is in fact the result of transferring.
At the other hand, what is the aim of globalisation: (re-)constructing the territory called “Central Europe”. In short, the purpose is: clean the space from the previous ideology. It is clear to all of us that “professionals” from abroad, working as teamwork on this project together with our architects, will exclude social realism-as a form of previous regime, and will take into the consideration only those projects which have position which is supposedly against the communist and socialist regime.
What I want to anticipate with this short explanation of entitle of Fourth Belgrade International Architecture Week is fallowing statement: Neoliberal hegemony, which is so powerful today, started as a small one - cultural hegemony.