Who decided on the new Tesla museum

"Belgrade on the water" is for the new Nikola Tesla Museum in the building of the former Milan Vapa paper factory organized an international architectural competition in Belgrade. Considering the long-standing practice in the capital and the country, according to which the investor chooses the designer himself and the latter meets his taste, this organization of the competition, even an international one, met with the approval of the public.

46 works were submitted to the competition. Towards the end of last year It was reported that they won. the famous architecture bureau Zaha Hadid from London and Bureau cube partners from Belgrade. The first in Belgrade designed the K District near Kalemegdan, and the second are the authors of the multi-story residential building next to the Pedagogical Museum and the Sky Line in Belgrade on the water, and they are close to the authorities.

Photo: Promo

Somehow then it became known who were the members of the jury of this, rare in our country, international architectural competition.

Irrationalities

Architect Slobodan Maldini tells the "Vremena" portal that there are numerous illogicalities in this competition.

He reminds that the building of the former Zapa paper factory is part of a nationally valuable architectural complex, that it was included in the list of immovable cultural assets in 2013, and that it "occupies a high place in the national history of architecture as one of the most significant and best-preserved objects of industrial construction in the capital and Serbia, and with its urban qualities, it is material evidence of the existence of an important industrial zone along the Topčiderski road and the right bank of the Sava".

Maldini emphasizes that "on this immovable cultural asset, works on alterations, additions and any kind of superstructure are strictly prohibited".

Because of all this, he says, it is impossible not to notice the following:

"It is not appropriate for the tenderer and the orderer to be a private company, especially Beograd na vodi a.d., which is an investor in the commercial construction of apartments for the market in this area, regardless of the fact that its implementer is the Urban Institute of Belgrade."

It is also not appropriate that "the president of the jury of the private tenderer should be none other than the chief urban planner of Belgrade, which is a position that in developed societies would be characterized as an obvious conflict of interest, and from the point of view of the architectural profession, many people notice that in the profession an insufficiently credible president does not have the necessary competence, experience , nor the international authority that would support this high and responsible function of his".

Who is on the jury?

Slobodan Maldini states that "the jury is represented by: a senior curator, an economist, a construction engineer who is the director of the client's Development Sector - Belgrade on the Water, and among the architects are two representatives of the profession also appointed by the client of Belgrade on the Water and one architect representative of the Spatial Planning Agency and RS urbanism. The deputy member of the jury is a representative of some unknown to me RAA - International Consultant for Culture"

"It is unacceptable that the jury of this important competition does not have a single internationally credible member - a foreign or domestic recognized architect, urban planner, not a single educational institution, nor a professional organization!"

Maldini sees in this a "flagrant violation of the postulates of the profession".

He says that the investor has given himself "the role of the main actor, directly controlling the essential elements of the future of the object that is on the national list of cultural monuments, tailoring the competition conditions, the project task, determining the composition and members of the jury, thus influencing the selection of awarded competition works."

What can I say, except that private interest managed to control the institution of the international architectural competition.