The work on the detailed plan of Beton Hall and the connection of the riverbank
with Kalemengdan started in 2012 in accordance with the competition
proposal. Except of some statements of the former city authorities it is not
officially known at what stage the plan development is. The public opinion is
divided into those who like the project, because of its strong character and
innovativeness, and those who do not like the project because it desturbs the
historical part of the city.
Following the competitive identity communication framework and Anholt’s
3-segment tool, it can be concluded that the project has its primary
communication in the domain of behaviour as a part of substance that could
be analysed. A landscape strategy is missing because the development is still in
project phase and could be characterised only as a secondary communication
of the city’s future identity. The symbolic action is very strong because of the
iconic shape of the project and its representative location. Considering the
above, Beton Hall Cloud could be currently marked as propaganda, because it
is based on strategic documents, it is a symbolic action, but is still missing main
parts of the substance – it is not realised yet.
The Belgrade Waterfront or Belgrade on Water is a new
version of the vision for the renewal and development
of the costal area along the Sava River, which covers
two spatial, geomorphological and administrative
units divided by the River, on a total area of 177.27
ha.^70 The area has been the subject of a series of
development initiatives in previous periods. The area
was considered on the international competition in
the 1980s for the centre of New Belgrade, while in the
1990s it was performed in the competition for the
Sava Amphitheatre and the project Europolis.^71
Considering the previous initiatives and the strategic
character of the location, the area is listed as a
development area in all three strategic-planning
documents mentioned above: as Sava Amphitheatre
and part of New Belgrade’s centre in the Spatial Plan
for Belgrade 2021 and the development of the Sava
waterfront in the Belgrade City Development Strategy.
Based on these documents the Urban Institute of
Belgrade started the preparation of an urban study
that was supposed to precede the announcement of an
international competition for the Sava Amphitheatre.
However, the idea has been changed after the 2012
elections for the national and municipal governments
which classified during the election campaign the
Milena Vukmirović
Fig. 16
The presentation of the Belgrade Waterfront to the domestic
public by the investor Mohamed Alabbar, the Prime Minister
Aleksandar Vucic and the Major Sinisa Mali.
(Khaleej Times)