30 April – 8 June 2024
Author: Novica Babović
The exhibition ‘Aleksandar Đorđević – Belgrade Urban Developer’ features archival materials from cultural heritage institutions, as well as family archival records of architect Aleksandar Đorđević (1890-1952) which has so far been unavailable to the public.
Numerous photographs, diplomas and certificates, journal notes, sketches, drawings and paintings, which will be displayed, follow the chronology of life and work of one of the most notable Serbian architects. For the first time, the Exhibition will display architectural designs of Aleksandar Đorđević’s most prominent achievements such as the White Palace building and Belgrade Stock Exchange building, nowadays the building of the Ethnographic Museum. The Exhibition will also premier around twenty projects and drawings of city palaces, villas and residential and business buildings in Belgrade, which Aleksandar Đorđević designed in the period between 1922 and 1939.
The work of Aleksandar Đorđević marked the period of prosperity of the capital’s culture, civic manners and its development when much more attention was drawn to the stylistic details and artisan sophistication of their creation.
Numerous villas and city palaces built in the 1930s and 1940s provide the best illustration of this advanced and educated society which was formed according to European standards. Working for the pre-war elite of the capital, Đorđević made an impact on the shaping of tastes of the highest echelon of the city’s population, thus influencing the landscape which reflected their demands and marked the era of the uprise of civic culture.
The sophistication and artistic emancipation of Aleksandar Đorđević’s architectural oeuvre, as well as the style and refinement of his works, have captivated observers and researchers of Serbian architecture to this day, bringing back this architect to the group of the most outstanding builders of Serbian architecture of the twentieth century.