“This is a call against bureaucracy and a statement against the current autocratic government in Serbia, which contributes to the decay of the city’s identity. It is an appeal to city planners that urban memories are manifested within the informal architecture of Belgrade- an integral part of the city and its inhabitants.”
Belgrade, Serbia, is a city, in which informal architectural developments emerged rapidly after the Yugoslavian war ended in 2000. These autonomous instances of architecture reflect key reactionary political moments of the city from which they originated. In recognizing the buildings’ characteristics through an open-ended design methodology, a new voice is given to these structures, imbuing them with value through memories.
The movie City of Memories lets the buildings themselves tell their story. They are characters who have their tales and emotions. A collection of fates and hopes brought to life through the story of Belgrade‘s urban bodies. The Buildings are witnesses, victims, and containers of human destinies. By humanizing them, a new topo-historiography of the city should evolve.
The short film City of Memories was part of the graduation of Mara Siegel and was displayed at Dutch Design Week, October 2019 in Eindhoven within the Graduation Show of Design Academy Eindhoven.
April-July 2019
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