Belgrade – the wild Thinking of Benjamin’s barbarism in this context also made me think of the countries that experienced wars in this context of global saturation. I then considered the wars that have occurred since the second half of the twentieth century and, referring to my own experience, I thought most particularly of Belgrade. During my few visits in Belgrade, I had a strong impression that everything was possible in the Serbian capital. As most Westerners, I first expected a greyish torn-down city, but then realized that despite its complex politics and critical war-history, the cradle of ex-Yugoslavia is extremely upbeat, lively and dynamic. Although the city was bombed five times during the twentieth century and regardless of the political and economic instability, the city experienced tremendous changes – most of which were lead by the citizens themselves. In fact, Belgrade is for me a very convincing example of what positive barbarism can look like and bring in terms of cities, architecture and urbanism. In 2002, Stealthgroup (a group of architects from Yugoslavia and the Netherlands) published an article in which they referred to Belgrade as a wild city. 9 They explained that ‘the paradigm of ‘wildness’ emerged through non-planned and scarcely regulated processes. In the urban domain, these processes feature a remarkable degree of innovation and led to possibilities for redefining institutional participation in the creation of urban space. The project shows a city that acts as an incubator of new urban forms’. 10 They portrayed Belgrade as a city that continuously redefines itself, presenting and analysing ‘the uncontrolled urban processes that took place in the city of Belgrade during 1 Stone, Phillip, Dark Tourism Forum, http://www.dark-tourism.org.uk, [June 2009]. 2 Foley, Malcolm & John Lennon, Dark Tourism: The attraction of Death and Disaster . London: Thompson, 2000. p 3 3 ‘Le culte du patrimoine n’est justifiable qu’un temps : temps de repren- dre souffle dans la course du présent, temps de réassurer un destin et une réflexion. Passé ce délai, le miroir du patrimoine nous abîmerait dans la fausse conscience, la fiction et la répétition.’ Choay, Françoise, L’Allégorie du patrimoine . Paris: Seuil, 1992. p 189 4 Debord, Guy, The Society of The Spectacle . London: Rebel Press, 2004. p 30 5 Ibid p 10 6 Benjamin, Walter, ‘Experience and Poverty’ in Walter Benjamin. Selected Writings: Part 2, 1931-1934 . edited by Michael W. Jenning, Howard Eiland & Gary Smith. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2005. p 732 7 Ibid p 734 8 1914 and 1915 (WW1), 1941 and 1944 (WW2), 1999 (NATO). 9 The StealthGoup: Ana Dzokic, Milica Topalovic, Marc Neelen & Ivan
the 1990s’. 11 Since 2002, the Stealthgroup has presented many projects concerning urban development in the Balkans, always with the idea that these wild processes were to be considered by other professionals and foreigners as a powerful and creative new approach to architecture and urbanism. The main idea here is to promulgate a positive balkanisation that is very close to what Benjamin called positive barbarianism. The work of the Stealthgroup shows how the experience of war has permitted new mindsets. 12 And this type of projects is – or should be – part of what makes us dark tourists, it should be what pushes us to visit a city that experienced war. We have to stop visiting the past and start visiting the new. We have to accept that war is over and acknowledge what happens afterwards. We live in a society of the spectacle, a saturated world where everything is a reproduction, where life goes faster and faster and where competition, in every domain, forces us to go further all the time without ever fully experiencing renewal. As a result, some of us might suffer from something close to what Walter Benjamin called poverty of experience. When, following the First World War, Benjamin recognised a new poverty, it wasn’t related to the war itself but to the rapid changes that occurred after it. This rapidity never really slowed down since and what Benjamin was presenting a century ago is still present today. What is left for us is ‘to free ourselves from experience [as] we long for a world in which we can make such pure and decided use of our poverty […] that it will lead to something valuable’. 13 C Kucina, ‘The Wild City’ in Hunch . Berlage Institute, 2002. pp 106-127 10 The StealthGoup, http://www.classic.archined.nl/wildcity/, [June, 2009]. 11 The StealthGoup, ‘The Wild City’ in Hunch , Berlage Institute, 2002. p 108 12 We could easily visit such concept through a political point of view, for it could be seen as close to fascism or terrorism. This should certainly be looked at, but for the purpose of this text, it is more in terms of art and raw creation. This is not to make an apology for war but to aknowledge barbarism as Benjamin presents it. 13 Benjamin, Walter, ‘Experience and Poverty’ in Walter Benjamin. Selected Writings: Part 2, 1931-1934 . edited by Micheal W. Jenning, Howard Eiland & Gary Smith. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2005. p 734
Taïka Baillargeon worked on the 1990s’ reshaping of Berlin and now explores the urban transformations that take place in ex-Yugoslavia, focusing on the importance of ruins in reconstruction processes.
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