The Centre for Architecture Belgrade realized the Women in Architecture project during 2013. This book, as its result, showcases the work and experiences of women architects in Serbia since the beginning of the 20th century until today.

The 160 pages showcase illustrated texts and interviews on the most important female authors and their projects. The whole publication is bilingual, in Serbian and English language.

Asking questions on the position and role of women in architectural practice (now and in the past), we hope to enrich our profession in Serbia, and present to the global community the local architecture through the lens of its female authors.

The Centre for Architecture Belgrade owes special gratitude to our colleague Milena Zindović, for her great effort and enthousiasm in realization of our ideas.

We hereby thank the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, who financially supported the publication of this book.

To get your copy of this book, please contact the Centre for Architecture directly at books@cab.rs.

Workshop Women as Belgrade Builders  which Centre for Architecture Belgrade realized in cooperation with Belgrade Elementary School  “Branislav Nušić” is successfully finished, and this occasion was marked by a visit with the pupils to the subject city sites.

During this tour, guided by Milena Zindović and Katarina Aleksić, the pupils visited buildings by architects Jelisaveta Načić, Milica Šterić and Milica Krstić in dowtown Belgrade. The visit started in front of the Elementary School “Kralj Petar Prvi” building by Jelisaveta Načić, where we spoke on elements of this building’s style, as well as architectural elements in general.   In front of Jelisaveta’s Small steps in Kalemegdan the pupils presented the life and work of the first Serbian woman architect.  We also talked about architecture as a profession and a framework for everyday life.

The walk continued towards Zeleni Venac and the buildings of architect Milica Šterić, with a stop in front of the restaurant “?” and the House of princess Ljubica, two examples of traditional Balkan architecture. The conversation continued on the topic of city planing and importance of urbanism as a discipline.

In Carica Milica Street we stopped opposite the EPS office building by architect Milica Šterić and talked about the aesthetic of Modernism, proportions and life and work of Milica Šterić, longtime director of  Energoprojekt Architecture and Urbanism.

The tour ended with the visit to Electrical Technical School “Nikola Tesla”, former Secong High School for Girls by architect Milice Krstić. Thanks to the hospitality of this school’s professors and secretary we visited the interior of this complex building – the library, ceremonial hall, terrace and laboratories. During the visit to the school the pupils presented their findings and work on the topics of elements of Serbian-Byzantine style, life and work of Milica Krstić, as well as the status of women in Serbia in the 19th and the beginning of 20th century.

All of the pupils’ works and a detailed report of the sites visit can be found at the blog Women as Belgrade Builders, and will also be exhibited in two locations during the coming Belgrade International Architecture Week  from 8th to 31st May 2014.

Centre for Architecture Belgrade would like to thank the enthusiasm and creativity of teacher Katarina Aleksić, the cooperation of Elementary School  “Branislav Nušić” and the support of the Cultural Heritage Preservation Institute of Belgrade for the successful realization of this workshop.

Photos: Katarina Aleksić

We have prepared an abridged version of a text on the diagram at the service of arhitecture – and the other way around, by Nevena Novaković, previously published in Prostor magazine, entitled Dijagramatična arhitektura (Diagrammatic Architecture, in Serbian).

Industrial society may be said to have most particularly been marked by change in how humans perceive time. Sanford Kwinter’s definition of this change is an evocative one: The once imperceptibly slow and stable rhythms of history that earlier furnished a kind of immobile ground for the more labile and fluid human figure began to oscillate and vary in pattems of shorter and shorter duration, effecting an epochal reversal in social and historical experience. What once appeared as a fixed and global continuum subtending human temporal experience – the historicomaterial assemblage, for example, known as ‘the city’ – began to multiply, mutate, and atomize so quickly and finely that it itself could no longer be conceived as anything other than a turbulent, punctuated fluid. [1]

Apart from the passing of time becoming more accelerated, inescapably imposing greater speeds on the quality of living today, another phenomenon has come to mark contemporary urban environments, that of data storm, of the incessant flow of information altering social patterns, typical urban activities and the organisation of cities. [2] All these changes as to how space and time are perceived and experienced pose fundamental questions before the stakeholders considering, planning and designing cities. What is the right course of action in the ever-faster changing social and spatial context? This question is a good place to enter into a discussion of the relationship between architecture and the diagram.

The term diagrammatic architecture was first used by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito in 1996 in a text in which he interprets the architecture of famous Kajuyo Sejima. Ito’s verdict is that the power and delicacy of Sejima’s architecture arise from the close similarity between the buildings themselves and the scale drawings representing them. Here works of architecture become one or merge with the diagrams, as the diagrams showing spatial functions are transformed into constructed spatial forms. [3]

Figure 1. Kazujo Sejima, medium-height residential building, design prototype, roof and floor plans, 1995.

Several years after Ito opened the contemporary diagram debate, architect Peter Eisenman published a book entitled Diagram Diaries. The book is a review of Eisenman’s designs dating back to 1970, in which he expounds on the modus operandi of architectural design. [4] Eisenman’s essays are richly illustrated with graphic appendices, and together they explain his diagrammatic approach to architecture, in which architectural structures and their contexts go through iterations in diagram form. It was the first time for Robert Somol, author of the book foreword, that the diagram became synonymous with architecture, and not simply its representation. According to Somol, the diagram is an implement of architectural production and discourse generation, which operates between form and words, space and language. This makes the diagram performative rather than representational. [5]

Figure 2. Peter Eisenman, Diagrams of transformation of House IV, 1971.

Robert Somol links the increasing focus of architectural theory and practice on the diagram to the 1960’s and the new phase in how architectural profession was perceived. Somol claims that the basic techniques and methods of architectural knowledge changed in the second half of the 20th century, transforming from the drawing to the diagram. [6] The diagram grew in importance in what may be called the information age. Swimming against the current of information, the architect is faced with the necessity to make selections, define priorities and opt for the best ways in which to use the selected. Previously, information had always been seen as a subcategory; now, it became the actual subject matter.

Figure 3. www.chora.org

According to Anthony Vidler, the diagram is one element or ingredient shared by the wholly distinct phenomena or projects of architecture and town planning. Designs done on paper, those created in digital space and actual, constructed buildings, to which such words are associated as topography, map, event-space, morphogenesis and process, have one common feature: they are all generated and represented using digital technologies. The diagram is their second common feature, says Vidler, one they also share with the modernist avant-garde, their common predecessor. [7] Unlike Somol, Vidler traces the origins of the diagram back to a much earlier period. He discovers them in the early modern period, when architectural drawings became abstract, and whose geometric linearity and simplicity pushed for diagrammatic representation. Vidler illustrates the early use of the diagrammatic drawing with Durand’s (Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand) new methods of representation, as used at the École polytechnique opened in Paris in 1785. Durand’s drawings consisted of series of lines, points and planes and contained no decorative details. Such simplified drawings were meant to point to that which is essential about architecture. [8]

Vidler’s narrative takes us to 20th-century modern architecture, more precisely, to Le Corbusier, who said his architectural concepts were an extension to classicist principles – formal Greek order, ancient Romans’ institutional and typological heritage, and the proportional systems of the 16th- and 17th-century modern French Classicists. [9] This is how diagrammatic architecture reached its apex in modernism. The abstract form promoted by modern architecture, which shied away from all decoration, was accused in the 1960’s of being sterile and drastically reduced, of being alien to man. Vidler finds common ground for all criticism of modernist architecture: too literal a transposition of new graphic techniques into physical form. Architecture literally looked like the geometric shapes that were used to design and present it in visual form on paper. [10] This leads to the following question, in light of what is stated above: can modern architecture be called diagrammatic architecture? If so, can Kazujo Sejima’s work be labeled modernist? Does the modernist drawing indeed possess all the characteristics of diagrams, or its similarity to the diagram does not extend beyond abstraction?

The diagram may also serve as a tool to understand the architecture that is already out there or, as Douglas Graf puts it, as a tool of interpretation. In regard to this, however, an object may never be fully comprehended or known. An architectural object may be seen as an array of abstractions, reductions, as a series of segments and boundaries which are manifested simultaneously and which are prone to expansion and contraction, never letting the eye settle on what it sees and constantly eliciting revisions. [11] Our analysis of architectural objects would greatly benefit from an instrument which would allow us to simultaneously move back and forth between contradicting views – those of typologies defining programmes on the one hand, and those defining form on the other; between the distinct qualities of an object and the general qualities of architecture; between cognition and perception as two discrete processes; between the dynamic quality of function and the static quality of composition. It is precisely the diagram that is capable of this. Thus, it develops its own inherent characteristics through aspects of binary oppositions. The content suggested by a diagram is preliminary and transitory. By means of its continuous debate between oppositions, the diagram reveals weaknesses, insecurity and originality, thus assuming revisionary authority in the process of interpretation. [12] If modernist graphic representations possess the characteristics of the diagram, then the diagrammatic quality, or rather the potential of the diagram for a great number of possibilities and combinations of architectural positions, is wasted as the diagram, being a graphic presentation, is literally transposed into physical space.

Figure 4. Plan diagram – structure of events in space. Rem Koolhaas, Melun-Senart urban design, 1987.

Toilet groups mutate into Disney Store then morph to become meditation center: successive transformations mock the word plan. The plan is a radar screen where individuals pulses survive for unpredictable periods of time in a Bacchanalian free-for-all… In this standoff between the redundant and the inevitable, a plan would actually make matters worse, drive you to instant despair. Only the diagram gives a bearable version. There is zero loyalty – and zero tolerance – toward configuration, no original condition; architecture has turned into a time-lapse sequence to reveal a permanent evolution… [13]

Finally, why do architects like diagrams? The diagram debate in contemporary architecture concerns several major issues: that of the relation between architectural representation and the process of design, and also of the strategy of architectural-urban design in the context of continuous, rapid change at all levels and of all aspects of the urban environment, as vividly described by Koolhas. Essentially, the actualisation of the diagram in contemporary architecture and town planning is intricately linked to the accessibility of the wealth of information which the architect must understand and format. The previously mentioned dual nature of the diagram, with its ability to simultaneously make references in two domains, that of the general and of the specific, singles the diagram out as a valuable reflective tool in the field of architecture. The diagram allows the architect, researcher, to identify and visually analyse discrete elements of a problem, theory, idea or physical object, while maintaining a holistic view of it.

Diagrams are visualisations of the thinking process, in which one image is not merely a representation of a fixed intellectual or physical state, but rather of a number of possible options and combinations of attributes juxtaposed, as binary oppositions, by the diagram. They are single graphic representations that allow the consideration of a great number of combinations and relations, i.e., that encapsulate a whole range of possibilities inherent in the thinking process, allowing the architect to carefully balance between the ideational and visual, dynamic and static.

…the diagram is the possibility of fact – It is not the fact itself. [14]

REFERENCES

1. Stanford Kwinter, “The Reinvention of Geometry”, Introduction to “Urbanism after Innocence: Four Projects,” by Rem Koolhaas, Assemblage 18 (1992): 8.

3. http://www.archplus.net/download/artikel/1064/‎ (accessed on 23 November 2013)

2. Raoul Bunschoten, “Urban Gallery, Urban Curation”, CHORA – Urban and Architectural Research Laboratory.

http://www.chora.org/1990/Interview2.pdf 

3. Anthony Vidler, “Diagrams of Diagrams: Architectural Abstraction and Modern Representation”, Representations 72 (2000): 1-20.

4. Ibid, 17.

5. R.E. Somol, “Dummy Text, or the Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture”, Introduction to Diagram Diaries, by Peter Eisenman, 7-25. (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999).

6. R.E. Somol, “Dummy Text, or the Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture”.

7. Anthony Vidler, “Diagrams of Diagrams: Architectural Abstraction and Modern Representation”.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Douglas Graf, “Diagrams”, Perspecta 22 (1986): 42-71.

12. Ibid.

13. Rem Koolhas, AMOMA and &&&, Content, 167. (Tachen, 2004).

14. Gilles Deleuze, “The Diagram”, in The Deleuze Reader, Constantin V. Boundas, ed.: 199. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

ILLUSTRATION SOURCES

Anthony Vidler, “Diagrams of Diagrams: Architectural Abstraction and Modern Representation”, Representations 72 (2000): 4.

Rem Koolhaas, “Urbanism after Innocence: Four Projects,” Assemblage 18 (1992): 88.

Other: www.chora.org

Nevena Novaković work as a senior teaching assistant at the Chair of Urban Planning

at the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering, University of Banjaluka, from where she graduated in 2003 at the Department of Architecture. She is currently a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade.

Dubravka Đukanović, architect – conservator and the Director of the Novi Sad based architectural office Studio D’Art, as part of the current project by CAB: Women in Architecture, talks about her versatile career, the importance of architectural heritage and the influence of interpersonal relations on architecture.

On Beginnings, Experience and Opportunities

Aesthetics is, in its wide sense, in the base of all my interests and choices since early youth. In that light my decision to study architecture came naturally. I also seriously considered studying design, but in architecture I recognized the possibility to satisfy my curious, versatile spirit by trying out various spheres of this complex field.

During my two decades long professional career I was lucky enough to have opportunities opening for a layered growth, by acquiring knowledge and skills in the fields of architectural design, interior design, urban renewal, historiography, teaching and building realizations in the widest possible sense, from construction to managing complex projects. Of course, endless hard work, perseverance, persistence, patience and composure in time of temptation, as well as faith in my own values and ideals, enabled me to satisfy an extremely personal need ‘to throw the dice on.’

Photo by N. Milićević

On Women in Architecture

Quality is what sets you apart, regardless of gender. Clients recognize experts which are supreme in their profession and are happy to collaborate with them. What set female architects apart from their colleagues is a particular expressiveness, a controlled ego and a desire to treat equaly and synthesize all parts of the project and all participants in the project.

An additional demand for professionally engaged women is the balance between professional and personal life. A dedication to family and a dedication to work are two equally valuable parts that make complete a successful women.

On Important Projects

In the field of architectural design those are various individual residences I’ve done by the principle of total design. In a programmatic sense those are not the most important or most demanding tasks I worked on, but those are the projects in which I consistently expressed my personal sensibility in transferring the psychological profile of the people I met into spatial relations and colors to create a backdrop to their lives.

Figure 2. Residence in Petrovaradin

When you get to know the people you design for, in the base of the design brief is a particular link between architecture and psychology, and architecture outgrows the sphere of personal feeling of the designer towards the space and topic. This notion of architecture I first recognized during a visit a long time ago to the Villa Müller by Adolf Loos in Prague, in which this idea shines through its concept, spatial relations, textures, colors and every detail. The pursuit of total design, exclusivity and establishing a personal connection between architecture and its user certainly is what determines my projects, especially projects of individual houses, and that is probably where it’s visible the author of these buildings in a woman.

I also consider as very important projects the historiography writings, created as result of research of cultural heritage of Vojvodina, which I have published, so far, in the shape of two books dealing with the study of the origin of form and shape of religious buildings built during the 18^th, 19^th and first decades of the 20^th century.

On Influences

I’ve adopted the spirit of Belle Époque and the ideas of the Modern movement during my studies. For years I’ve been following the work of various authors. I deeply believe that no presentation can replace the personal experience of architecture and space, and I often visit the work that I find intriguing. From early youth I love to travel, and most of my time during travels is dedicated to artistic and architectural work from all periods. All this significantly affects my work.

Figure 3. Residence in Sremska Kamenica

During my professional career I often changed the surroundings and the environment in which I grew as an architect. The focus of my interests was in the fields of architectural design, heritage renewal, project management, research and scientific work, teaching, and in shorter periods in engineering and urbanism. Each of the topics I dealt with brought new insights and special experience which gathers and inevitably influenced the evolution of my relationship to architecture and space. If I would have to single out one name, the cooperation with Professor Ivan Antić significantly marked my relationship to my profession.

On Interpersonal Relations and Cooperation

I think that a quality personal relationship between the designer and the client is a precondition to good work and I always try, regardless of our differences, to find and nurture a thread which will provide a base for good cooperation. I avoid conflict situations, and the fact that for years now I am in a position to select the work and clients I consider a great privilege.

The difference in education, upbringing, personal and professional ethics in the relationship between the designer and client in not an impasse, but when such a split, in any sense, is prominent between you and any member of the team you are leading, it will eventually become a problem. I try to invest a lot into every associate and every work participant and positioned so they reach their maximum potential. When I have to make a decision to remove someone from the team, from any reason, for me it is a challenging struggle with my own emotions.

Figure 4. Interior of Vojvođanska bank branch office in Subotica

On Advice

I rarely give advice. I rather point to possible solutions and paths leading to best possible results. However, I enjoy exchanging ideas with young people and in these conversations I try to pass on to them some of my life and professional experiences.

Love towards the profession and an unconditional commitment to work and permanent growth, essentially determine the path of professional progress, but to a large extent determine also our life path. When you love what you do, everyday challenges outgrow the level of work obligations and become a game you enjoy. That is the only way a logn professional career can become an endless source of pleasure, a field of achievements and an important part of a good life.

Figure 5. Residence and kindergarten Wonderland in Novi Sad

The best advice is sublimated in a old Chinese saying, whose message is that only a small percent of people understand what their life is about. I try to to look at myself and the world around me from that perspective. With knowledge and experience, acquired with continuous work throughout many year and investing in yourself, comes a clearer outlook on various influential aspects and a better understanding of events and people around you. That is, with ethics, lack of vanity and power to calmly weather through foreseen and unforeseen storms, a condition of success, regardless whether it’s reached through status, glory, power, money or all of the above.

Maybe it’s useful to transfer to young people the knowledge that life and career are long events and the line can be drawn only at their end.

Figure 6. Competition entry for municipal library in Novi Sad

On Cultural Heritage

The evaluation of cultural and in that context architectural heritage is of essential value to the establishing of our identity – personal, family, local, national, European. Through a deep and honest commitment to research and promotion of cultural heritage I want to contribute to its interpretation and evaluation, as well as the establishing of an expert and general responsible relationship to the existing built structure and historical buildings. In that light, I find design in context to be the most demanding and most subtle expression of work for a contemporary architect.

Dubravka Đukanović, PhD, is an architect and assistant at the Department of Architecture and Urbanism at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, where she teaches on architectural heritage, conservation and protection. She finished her graduate, post-graduate and PhD studies at the Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade University, and acquired a rich professional experience on various aspects of architecture while working in Novi Sad. Since 2005, she leads her own Studio for architecture and design STUDIO D’ART. Besides the Novi Sad architecture department, Dubravka was also guest lecturer at the Miklos Ybl Faculty of Architecture, Szent István University in Budapest. She received several professional awards and honors.

As part of the current project by  CAB: Women in architecture, Ljiljana Bakić, architect and the female half of the famous architectural duo Bakić & Bakić, talks on architecture, women and Belgrade with Milena Zindović.

On women in architecture in Serbia, we certainly cannot talk without mentioning Ljiljana Bakić, an author who, both individually and in cooperation with her husband  Dragoljub Bakić, designed and built a large number of buildings in Belgrade and other cities in Serbia, as well as abroad. Today, the couple lives in their house in Višnjička Banja, which they designed, and looks forward first and foremost to the successes of their grandchildren in USA and Poland.

Last year, Ljiljana Bakić published the book The Anatomy of  B&B Architecture  - a comprehensive publication which refers to hers and Dragoljub’s fruitful careers. Unlike other architectural editions, this book is not only a monograph of the work of authors Bakić & Bakić, but a detailed review and analysis of all the elements that influenced their careers and their architecture. The social and economic conditions in the former Yugoslavia, tumuluous breakup of the country, but also personal experiences, contacts and travels – all influenced the architecture and the specific artistic expression of Ljiljana and Dragoljub  Bakić.

The rich archive presented in this publication includes photographs and drawings of buildings, with detailed explanations of not only the concepts and ideas, but of all the aspects of the building realization, the problems and difficulties, as well as the successes experienced by designers. In addition, the book contains published professional papers and articles, personal and professional correspondence, family photographs, testimonies and memories of colleagues, teachers, mentors, clients.

Figure 2: Ljiljana and Dragoljub Bakić at the opening of the Pionir sports hall 

In her book, Ljiljana also looks back at the years of pausing from her work as an architect. After returning from Kuwait, where Dragoljub worked for Energoprojekt and she for a local architectural firm Said Breik & Marwan Kalo Consulting Engineers, Ljiljana gave birth to two daughters. The pace of work at Energoprojekt was such that it required great sacrifice and long hours, even entire nights in the office. There were also often trips to the construction sites overseas. I realized that our family life was impossible to organize if I were also absent from home with my architecture, you never know for how long. I decided to return to the profession once our daughters get old enough for kindergarten.

Ljiljana Bakić returned to architecture, working side by side with her husband in Energoprojekt – Architecture and Urbanism. Milica Šterić hired me because she liked me. Otherwise, she was not fond of hiring women into Energoprojekt.  Bakić (Dragoljub) worked on a competition and they were lacking help, so she invited me. She liked how I worked and gave me a job in Energoprojekt. For many years she was our beloved director.

Figure 3: Pionir sports hall  in Belgrade

Certainly their most famous work is the Pionir sports hall in Belgrade, and the adjoining ice hall. These two buildings are not just favorite Belgrade destinations, but architectural icons of the post-modernist Belgrade of the 70s and 80s. Competition for the design of the complex and the sports hall Pionir was announced in 1972, with a deadline of only 9 days. In Energoprojekt, this task was entrusted to Ljiljana and Dragoljub Bakić. They drafted a complex that consisted of a multifunctional sports hall, a swimming pool and a velodrome. The first phase – a multifunctional hall, had to be completed and opened by June 1973 for the European boxing championships. The detailed design was developed in parallel with the construction of the building in, what Ljiljana called, “hurricane” pace.

We did not have time to wander in the labyrinth of our own brains. What was at work was our dissident instinct against any form of dictatorship, ruling clichés, petrified in the inviolable principles of modern architecture. The well-known rule of modernism, that the form should be the expression of the volume and contents of the interior, which in sports facilities is always the volume of the hall, Pionir did not follow. We wanted it to be the apotheosis of the spirit of sports and games, a dynamic protagonist of the urban scene.

Figure 4: Pionir ice hall 

Although Pionir sports hall was designed for hockey as well, with time it was never used for this purpose, and in 1977 it was decided to build a separate ice hall in the complex. Compared to the multifunction sports hall, the ice hall has a simpler and cleaner form, which establishes an interesting relationship with both the site slope and the existing hall. Just like the sports hall Pionir, the ice hall’s success is primarily measured by the satisfaction of its users. Both buildings were awarded the Grand Prix of the Belgrade Architecture Salon, in 1974 and in 1978.

Figure 5: Institute for Rehabilitation from Non-specific Lung Diseases in Soko Banja

Ljiljana Bakić individually designed the Institute for Rehabilitation from Non-specific Lung Diseases in Soko Banja, 1974-1975. Working on this facility, she implemented her own particular ideas about the psychological and social impact of architecture. Taking into account the needs of the patients of the Institute, as well as affecting their behavior during their stay in the facility, she shaped the inside and the outside of an appropriate and successful building.  About her approach to architecture, Ljiljana says: Architecture is a sociological phenomenon. No fooling around with various details, but thinking of those who will use it. Without this aspect, sociological and anthropological, you cannot be an architect at all. If you do not set your task in a certain place, with certain population, or the character of the population. If you do not understand what you need to achieve with this building – it’s a lost cause.

Figure 6: Housing estate Nova Galenika in Zemun, Belgrade

The creative team Bakić&Bakić is also famous for two large housing estates in Belgrade: Nova Galenika in Zemun and Višnjička Banja. Inspired by the sloped location, but also by their stay in Finland, in Višnjička Banja they created a residential complex with an almost “mountain” character, in warm colors and materials and with expressive sloped roofs. First they designed the urban layout of the project, which consisted of collective and individual housing units, central facilities, a school, two kindergartens and the entire necessary infrastructure. The estate was realized in two stages, and the second stage buildings where designed by Ljiljana herself.

Figure 7: Row houses in the Višnjička banja housing estate in Belgrade

Unfortunately, the planned programs where never completely built – neither housing units, nor the central and auxiliary facilities. Ljiljana Bakić‘s design for one of the proposed kindergartens was built in 1986, and the estate only got a school last year. The commercial functions were taken over by illegally built buildings which do not fit into the particular aesthetics and form of the buildings and the entire project.  There was never funding for such things, not even in during socialism. All estates always stayed unfinished, half-made. You just arrange 500, 600, 700, 800 residences and that was it. And where you will buy bread and milk, where your kids will go to school, that was left undone. – Ljiljana comments today.

Figure 8: Congress centre and hotel Sheraton in Harrare, Zimbabwe

The architecture and experience of the couple Bakić was significantly marked by travels and work abroad, in Finland, in Kuwait, in Zimbabwe. Both in Serbia and overseas, they won numerous awards and honors. Although their best work was a result of their teamwork, the Serbian Association of Architects (SAS) decided to award the 1994 Grand Prix for Architecture only to Dragoljub, completely ignoring  Ljiljana’s work. Dragoljub refused the awards and just did not take it, which is something any normal person with character would do. This year was subsequently completed with both our names.

Figure 9: Congress centre in Harrare, Zimbabwe

On women in architecture, Ljiljana Bakić says: When I started working in 1962, it was a difficult time for women. There was a lot of depreciation. In my opinion, the women in big offices have always been the ones who developed the ideas, even if they were not theirs to start with. Even if the initial idea was not much, they would work to develop it into a successful project.

Ljiljana emphasizes Ivanka Raspopović as an example of a neglected female author, commenting on her cooperation with Ivan Antić:  - Those two museums – the one at the confluence of Sava and Danube and the one in Kragujevac – that is the best work they created. The whole set up of the museum – that was all Ivanka’s work.

For herself she says : My story is different, because I always worked with  Dragoljub. He was more active in acquiring work, and I was drawing more. I didn’t have to make my way through the architecture world on my own.   

Figure 10. Competition entry for the New Acropolis Museum in Athens

Today, Ljiljana is not actively designing, but she is still dealing with architecture and the city. Through her book, she reveals the possibilities of an idealistic approach to architecture, with the belief that the society can be changed with architecture. That’s why today she is most concerned by the lack of vision and ideas, and the neglect of our built environment. In fact, my only issue today is how Belgrade is a terrible city, terribly neglected. It’s unforgivable. That is something our architects are not dealing with at all. They only care about how to get a job somewhere, build something, but what the whole image of Belgrade looks like nobody cares – and that is a tragedy.

The author of the article is  Milena Zindović.

Illustrations are taken from the book Anatomy of B&B Architecture by Ljiljana Bakić.

Ivana Anja Milić, technical director and co-founder of one of the biggest privately owned construction companies in Serbia– Arhi.pro, as part of the current project CAB: Women in architecture, talks about her professional development, the state of architecture in Serbia and the position of women in architecture, and gives advice to young colleagues.

 On Approach to Work

I like doing interiors. I believe all my clients for whom I did residential interiors are really happy and say they recognize the female capability of “packing” an apartment and furniture. Since the nineties I’m also designing furniture, which led me to open Arhi.pro carpentry production in 2002. For me, it’s like a hobby I really enjoy.

The circumstances in practice have led me since 2000 down the path of corporate architecture, architecture conditioned by brand standards. I seized the opportunity and learned to handle design according to the book of standards and budget, leaving room also for creativity. This is why my list of references includes a large number of renowned international corporations.

Figure 1. Residence in Zvezdara, Belgrade

In these projects you cannot identify a particular feminine style, but I did win all these clients with a feminine approach: carefully listening to their needs because large corporations expect your absolute commitment to creating their work place. This means a lot of patience and drafting of millions of options while listening to millions of client’s wishes. Women are made for this.

Otherwise, I also like designing restaurants, I realized several interiors of restaurants and cafes, and I’m currently working on one new restaurant. Additionally, architectural competitions are like an obligatory workout, we must always practice to stay in shape. I always work on them in a team, with a good friend, or with a group of colleagues from Arhi.pro.

Figure 2. Restaurant Le Moliere in Belgrade

 On Success

I don’t see that as a woman I’ve done anything different than if I was a man. I just had more difficulties rising from the architectural crowd in an environment where there is not enough work for even a tenth of students which enroll in architecture yearly. Clients, when they picture hiring an architect, more often think of a man, and that is another dogma I had to overcome at the beginning of my career.

Professional success is actually the result of a good idea, resourcefulness and tenacity in life, and the use of real once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. It’s the universal rule, regardless of gender.

Figure 3. Interior of a branch office of Societe Generale Bank

 On The Female Principle

Is there a female principle in architecture? Is the Second Girls High School by Milica Krstić really a female building? Would a lay person say: This must have been drawn by a woman? Or could it be said for the Elementary school King Peter First by Jelisaveta Načić? Certainly, something like that cannot be claimed for the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, by architect Kazuyo Sejima.

When it comes to creativity, the world is divided into talented and less talented, not into men and women.

Otherwise, there is a running joke among engineers on the sensibility of men that enroll in architecture school, so I would gladly and jokingly conclude that working in architecture is already an affinity for female principles: neatness, harmony, aesthetics, proportion, decoration, functionality.

Figure 4. Design of corporate furniture

On Influences

When you are young, you can easily answer this question, because the beginning is always inspired by admiration for famous architects, and memory of your mentor and a few great professors which have led you toward the practice. But when you are already in the third decade of your career, you cannot answer by simply citing a few names.

Looking back, I see that it’s the symbiosis of questions of Who and What influenced me: teachers, role models, team members, but also changes brought by social and economic conditions (from early nineties until today), literature, travels, a variety of clients, international corporations which have been the majority of my clientele and which have particularly influenced my direction primarily toward corporate architecture.

Figure 5. Interior of the Iraqi residence in Belgrade

A creative professional (artist, writer, architect…) grows with time and experience, passes many creative phases and keeps learning until the end of his working life. If I would name only the key points in time of my development on the path of becoming an architect, it would present the following chronology:

-   Architect mother, growing up in a house always full of architects; drawing as the basic mode of expression,; two drafting tables with rulers as necessary furniture of a two room apartment; Rotring rulers my mother used even when she was cutting up cakes.

-   My studies and the luck my generation had when freshmen where accepted by doyens in teaching; the priceless value to have my first consciousness about architecture built by Brana Milenković, Darko Marušić, Milan Lojanica, Ranko Radović, Borko Novaković, Zoran Petrović, Đorđe Zloković.

-   Teaching at the Faculty of Architecture from 1996 – 1999 with professor Dimitrije Mladenović ; working in offices from second year of studies until the opening of my own office.

-   Moving into private practice; partners and team members in each business until today are what finely shapes us and creates our final expression. The inevitable mutual influence and symbiosis of ideas in co-authored work is a bigger treasure in practice than being exclusively a “lone rider”.

All these years an unaltered feeling of excitement at seeing Le Corbusier’s projects and buildings. Every time I think: that’s it, there’s nothing else.

Female role models? Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima, Maya Lin… I could not call them role models, but they are certainly an inspiration, an incentive for women to become more and more visible and present in the future of global architecture.

Figure 6. Apartments at Zlatibor

 On Advice

Architecture is learned until the end of your working years. There isn’t one moment where you don’t have to keep learning, exploring and looking for examples: trends, technology, materials are all changing.

Don’t decide what you will do in architecture before you pass through everything in your professional practice. Set aside first two years of professional practice as a continuation of your studies. You should go through all stages of work until the realization of the building. Even folding drawings has a lot of essence and science for further progress. A good concept is not worth anything if you haven’t developed it in drawings, dimensioned, detailed, folded it into binders and taken it to a construction site, then answered all question there until the construction end and seen the concept 1:1 realized.

It is great luck to have where to keep learning, so fight for such opportunities.

In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. (Harold Geneen)

And of course, because you’re young, don’t be afraid to bring out your own ideas, because they are fresh and progressive.

Figure 7. IT park Inđija in construction

 On Architecture in Serbia

Architecture in Serbia has had a major professional crisis at the beginning of the nineties, which is still going on. Primarily, the clients have beaten architects in the knowledge of drawing a project, where the fight for square meters turned into the demise of urban development.

Characteristically economical in paying “paper”, local clients have at their disposal a wide offer of cheap drawing everywhere. The price of our work has been brought down to a minimum, and the results of cheap projects are actually bad projects, because money is the measure of time: if you charged little you must quickly finish the work and submit just about anything. There is no time to develop the project stages, question the concept, solutions, and options, and analyze the house in all criteria. In the developed world project are done much longer, everyone understands the design process takes time. However, here even the foreign clients quickly adapt and learn to force short deadlines for already established low prices.

The buildings that have appeared in our streets have sealed the urban image of the city for the next hundred years. There are boulevards, streets and squares ruined by real-estate entrepreneurship. Building permits actually approve zoning parameters of construction, energy capacities, but no one has yet introduced an architectural permit! I would gladly fight for architectural approval as part of the construction procedure. We require the largest number of approvals in the procedure of obtaining the permit, and have a large number of architecturally unacceptable buildings.

It is necessary to raise awareness that for the same price, and even small construction budgets, you can make a building where the aesthetics is not overlooked, as well as the awareness that the growth of tourism is connected to the attractive development of the city. Small investments could bring appropriate economic benefits from tourism.

Finally, it is necessary to raise awareness that in this way we are not leaving to the next generations a quality city image. The psychology of the people is connected to the condition is which it grows up and the surroundings in physical and aesthetic sense. The improvement of the city image is at the same time care for the psychological development of our children, their future relation to cultural values, relation to pretty and ordered.

Figure 8. First award, competition entry for Banca Intesa HQ

 On Women in Architecture

Essentially women are prone to aesthetics and it is natural architecture is an attractive choice of studies for them. Architecture is beautiful studies, but physically hard work. This is why many women give up such strain. No defined working hours, projects are always done overtime. If you are drawing a house until late at night, you cannot stop designing even in your dreams; you keep drawing and travelling through your spaces while sleeping. When a project or competition in being finalized, we are not there for our families for days, lunch has to be made by someone else.

Very few families will accept and support this, so, when we talk about women who are accomplished architects, they are often married to an architect, or single, devoted to the profession. It is hard to live with an architect husband, let alone a wife, because of a great absence from family life.

I believe that until recently this was the only reason women after Faculty diminish in their visibility in architectural authorship, but I also believe that in the future this will be overcome, in accordance with the contemporary European initiative for gender equality that advocates stronger presence of women in all spheres of society. Architecture is considered a male profession because women give up before they even begin, and not because drawing a good house is really a “male thing”.

Women, if they don’t give up on the true face of the profession and embark on the adventure of author architecture, besides design briefs, authorities, the office, clients and family, also have to fight against a large amount of male vanity and chauvinism which are synonymous to the architectural profession.

I am very happy that Serbia already has Zoca (Savičić), Nina (Gligorijević), Jelena (Vojvodić), Eva (Vaništa Lazarević), Grozdana (Šišović), Biljana (Gligorić), Vesna (Cagić), Ksenija (Bulatović), Dragana (Vasiljević), Milena (Kordić)… Together we are stronger.

Anja Ivana Milić is the founder, co-owner and technical director of the company Arhi.pro which has been working successfully for more than 10 years in Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, in the fields of architectural design and engineering  construction and furniture design and production. Famous for her work with the biggest world companies present in Serbia on design and branding of their offices, as well as for the cooperation with big world architectural offices from London, Washington, Tokyo, Melbourne, on projects in Serbia and Montenegro. She received several awards and prizes and is an active member of professional associations, as well as associations dealing with female entrepreneurship. Since 2011  Anja is the ambassador of female entrepreneurship in Serbia, as part of the WENS project of the European Union.   

Snežana Vesnić, founding partner of the architectural studio Neoarhitekti from Belgrade and an award-winning author, as part of the project by CAB: Women in architecture, speaks about her most important projects, the complexity of architecture, stereotypes and the importance of making the right decision in architecture. 

On Important Projects

The building for company Textil from Užice was created following a large number of awarded and unbuilt competition entries. Still, today it seems to me that to design such a building would be even harder. It was the time right after many problematic years, in every sense and for all, so I think that the will to create something particular, big, was determining that period of mid twothousands. I don’t think there is anything especially feminine in this project. It was designed as a statement and I believe it shows as its integrity. All related to this building was designed without compromises and as such realized.

Figures 1. and 2. Building for company Textil in Užice, Serbia

On Approach to Architecture

For me, architecture is something in between two conditions, the condition before and the condition after architecture, when it comes to architects. It’s complicated to explain what happens and what is and for whom the beginning of something, when does the end begin and when does it really end and how, as well as what is and for whom interesting in the process. I would mention talent and intuition. Talent is related to conceptualization, and intuition to the concept. The rest is character.

Things are not universal. Ideas are universal, even ideas about architecture, and everyone should decide for themselves what, how and why.

Figure 3. Competition entry for blocks 25 and 26, New Belgrade

On The Female Principle

It is possible to define everything as a position from which certain things are observed and certain decisions are made. If it’s about a principle, then it’s not important who demonstrates that priniciple. I think architecture itself does not differentiate a male and female priniciple, and that everything else is a stereotype of appearance and can be regarded as a question of sensibility or methodology. However, I think in this regard the final product is much more determined by circumstances and the manner in which you place yourself in relation to context.

When I take a look back to the situations I found myself in, I don’t think anything was a result of being a woman, but I do think that was the result of my attitude and relationship to architecture. Generally, architecture is not a feminine profession and I don’t expect a demonstration of a female principle, so in that sense I don’t think it necessary to point out any differences. It is what it is and if it wasn’t so it would not be architecture but something else. In architectural education, maybe there is room for such differentiations: women are forgiven their approach to form, and men are forgiven their (in)completness. The concept remains as a question of decision.

Figure 4. Archeological Heritage Park, Mnajar Qim, Malta

On Career Traps

All traps are to be avoided. Since this is impossible, they should be translated into something else and make a quality out of such situations. Most often traps translate into problems, but the problem of problems should be looked at as potential. They are results of circumstances, and it’s up to the architect to use it all in favor of architecture. I’m not sure there are traps for architecture, and if they don’t exist for architecture they don’t exist for architects. There are opportunities and there is an individual relation to a certain situation, which brings us back to the issue of decision-making.

On Influences

Among a number of important authors, who have had a strong influence on me, I would mention Le Corbuiser and Jean Nouvel. And excellent architects are Lina Bo Bardi, Eileen Gray, Ivanka Raspopović, Kazuyo Sejima, Manuelle Gautrand.

Figure 5. Competition entry for the Nation Museum in Belgrade 

On Women in Architecture

To the question of what is the reason that the number of known female authors is not larger, there are two possible ways to answer: mythological and existential. I mean – the division of roles in architecture or in life. The architectural profession covers a wide field, and so I believe the architectural education to be wide and disperse. I am more interested in what is in the competence of the architectural profession and what could create an ambience in which “real” architecture could appear. The question of authorship in architecture, like in other professions or arts, is much more a question of authenticity.

Snežana Vesnić, architect, PhD candidate, works as a designer at Neoarhitekti and in construction with Terra Engineering. Her field of research covers the studies of the theory of form, intuition and supersymmetry, and her projects can be described as poetic brutalism od new modernity. She is the co-author of the building for Textil Užice and a laureate of a large number of awards and honors, such as the oldest architecture award in Serbia (by Novosti company), that she received in 2008.

Jelica Jovanović writes about Ivanka Raspopović, one of the most enigmatic figures of our modern architecture, known above all by great projects done in cooperation with prof. Ivan Antić, as part of the current project by CAB: Women in Architecture.

Exactly two and a half years ago I visited Ivanka Raspopović in order to fond out more information on two topics I was at the time researching. The first topic was Ivanka’s professional resume, which I obtained in its version published in 1972 in the book Yugoslav Art of the 20th Century: Serbian Architecture 1900-1970. I was enthralled by the idea of writing an article about women in architecture in Serbia, which I quickly abandoned. So, indirectly, we get to the second topic for which I hoped to gain more data from Ivanka – and that was the archives of Srbijaprojekt. To start, I brought her a copy of her resume, which needed to be filled in and, as it turned out, amended.

First, I should clarify which companies she worked for. Chronologically, it went like this: From 1945-55. Ivanka worked in the construction company Rad. Afterwords, in 1955 she moves to Srbijaprojekt (previously The Design Institute of Serbia), where she stays until 1960.  From 1961 until 1964 she works in the company Zlatibor, and then again in Srbijaprojekt from 1965 to 1980, when she retired.

In Rad she was employed in the technical studio with her husband, at the time of the construction of the viscose factory in Loznica. The construction site had five sectors: the management building was done by Ivan Antić and that is how their cooperation began. According to her own words, she worked with the best civil engineers of the time: Milan Krstić, for example, who was then using the unique opportunity to test the behavior of prestressed concrete shells, which housed the water coagulators of 25 m radius. Later he applied this experience during construction of Hall 3 at the Belgrade Fair. But Ivanka was often required to control the documentation and calculations, send projects to auditors, so she didn’t enjoy working at the construction site.

Figure 1. Cables factory in Jagodina

“Cables factory  in Jagodina… I wouldn’t even remember that if it wasn’t written here…” I was stunned – how can someone forget what turned out to be an important part of their built opus? Ivanka replied she never liked industrial architecture, and always did these project under obligation. Actually, Ivanka was the lead designer of the entire complex of the cable factories in Svetozarevo (today Jagodina) while she worked in Srbijaprojekt. Together with the team of ten colleagues she worked for three months overtime, from dawn til dusk, without any overtime compensation. They delivered two cars full of documentation just before the 1st May holidays.

Figure 2. Department store in Bečej

For Srbijaprojekt she designed the workers dining facility in Obrenovac, a tuberculosis hospital in Prizren, cold storage for fruit in the vicinity of Tetovo, department store in Bečej and the industrial zone in Priboj, as coauthor with Slobodan Mihajlović. Maybe one of the more interesting projects was the design for the second phase of Belgrade Airport, by invited competition where four teams for major design offices took part. During her work at the company Zlatibor, she designed two transmitter stations at Zlatibor, the building for the Electric distribution company in Užice and a residential building in Užice, at the Partisans Square, where her Client was the General hospital Užice. Ivanka was also often a collaborator on projects by Stanko Mandić, both built and unbuilt.

Figure 3. Residential building in Užice

On Museums and Working With Ivan Antić

“It’s simple. Ivan came to our house and said he wanted to do the competition for the Modern gallery (already in 1965. renamed Museum of contemporary art). From our house came out two awarded competition proposals: my husband (Dragan Raspopović) and Bane (Slobodan Mihajlović) got the first mention.”

Figure 4. Museum of Contemporary Art in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, Vol. 129, January-February 1967, p. 102.

Even today, she can not believe that she and Ivan got the first prize, because they put together the drawings in one week. During the project development there were also two major changes. First the front facade, which in the competition proposal had one flat wall, after consultations was designed and built in today’s distinctive crystal form. Already experienced architects, with an adopted feeling for savings, they proposed the facade finish in exposed brick – which was applied later on the design for the Museum 21. October in Šumarice. Miodrag Protić, however, managed to acquire white Venčac marble for the facade of such an important building, and the authors instantly agreed. The Museum of Contemporary art was opened in 1965, and the same year Ivanka Raspopović and Ivan Antić were awarded the October award for this architectural masterpiece.

Figure 5. Interior of the Museum of Contemporary Art

Very quickly after the Museum of Contemporary  Art opened, Ivanka and Ivan were given the task from the management of the memorial park October of Kragujevac to design the Museum 21. October. Ivana doesn’t talk about the symbolics of the project, just says how much she is fond of the building, inspite its’ very modest dimensions. She adds that the roman bricks, specially made for the Museum by Rad company, have deteriorated and the facade needs reconstruction. However, after the experience she had then (which is still the same) with the renovation of the Museum of Contemporary  Art, she was not sure if it’s a good idea to enter such an undertake.

Figure 6. Museum 21st October in Šumarice

Of course, I couldn’t resist asking what many researchers ask when it comes to the Antić – Raspopović  partnership: How did they share the work on these two buildings? Where does Ivanka’s museum stop and Ivan’s begin? And why such a fruitful cooperation was not continued? Again, I got very simple answers. Absolutely everything was done as  a team. They agreed on who and when each of them took over the workload – and it was similar with the reconstruction of the Museum of contemporary art, where they were both consulted during the development of design documentation. Ivanka points out that architecture of museums is very inspiring, so it wasn’t neither hard nor painstaking working on these projects. Their cooperation was not continued because Ivanka had too much work in Srbijaprojekt, and Ivan at the Faculty.

Figure 7. Museum 21st October, Architecture and Urbanism, Vol. 33-34, 1965, p. 39.

To return to the topic of Srbijaprojekt’s archives: It is – very simply – gone. Just as the destroyed archives of Projektbiro is gone – so it is far more difficult to reconstruct the career of Jovanka Jeftanović, or for example Ljupka Andonova, who worked in Architecture and Urbanism. Thanks only to her own commitment and sense for documentation, Ljiljana Bakić published The Anatomy of B&B architecture, so we can learn about the ups and downs that she endured in her professional life. We can also read how  Ljiljana Bakić remembers Milica Šterić, Madame Energoprojekt.

Actually, most women in architecture in Serbia, especially in the period between 1945 and 1990, designed within big state-owned offices and companies, or within specific self-management ateliers, such as Projektbiro. Proverbially unorderly and during all sorts of privatizations lost (or “lost”) archives and unreconstructed references of these companies become a chronic issue of our architectural scene.

And women architects were the majority in Srbijaprojekt, says Ivanka Raspopović. And we believe her.

The author of this text, Jelica Jovanović, is a PhD student of University of Technology Vienna, Institute of Art History, Archaeology and Restoration – Department of Conservation and Refurbishment. Graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, Elective Course 2 – History and Theory of Art and Architecture. Founder and member of professional NGO Group of Architects from Belgrade. Co-author of Summer School of Architecture in Bač. Coordinator of the regional project Unfinished Modernizations on behalf of the Association of Belgrade Architects. Former Secretary-General of Do.co.mo.mo.  Serbia. Former member of Club of Young Architects – KMA (2006-2010). Former teaching assistant at the master course on architectural and urban design in protected areas and various workshops. Within Do.co.mo.mo. Serbia national working party currently working on proposals for the policies for protection of the architecture of modern movement in Serbia, based on experiences of Do.co.mo.mo. International.

Žaklina Gligorijević, a renowned urban planner, shares with us her experiences of different roles an architect can play in his/her career. This is another in the series of texts within the project by CAB: Women in Architecture.

On Beginnings and Curiosity

Back in high school, I wanted to practice interior design; I had some practical skills and eventually decided to study architecture. Dealing with different aspects of urban space in urbanism courses of Belgrade Faculty of Architecture surprised me and made me curious about context, sociology, urban reconstruction and various and complex planning issues.

I was lucky to get to work on real plans and projects at the very beginning of my career: in Faculty of Architecture, and planning institutions like CEP, Centre for Urban Development Planning or Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade. I could compare the advantages and differences of both planning in public and private sector and learn about different aspects of urbanism: creativity, public debates, legal demands or obstacles, field work, different cities, landscapes and cultures… Working also on competitions and architectural design projects, I had to accept the wonders of procedure and the necessity to compromise as a hard part of professional growing-up. It seems that each new project has spurred new ambition, and it has been the case still.

Figure 1. ISOCARP Congress, Perm, Russia, 2012 

I believe curiosity led me through different areas of architecture and urbanism, but the changing market conditions also forced us architects to master skills and knowledge of both disciplines. What kept me in this business was perseverance and faith that our professional engagement could improve the reality. As time passes, I have found out that patience and understanding of various interests or priorities of different stakeholders became crucial for the success of projects.

On Advices

Arm yourself with knowledge and patience, as challenging times are ahead for our profession: the world is accelerating, technology is advancing, all that you though you knew today, will be obsolete tomorrow. So be most patient in practice and hasty in constant pursuit for new knowledge and skills.

The first advice, or at least the first that intrigued me for years, I got from my professor Ranko Radović at my final year of studies. He asked us what our passion in urbanism was. He argued that there would be no outstanding results without the passion involved. At that time, as a worried student, I mainly wondered what my obligations were – not my passions. It was years later, as I gathered some experience and professional self esteem, to undertake new projects with joy and found his message to be true: professional passion is a motor that constantly keeps one going farther and requires more and better achievements.

Figure 2. Creative Barcelona in Belgrade

The other challenge, if not advice, came from my professor Kayden, who was teaching relation of design, law, and policy on Harvard GSD. In a debate on beauty, quality design through rules, regulation and laws in urbanism, he opposed the thesis that the beauty of the architecture or design is (only) in the eye of the beholder, and gave an argument for professionals to appraise and value design; he stated that there must be a reason why so many generations have studied and graduated from the Graduate School of Design… Ten years later, I still miss this kind of theoretical challenges, in times when creating zoning or urban design rules in plans has been considered a routine, understood, especially by non-professionals as rigid and as an obstacle for development instead as the framework, the guideline for realization of quality architectural solutions. Regulation of urban space seems especially simple to other professions: three parameters, mathematical formulas, piece of cake. There are skills and knowledge needed to compose an efficient and quality urban plan, a higher degree of understanding and education, a value added to just architectural design.

On Career Traps

Like in other professions, it is important for an ambitious woman not to neglect other aspects of life, family, friends, hobbies and pleasures, as the price of dedicated professional success. To enjoy in your work is a must! Too many worries and efforts on things we cannot influence bring only wrinkles and enemies. Luckily, architectural education provides a spectrum of opportunities for creative and fulfilling jobs, so fatigue or monotony caused by modest achievements of your everyday work can be cured through participation in design competitions, studies or related artistic disciplines.

On Most Important Work

Authorship is less important in urban and strategic planning I think, than successful management or careful synthesis, especially for accomplishments in big, important, long projects. Female principle in complex projects is to manage and lead with restrained vanity and personal promotion, all in service of the task before you. Those are female qualities. It does not apply to academic work or competitions, as creativity within given limits and a personal attitude bring success and great personal fulfillment. For all my big projects it took a lot of patience, preparations, diplomacy, coordination with numerous authors, stakeholders, professionals, creative individuals, complicated procedures, short deadlines, limited resources and different, opposing interests. Some of those I completed myself, some were finalized by others, some as a result of great team work, some were signed by other authors or managers, but in all, with no exception, I invested personal and professional engagement, skills and experience gained in the various roles played: of a design engineer, urban planner, team leader, organizer or director.

Figure 3. Perast Urban Project

My serious professional challenges were plans for protected heritage areas, like the Urban Project for Perast (Kotor Municipality, Montenegro), or new generation strategic plans, like Master Plan for Kraljevo 2000, changes to the Belgrade Master Plan 2021/2, City of Belgrade Development Strategy, Belgrade High-rise Study and a set of spatial and urban plans for Belgrade in the last four years, etc. I am especially proud of ten years organization of the Komunikacije conference, where I met excellent people and gathered skills to participate or organize international conferences, events and seminars.

Figure 4. Belgrade Master Plan 2021/2

The most challenging task, in terms of meeting my own professional principles and the expectations of investors was leadership of the team that worked on Changes to the Belgrade Master Plan and the organization and work on plans for Belgrade under the Law on Planning and Construction from 2009. The great achievement of the whole team of Belgrade Urban Planning Institute was the planning process for ten plans of general regulation of the building area of the city.

On Personal Development and Influences

Working experience in different environments, different cities and on different topics helps one understanding mechanisms of urban management and design. Individual architectural works participate in forming the quality of urban spaces, but it’s not guaranteed by the most beautiful and attractive buildings. It is interesting that subaltern architecture, complying with common regulation, created the quality of many favorable urban cores of European cities. Compared to my perception of architecture before, I now believe that understanding and creation of architecture in context has been one of the greatest challenges for our profession!

Rich experience and different roles of an architect involved in planning processes enable better understanding of the so-called big picture, the overall process of urban genesis, from planning ideas, decision making and the overall feasibility for their implementation. Both successful and unsuccessful projects, accepted and rejected proposals, small and large projects and constant decision making that was changing my goals during the planning process, have been all the lessons for professional maturity. I have been lucky to meet and exchange thoughts with some of the greatest architectural names of today, city architects, leaders of greatest urban planning institutes worldwide, and professors from prestigious architecture and urban planning schools. Each of those encounters, their advices and comments, as well as every city I visited or learned about, influenced my choices and altered, calibrated my goals. I understand that many great ideas remain on paper and have not been not worth grieving for, but that doesn’t mean I gave up good ideas. I just try to set realistic, achievable goals, so I can reach them more often.

On the Role of Urban Planner and Other Roles

The mediation of different interests is the greatest challenge for an urban planner: to coordinate in the best possible way the interests of governments, investors, profession and citizens. The best way to understand different interests is to try yourself in as many roles, as I have, luckily, managed during my 25 years of practice. On master studies at great planning schools, like Harvard GSD, this changing roles is a part of learning process at courses on large, e.g. public-private projects. Negotiating and mediating skills are gained through teamwork, where each participant takes one of the roles: once you are a lawyer, next time the representative of the government, economist, architect, developer, urban planner, you protect the heritage, representing neighborhood, etc. This kind of education helps and eases the demanding communication needed in all urban plans.

Figure 5. Exhibition of the European Prize for Urban Public Space 2008

To be successful in this role, one needs the knowledge, open-mindedness and the capacity to understand, consider and accept the arguments of all involved parties, to search for agreement, enable compromise or insist on an issue, all depending on the project and location. One of my most important criteria for advocacy and decision making is whether the projects are feasible for realization.

Žaklina Gligorijević, M.Sc. is definitely a well-known name in Serbian urban planning. As an architect-planner or organizer-manager, she was directly involved in preparation of plans that shaped Belgrade and other cities the way they look, or might look today, or provided the framework for their development in the future. Her public appearances have been always noted, representing Belgrade Urban Planning Institute, or earlier Centre for Urban Development Planning, always underlining, besides direct involvement in practice, her experience gained through post-graduate studies in the United States.

We can not talk about the history and success of Energoprojekt without considering Milica Šterić, the founder and director for many years of its architectural and structural department. As part of the current project by CAB: Women in Architecture, architect Marija Pavlović introduces us to the fruitful career of  Milica Šterić and her importance in the Yugoslav architecture after the Second World War.

It is less known that the principal architect of Energoprojekt, one of the biggest construction companies in Yugoslavia, at the time of its development and rise, as was stated in the monograph published in honor of 60 years of its existence, was  a woman. It is even less known that she designed some of the first power plants in Yugoslavia, so important for the development of industry in the years after the Second World War.  Of course she was not alone, she was a full equal member of engineering teams gathered around the common tasks of rebuilding the country, and she was, as well, assigned the project of Energoprojekt’s first office building in Belgrade, on Zeleni Venac square.

Figure 1. The first Energoprojekt office building in Brankova street

Born in 1914 in Smederevo, Serbia, and after completing her high school there, Milica came to Belgrade to study architecture at the Technical faculty. She redirected her talent for drawing and painting towards architecture after she was first introduced to the profession by her brother-in-law Božidar Trifunović.

She graduated in architecture in 1937, and under the influence of professors Milan Zloković, Bogdan Nestorović and particularly Aleksandar Deroko, she started designing primarily mimicking the national style. However, Milica Šterić left her true and mature mark on architecture following the ideas of CIAM and the socialist spirit, which however didn’t let her engage the social-realist style. Instead, her role in the building of a new, socialist society and the original Yugoslav model of self-management socialism, she found in the first years of the renewal, working on the projects for the country’s rebuilding. Putting her carrier into action for the common good, in 1947 she starts working in the company Elektroistok, a predecessor of Energoprojekt, and in the following decade she commits to the industrial and infrastructural architecture and construction and designs power plants.

Figure 2. The construction of thermal power plant Mali Kostolac after the war

Already in the first years after the Second World War, decisions were made on founding power companies of general public importance, thus creating a path towards the construction of power plants throughout Yugoslavia, without which the industrial development of the country would be impossible. Immediately after the liberation plans were made for new power facilities. As the Germans left behind an unfinished power plant in Kostolac, a decision is made to repair the old thermal power plant in Belgrade and move it to Kostolac. This was the creation of power plant Mali Kostolac already in 1948,  for which Milica Šterić developed the architectural and structural design. Other facilities followed, particularly after the founding of company Hidro-Termo Elektroprojekt in 1951, later renamed Energoprojekt. The oldest and today still active thermal power plant Kolubara A in Veliki Crljeni, next to the coal seam of the same name, was built in 1956 as the biggest Serbian power facility, and the design is signed by Milica Šterić and Božidar Petrović. At the same time Milica designs also thermal power plants Kakanj in Bosnia and Herzegovina, southeast of Zenica and Velenje in Slovenia, as well as the unfinished thermal power plant Lukavac in Bosnia and Herzegovina, near Tuzla.

In 1957 she goes to Netherlands thanks to the half-year stipend from the Dutch government, where she works in the office of Van den Broek and Bakema and improves her architectural expression on the heritage of Bauhaus. Pure structural forms and combination of steel and glass facade will remain a permanent element of her work, visible on buildings such as the office building in 2 Carice Milice street in Belgrade from 1957, as well as the building of social insurance in Smederevo, which she designed in 1958 together with Božidar Petrović.

Figure 3. Office building in Carice Milice street

The building in 2 Carice Milice street in Belgrade is under protection today since it represents a beautiful example of Modernism, with strips of windows that emphasize the horizontals and a simple facade which follows the logic of designing from inside towards outside. Functionally, this building still serves as office space for the Electric Power Industry of Serbia. Regardless of the building’s height, architect Šterić utilized all the benefits of this location to open up the building and allow views towards the city. Its bevelled corner toward the intersection with Brankova street opens up to the Sava waterfront. The column and beam structure system in a double corridor organization stretches alongside the street to its corner and ends with a bevelled edge with  a wide angle toward Brankova street, where Šterić will design the awarded headquarters of Energoprojekt 3 years later, thus completing her urban design of this city corner. The first Energoprojekt office building was finished in 1960 and represents Milica Šterić’s most successful realized design, for which she was awarded in 1961 by the country’s top officials, and which is also today under protection. Unfortunately, the building is today practically abandoned, since her reconstruction and adaptation have been postponed for an undefined period for financial and structural reasons. It’s standing there, completely stripped, with its structure exposed, waiting to regain it’s face and life.

Figure 4. Office building in Brankova street

In the vicinity of this successful building is another, not less significant office building, designed by Šterić – at the corner in 25 Brankova street, just in front of the bridge, which is today the headquarters of the Sebian Business Registers Agency.

Those years Šterić also designed a residential building in Alekse Nenadovića street in Belgrade, and continued to work in Energoprojekt on residential projects for Smederevo in 1965, then an entire residential complex from 1975 to 1985, then projects in Bor, Bijeljina, Kladovo, Herceg Novi. In her hometown Smederevu she also designed several public buildings – Department store in 1971 together with Aleksandar Keković, Children’s facility in 1978-80 and the Cultural center in 1978-90.

Figure 5. Cultural center in Smederevo

As lead architect and later the director of the sector for Architecture and Urbanism in Energoprojekt at the time of its building an international reputation, Milica Šterić participated in numerous international competitions and worked on projects such as The complex of ministry buildings in Kano, Nigeria together with Zoran Bojović 1970-72, then the Bedouin settlement in Kuwait with 5000 houses together with D.Bakić and Z. Jovanović in 1971-74, the Military settlement Chimpata in Zambia in 1970 and others.

Regarding the exhibition Three Pillars: Zoran Bojović by the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, the architect Zoran Bojović in conversation with the curators Andrej Dolinka, Katarina Krstić and Dubravka Sekulić remembers his cooperation with Milica Šterić: Milica Šterić was really an outstanding figure and architect. Milica was full of energy, she was tremendously ambitious and persuasive. She had a way of putting a spell on you, of introducing you to the project, of guiding you. We worked together. Although I was still a begginer, she gave me a free hand. She was a source of inspiration.No small part in architecture’s breakthrough within Energoprojekt belongs to her. She even established the Sector of Architecture and Construction. It was thanks to her that we achieved big promotion in the foreign market, she was the one who got it all started. She saw architecture as something special. Once, when asked to give her definition of architecture, she even went on to state: Comrades, the architecture, that is the avantgarde! And she behaved accordingly. She was unique, and afterwards we never had a director like her.

Figure 6. The complex of ministry buildings in Kano, Nigeria with Z.Bojović

In the same interview, Zoran Bojović tells a amusing anecdote from their joint work on the project for the Complex of ministry buildings in Kano, Nigeria: When we finished the design for the Kano State ministries, we organised small exhibition at the governor’s mud palace that we admired so much, to present our project. As we made the preparations for the exhibition, pasting the ozalid prints up on the walls, Madame was terribly excited. She didn’t speak any English and so she memorised by heart the text that was to explain the exhibition to the governor. She was going from one drawing to another rehearsing her speech aloud. There happened to be some policeman snooping around. Suddenly, as we have finished pasting, Madame says: Well, now, where is that governor? Will he come already? To which the policeman replies: I am the governor. The project is adopted. It got her stupefied: But I didn’t say anything yet! He: On the contrary, Madame, you said all there is to say.

Figure 7. Competition entry for Slavija square with D. Jovanović and M. Milovanović

In local competition, maybe the most interesting is her work with Dragan Jovanović and Momčilo Milovanović at the competition for the architectural and urban design of the Slavija square in 1978.

Another one of her works in the heating plant in New Belgrade from 1965, damaged in the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.

Milica Šterić is a laureate of the Grand Prix in Architecture in 1984, awarded by the the Union of Architects of Serbia, and is the only female architect to whom this institution devoted a special publication (1991).

She passed on Christmas Day 1998 in Belgrade.

Special thanks to Dubravka Sekulić for providing us with the material taken from the interview Everything is Architecture! which was prepared as part of the exhibition Three Pillars: Zoran Bojović by Andrej Dolinka, Katarina Krstić and Dubravka Sekulić. The book with the same title, containing the entire interview, will be available by the end of this year.

The author of the text is Marija Maša Pavlović, an architect, graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade. At the Faculty of Political Sciences she enrolled into Masters, and then PhD studies in Culture and Media, where she connected her interest in understanding social and political ideas and movements with architecture and urban development. On the other hand, her pragmatic approach and the reality of our architectural environment lead her through design, from real-estate entrepreneurship, to the cruel numbers of foreign investors. Going through the social reality of Serbia and Belgrade, she tried herself out in media by working in public relations for the biggest company in the country, but also learned about the planning and management of energy systems. She doesn’t consider architecture without sound and music to be architecture.