Audiotour Baroque Belgrade

The baroque period of time was a short one in Belgrade’s history, when the Austrian monarchy took it over from nearly two centuries of Turkish ruling and in a monumental overtaking, in just a few decades, turned it from an oriental town into a real European fortified city.

Turks completely abandoned the city and European settlers from different sides of the Austrian empire, among who were merchants and craftsmen, war veterans and poor folks who hoped for a better life on new grounds. They moved into empty Turkish houses, turned the mosques into churches and chapels, and majorly rebuilt their city in the space of today’s Dorćol by dividing it into blocks with regular streets and a series of buildings with baroque facades. They built palaces, barracks, hospitals, dispensaries, a brewery, a saltern, monasteries and schools. On the opposite side, on the slope that stretched from Knez Mihailova street towards the river Sava, Serbs gathered around the Cathedral and metropolitanate, lived.

Around both settlements, German and Serbian, for the first time, city walls were built, with gates that formed four main city roads. Through Timișoara and Smederevo gates went today’s Dunavska street; Imperial, later Vidin gate was on the Cara Dušana stree; the Württemberg, later Stambol gate in the Vasina street direction; and Šabac kapija in the Karađorđeva street direction. The Belgrade fortress is being remodeled into a modern fortress with decorative baroque gates and innovative creations such as the Great Roman Well and the Great Powder Magazine.

A very ambitious plan for the new role of Belgrade crumbled in a second, with a new war between Austria and Turkey. The city was lost and soon, when the Turks returned, Belgrade got his oriental look back. All forts and ramparts that surrounded the German and Serbian town were demolished, as well as, all of the buildings, among which were the Prince’s barracks and the Metropolitan’s residence, and all over the city minarets were being built. Almost every resident of Belgrade, with their valuables, flee towards north, and the Turks only find 45 Jews and 8 Serbs still residing.

Belgrade, with the Austrian baroque reconstruction, for the first time after a thousand and a half years, i.e. the Roman building of Singidunum, was built with a pre-designed urbanistic plan and a city’s access as a unique whole. Most of the baroque changes in the city disappeared, but some traces are still being kept in the city’s core, in the looks of the main roads and blocks of buildings. Former ramparts of the city stand as a reminder of baroque times in the outlines of Kosančićev, Topličin and Obilićev venac.

At the exhibition, the projects and plans of the Belgrade building from Vienna archives and objects that illustrate the weaponry, clothing, nutrition, religion but also the everyday life and miscellaneous of an Austrian soldier and the town’s resident, will be shown. Most of it was discovered in archaeological excavations, and a part of it comes from the wealthy collections of the Belgrade City Museum, the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Military Museum in Belgrade, The Applied Arts Museum in Belgrade, the Novi Sad Museum and the Gallery of Matica srpska.

Organisation: Belgrade City Museum and the Archaeological Institute of Belgrade

Authors of the exhibition: Nika Strugar, senior curator and dr Vesna Bikić, science counsellor

Conservation: Nebojša Bobić, Saša Živić, Maja Živić

Technical documentation and planning: Marko Popović, Tihomir Dičić, Aleksandar Stamenković

3D reconstruction: Vladan Zdravković, Milica Tomić, Miljan Novčić, BabyBottle Studio

Video material: Miroslav Mitić

Proofreading: Mirjana Radovanović, Dragana Latinčić

Translation to English: Ivan Delač, Djuradj Djurić

Design of the publication: Danijela Paracki

Design of the exhibition boards: Monika Lang

Design of the exhibition mobilier: Bodin Jovanović

Audio guide: Djuradj Djurić

Production: Production 64

Location: The Residence of Princess Ljubica, Kneza Sime Markovica 8

Date: April 15th - June 4th 2019