
A True Story from New Belgrade
“I hate the city,” says Velinka, a friend in Belgrade. Fortunately, she’s a German teacher, but I understand “Mrzim grad” in Serbian too. We are visiting her and her family. She lives in the Bežanijski blokovi, on the 21st floor, with an incredible view—and yet, she hates the city.
She furiously stirs the dough for the palačinke she is making for us. She shares neither my enthusiasm for the Bežanijski blokovi nor my fascination with New Belgrade. On the contrary, although she is happy about our visit, she doesn’t understand what we are doing here. For her, holidays are “na selu,” in the village. And of course, by the sea—in Greece or Montenegro.
We laugh, and I wonder whether this is a characteristic of real city dwellers: hating the city. Velinka’s anger turns out to be mainly anger at the adversities of work, at bills, and complaints from teachers—in short, at the normal madness of everyday life. She’s right: it’s easy for me to marvel at the big city here. In any case, I’ll be returning to my little garden city on the outskirts of Zurich in a few weeks.
For me, the Bežanijski blokovi are beacons of modernist architecture. Every time I arrive here, I am impressed anew by their sheer size. By the balconies that protrude a hundred meters from the ground – where we are now. Of the crumbling façades that look like a gigantic mosaic. Of the terraces that rise like stairways to heaven. Of their expressiveness, the clear architectural signature. My fascination is ambivalent, though: I am simultaneously attracted and repelled by the blocks. “Their beauty,” I swagger, “is also their ugliness.” Velinka laughs: “That’s very Swiss. Always neutral.” And I tell the anecdote about Le Corbusier, who visited the Bežanijski blokovi. The architects had studied his ideas and his “Athens Charter”. They proudly showed him their creations. Le Corbusier is said to have said as he flew over the blocks in a helicopter: “My God, it’s ugly.” “You see!” laughs Velinka. “He should have told them that beforehand!”
So, is it pure romanticism that I’m projecting onto New Belgrade?
Velinka is not the only one who doesn’t like the Bežanijski blokovi. Even when they were being built, people were said to have felt uneasy in the empty spaces between the towers.
“Nobody loves brutalist architecture anymore,” I sigh.
Sitting on the balcony of the Bežanijski blokovi, I ask myself: did this project fail from the start? The intention of Le Corbusier and his contemporaries was certainly not to build ghettos. But they did have an authoritarian attitude. If their buildings were not liked, it wasn’t their fault—it was the fault of the philistines who didn’t understand them.

So it wasn’t the architecture that had to change—it was the people. They had to learn to become modern.
Velinka doesn’t care what the “elites” and “snobs” think. Although I admire Velinka’s attitude, I have—perhaps typically Swiss—my little doubts. I admit it: I don’t want to be a philistine. And I am convinced by the principle of brutalism.
The term derives its name from the French “brut,” which means “natural,” “genuine,” “authentic.” Nevertheless, I also consider these prefabricated buildings to be “brutal.”
They didn’t like the grey of the concrete. Decay, rust, and graffiti were added early on. In the 1980s, the rock group “Riblja Čorba” sang: “I don’t want to live in Block 65.”
Velinka talks about crime films and series in which the murderer lives in the Bežanijski blokovi—pop versions of a postmodern critique that began in 1972 with the demolition of the “Pruitt-Igoe” social housing estate in the USA.
For Velinka, the matter is simple. She explains the buildings by their function and their history.
“For a worker,” she says, “it was better than before.”
That’s true, but that’s not the point. These blocks were considered “cool.” They were seen as progress—not a necessary evil. The Yugoslav state was proud to show them on international platforms.

Perhaps I need to explain myself a little. I am the son of a farmer. As a child, I spoke like Velinka. I hated the cities. I couldn’t understand how anyone could live in such rabbit hutches.
I remember a trip with an engineering student. I complained—as I had learned to do in my rural environment—about how a motorway bridge was spoiling the landscape.
“Isn’t the landscape much more beautiful thanks to the bridge?” he replied.
I think it was thanks to him that I was able to see it for the first time: the beauty of brutalism. The bridge hadn’t changed—but I had.
In New Belgrade, I find a legacy of modernism that does not exist in this form in Switzerland. But who sees and appreciates it?

Of course, there are architects who are fans. There are books and travel guides. For example, there is the Atlas of Brutalist Architecture by Phaidon or the Brutalism Appreciation Society on Instagram. There is the Guide to Modern Architecture in Belgrade by Dijana Milašinović Marić and the book Arhitektura za komšije by Vladimir Dulović.
But above all—attention, self-promotion—there is the “Yugoslav Modern Architecture Tour” organized by Still in Belgrade.
But apart from these specialists, I don’t find much love for this heritage, either in Belgrade or in Switzerland.
Has modernism become something for a few nerds?
Is my view of New Belgrade from the airplane window just nostalgia?

Am I the old-fashioned one here—and not Velinka?
“We could swap,” she suggests. “We stay at your home, and you come here.”
“I don’t know,” I say hesitantly, and everyone at the table bursts out laughing.
“Why not?” she insists.
And I have to come out with the truth: “Because I like having more space, more comfort. I like nature. I like wood. And I like ornaments.”
Velinka smiles, and I’m at a loss.
Am I a traitor? Am I like the modern architects who design apartment blocks to improve the lives of the poor but prefer to live in a villa themselves?
Is modernity only for the others?
Velinka is right: what counts is not words.
So, living in the new city center, Beograd na vodi? The new city center stands for modernity on a whole new scale. It has everything I have mentioned: it’s bigger, more comfortable, and more 21st-century.
Nevertheless, we quickly agree: “No way.”
“Why not?” my daughters intervened.
And they’re right. Beograd na vodi probably seems the same to us today as the Bežanijski blokovi did to their contemporaries.
And one thing has to be said: the tower is beautiful.
In Belgrade, I love the old modernity that grows old with me. I love New Belgrade with its sometimes awkward buildings, its huge dimensions, designed on a drawing board, its trees and promenades, its schools, and its playgrounds. The whole thing stands for a culture, a dream. A project in the true sense of the word: throwing something forward. Who knows, maybe one day people will visit the Bežanijski blokovi, just as they visit other neighborhoods like Dorćol, Dedinje, Zemun, or the old town today. They will have no problem understanding the function of the blocks. But they will be a little surprised at their claim to be not only functional but also beautiful.
Velinka, who hates the city, makes great palačinke. We eat—I don’t know how many. The children are already holding their stomachs.
A traditional meal in a modern flat and with exuberant hospitality.
Velinka got the recipe from her mum.
Her mum is doing well, she says. She still lives at home, na selu, in the village. They visit her in the summer.
Only her sons don’t want to come.
There is no internet.

Author and photographer: Andreas Pfister
English translation: deepL

Writer. Blogger. Traveler. Researcher. Electronic Music Lover.