Belgrade (Savamala City Quarter)
15 –19 October 2012 Savamala
Period Focus
Savamala, the oldest urban part of Belgrade, changed in the course of its 150 years history from a lively and scenic rivertront to a neglected area, characterized by heavy traffic and disconnected from both the city centre and the river. Its current marginalisation and dilapitation is in strong contrast with the location and its potential. Savamala has significant history but it lacks a clear vision for its future. Savamala occupies one of the most beautiful and strategically important areas of the city. It is located south of the historic Kalemegdan Fortress on the South of the river Sava. Its northern section belongs to the municipality of Stari Grad, while its central and southern sections belong to the municipality of Savski Venac. The central street in the neighbourhood is Karadjordjeva. The area was the first new settlement constructed outside the fortress walls of Kalemegdan which dates back to the period of the Ottoman rule. Construction began in the 1883s as ordered by the prince of Serbia, Milos Obrenovic, who planned to build a Serbian settlement outside the fortress and the Turkish settlement. The area was originally a bog called Cigaska bara (Gypsy pool), but the name was later changed (and still survives as such) to Bara Venecija (Venice pool). The pool was drained, becoming a neighbourhood of its own and Savamala grew around it. The area itself, gets its name from its location, the name of the Sava river. and from the term mahala, a Balkan word for neighbourhood or quarter, which dates back to the period of the Ottoman rule.
Lecturers Maja Popović, Samuel Carvalho, Nina Mitranić, Nemanja Petrović, Hans Vermeulen
Savamala developed its trading potential also due to its geographic position. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century it grew to become the mayor trading centre in Belgrade. The area always had diverse social composition, characterised by different social classes and cultures. Inhabited by sailors, the elite, craftsmen, fishermen, wealthy merchants and marginal groups of people. Savamala developed its diverse character that is still visible today. At the end of the 19th century, the city modernized rapidly and Savamala. particularly the Karadjordjeva Street, became the site for major building projects, considered to be of great cultural and historical significance. In the course of the twentieth century various economic, political and urban forces seem to have led to the decline of Savamala. This resulted in the area as we see it today where splendid but neglected architectural remnants of a graal historical past stand side by side to old warehouses, decaying residential buildings and informal workshops. The Karadjordjeva Street is poorly maintained, many buildings were abandoned. Although some of the individual buildings are under the preservation of the Cultural Heritage Protection Institute, the area, as a whole, is not protected, neither is a subject of the protection plan at the moment. Savamala also hosts major city infrastructure, a bus terminal and parking lots, a main traffic zone used by heavy trucks, and the headquarters of the water police. The riverfront, once a busy landing, is now used as a cemetery for abandoned hulks.
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