By Biagio Carrano
A real estate project with enormous economic and social impact, Belgrade Waterfront also represents a vision of politics and land governance that is increasingly challenged by Serbian public opinion.
Three visions of the city, of society, of the future
Urban planning does not simply reflect an idea of urban space, but even more so, it embodies a vision of society and the relationships among its people. It is an activity intrinsically oriented toward the future, as it aims by its nature to foresee and shape the form of a city or territory; and it is specularly a political activity, because streets, parks, and buildings – their very forms and dimensions – are the mirror of the ideas and convictions of those who gave them political backing.
Comparing Belgrade Waterfront with the planning of Novi Beograd in the 1950s and the Cerak Vinogradi residential complex completed in the 1980s reveals the principles, values, and political orientations that inspired these three urban projects.
Novi Beograd: the rationalist utopia
In the early 1950s, Novi Beograd represented the prototype of a planned city, just as the economy of Tito’s Yugoslavia was planned – a rationalist social project aiming to overcome ethnic rivalries, religious conflicts, and social inequalities.
A collective endeavour made possible by the “voluntary” labour of tens of thousands of young people and party militants, Novi Beograd was intended to embody the collectivist Yugoslav utopia of modernity.
It is no coincidence that the Palace of the Federation was not housed in some noble building in the historic centre of the federal capital, but was constructed in Novi Beograd, in an area along the Danube from which a grid of large roads extended, intersecting orthogonally to create blocks (Blokovi) impartially identified only by a number and equipped in such a way that they could host, as needed, residential buildings, public institutions, private enterprises, factories, or public spaces, depending on the current or future urban planning choices.
A modular space, saturated with potential emptiness, to be gradually adapted to the long future the Federation envisioned for itself. The power of the new socialist state imposed and extended itself over its citizens and territory through a geometric order. Rationalist, interclassist architecture would house party officials, working-class families, teachers, and civil servants, who were granted free usufruct of the apartments – often ones they had helped build through their “voluntary” work.
The large green spaces along the two rivers, the equipped shared courtyards, the accessibility of shops and personal services, the proximity to workplaces, the functional organisation of the apartments, and, not least, the social composition, made living in Novi Beograd a sought-after lifestyle choice – far removed from the catastrophic Italian experiences where rationalist housing developments became centres of social decay (Le Vele in Scampia, Il Serpentone in Corviale, the ZEN district in Palermo), even though the buildings were almost identical. As always, housing modules are neither a failure nor a success in themselves, but depend entirely on the political and social context in which they are used.
Far from being a ghetto or dormitory zone, it was an area of the city where the presence of major event venues (Gradska Arena, Hala Sportova, the Museum of Contemporary Art, among others), and the quality and significance of state administration offices (the Federal Palace, later the Palace of Serbia, ministries, tribunals, public institutions), made it the most important part of the capital. It was not even a business district cut off from the rest of the city, but a place people accessed to work, run errands, shop, educate themselves, and enjoy leisure – a fully lived-in and integrated area. An urban expression of the Yugoslav utopia, brutalist architecture and orthogonal planning aimed to move beyond the disorganised urban layouts of the Ottoman-influenced historic centres in the south and the neoclassical buildings of the Federation’s north.
Above all, housing was seen as a guaranteed right of citizens, not as an object of speculation. In turn, citizens were expected to accept the distribution of living spaces and urban spaces, and architectural styles decided by the state as part of its vision for the modernisation process led by the socialist single-party system.
Cerak Vinogradi: the turn inward
A country still united but disillusioned with the ideals it had tried to realise over thirty-five years of Tito’s rule is the one that, in the 1970s and 1980s, designed and built the Cerak Vinogradi settlement on the hills of Belgrade, 12 kilometres from the city centre. The white concrete of Novi Beograd’s tower blocks was replaced by exposed yellow ochre brick that blended with the colours of the changing seasons on the trees surrounding the buildings.
No longer were citizens expected to adapt to geometric order and accept the mere functionality of béton brut housing modules. Instead, the buildings were integrated into the hillside, reduced to just six storeys, embedded in the slope and arranged in semicircles so each one had the same exposure: egalitarianism, but in a far less alienating form.
The housing estate was discreetly embedded into the natural environment, allowing trees to grow freely, with roots in living soil. The footpaths between buildings evoked a sense of intimacy and discretion. Buildings and green spaces were integrated, and the rigid, orthogonal separation between concrete blocks and parks seen in Novi Beograd gave way to curving lines that followed the contours of the hill. The six-storey buildings fostered much tighter-knit micro-communities than the tower blocks of Novi Beograd. The yellow exposed brick signalled a return to more traditional architecture, evoking English cottages as well as the architecture of Vojvodina, formerly under Austro-Hungarian rule.
It was a clearly ideological choice – perhaps not immediately understood by all – but one that explicitly challenged modernism.
Essential services are located within the complex: shops, supermarkets, a medical clinic, a school, and a nursery that stands out as an architectural gem in its own right. Yet it is no coincidence that there are no public buildings (museums, sports centres, offices) capable of attracting visitors beyond residents or their friends and relatives. Peace, separateness, discretion, distance from the chaos of the city centre – but at prices affordable to the middle class of the 1980s, a period of architectural and urban retreat into a search for individual quality of life.
This quarter has often been described as “human-scale,” in implicit contrast with Novi Beograd: it is no longer the citizen who must adapt to the ideals of modernity (urban or political, it makes little difference), but urban planning and architecture that try to respond to the needs of a new generation of Yugoslavs discovering bourgeois pleasures – feeling distinct, valued in their individuality as a person or family, rather than as a cog in a grand project of social transformation.
A part of society had made a quiet social and ideological secession, first from certain utopias, seeking refuge in spaces still built by state companies but already designed for those who increasingly felt alienated from a particular ideology. Soon, that secession – initially social and marginal – would take on political forms, enforced by machine guns and cannons.
Belgrade Waterfront: global capital descends on Belgrade
After the modernist utopia for all, and the middle-class residential quarter, the era of Aleksandar Vučić has chosen to be remembered for turning a run-down area into a mushroom field of buildings and skyscrapers – sometimes inspired by Dubai, other times more akin to the dormitory towers of Shanghai. Belgrade Waterfront – Beograd na vodi in Serbian – comprises no fewer than 34 buildings between eight and twenty storeys high, including the revived Bristol Hotel, the 300,000-square-metre Galerija shopping mall, and the 42-storey, 168-metre Belgrade Tower. Estimated investment: $3.5 billion.
We won’t dwell here on the violent methods used to clear the area or the lack of transparency in the agreements between the Serbian state and the developer, Emaar of Abu Dhabi. Instead, we will focus on how the buildings and their distribution across the land have impacted not only the city’s topography but also the social climate of the Serbian capital.
The lex specialis passed by the Serbian Parliament in April 2015 removed 177 hectares of municipal land from national procedures and regulations, including the country’s general tax framework, creating a de facto extraterritorial zone within Serbia, controlled by a private company – Belgrade Waterfront – 32% owned by the Serbian state and 68% by Eagle Hills, a company under Emaar’s control. In essence, this amounts to a privatisation of a significant portion of city land, where many laws are suspended or simply not applied.
Goal: to build over 10,000 apartments. The return on invested capital appears to take precedence over all other considerations. Thus, compared to the vast green areas of Novi Beograd and the hillside integration of Cerak Vinogradi, what immediately stands out is the extremely high density of buildings, both in spread and height. The parks lack any natural feel; they are playgrounds or strips of turf laid between the corners of buildings, where dogs and children can roam. The young trees will never grow strong and tall because they rest on a concrete slab underneath. The exterior appearance of the buildings is driven more by marketing needs than by any memorable architectural signature. Navigating the complex by searching for a building based on its vaguely evocative name is an alienating experience. The building density ratios are closer to those of Indian or Chinese dormitory districts than those of a quality residential area in a European capital.
Nevertheless, the price per square metre of the new apartments starts at €3,500 and reaches up to €10,000 in the Belgrade Tower – prices entirely out of reach for the vast majority of Serbians.
The commercial activities within the Waterfront offer services (and matching prices) aimed at an affluent clientele. So, who exactly is this residential project for? In essence, two categories: wealthy Serbians and high-income foreign visitors. Both groups are uninterested in building any kind of social life within the Waterfront itself. Apart from a few children’s playgrounds, there are no communal gathering places in the district: no public squares, no places of worship, no sports facilities for team games, no theatre or concert hall to enrich the development with a cultural dimension. Unsurprisingly, the project to house the Museum of the City of Belgrade in the former railway station space has come to a halt.
In this sense, Belgrade Waterfront cannot even be described as a neighbourhood – not in the true sense of a place where a stable community lives, shares experiences, and makes collective use of buildings, spaces, and the environment. Rather, it appears as a collection of containers, multi-featured boxes to be entered and exited without any emotional attachment. A non-place, in Marc Augé’s famous definition.
Even when it is used – for a stroll along the river, a visit to the shopping centre, a meal at a restaurant, or time spent in the children’s parks – the complex is experienced by Belgraders as something foreign, a place to visit temporarily, which it technically is, given that it is not managed by the City of Belgrade.
The Waterfront, a well-known modernity
What kind of society and future is envisioned by those promoting a project like the Waterfront? What message was intended, and what message was actually received by the population? If the aim was to showcase the modernisation of the country, what idea of modernity has been conveyed?
What has ultimately emerged is a form of modernity defined by material wealth, affluent consumption, curated self-image, social separation, and Instagrammable hedonism – a model centred on the economically ascendant individual, or at most the brochure-perfect young affluent family, detached from any sense of being part of a broader social project, as was the case in Novi Beograd, or from the search for more reflective rhythms of life, as seen in Cerak Vinogradi.
One might say these are global trends – and they certainly are. But it was by no means inevitable that the redevelopment of such a large part of the city’s territory should bring so few tangible benefits to the population as a whole. Belgrade Waterfront has thus been experienced by Serbian citizens – Belgraders and others alike – as a massive withdrawal of land, of decision-making power, of control, and of access to the housing market, due to the correlated rise in property prices and the complete lack of social housing initiatives.
Herein lies the political paradox of the Waterfront: the very political party that portrays itself as the guardian of Serbian national identity and heritage has backed a real estate project with no connection to the architectural identity of the Serbian capital; the very political leader who constantly asserts his closeness to the lives of ordinary people has created an enclave for the wealthy; the very President of the Republic who routinely calls for the protection of national borders and sovereignty has handed over a prime piece of urban territory to a multinational property developer.
Originally conceived as a flagship project – a banner initiative for the current regime, designed to demonstrate its ambition and ability to attract capital and expertise to Serbia – the perception of Belgrade Waterfront has flipped entirely. It has come to symbolise, in the Serbian collective imagination, the essence of a regime that fosters social division, promotes new wealth without questioning its origins, and prioritises foreign interests and capital over the needs of ordinary citizens.
In short, to many, this colossal real estate development has exposed the real political, social, and economic agenda of those in power. And if, among the silhouettes and spotlights of the Waterfront skyscrapers, many Serbians have seen the age-old defects of national politics – corruption, arbitrariness, nepotism – they cannot be blamed for rejecting this supposed modernity.
The rest of the series
- The origins of the Serbian crisis / 2. Corruption in a country where trust has collapsed
- The origins of the Serbian crisis / 3. The discontent of an increasingly unequal country
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