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MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

WHERE IS IT?

New Belgrade was chosen to be the location of the Museum of Contemporary Art, at the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, opposite the Belgrade Fortress. The surroundings are filled with lawns and long avenues lined with trees.

THE HISTORY

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade was opened on October 20, 1965, although the Museum's activities had begun in 1958, when an act of the Council for Culture of the People's Committee of the City of Belgrade decided to establish the Modern Gallery - an institution whose task was to follow the development of Yugoslav contemporary art. The Executive Council of the Socialist Republic of Serbia decided to construct a building for the needs of the Modern Gallery that would satisfy modern museological principles.
Miodrag B. Protić, a painter and author of important exhibitions, books and texts in the field of the history of Yugoslav and Serbian modern art, was appointed the first manager of the new Museum.

EXTERIOR

The building of the Museum of Contemporary Art is one of the most remarkable achievements of post-war Yugoslav architecture and the most significant example of museum buildings in the former Yugoslavia. The museum building was designed by Ivan Antić and Ivanka Raspopović in 1965. It is considered one of the most interesting examples of museum architecture in the world. The building of the Museum was declared a "cultural asset" in 1987 and is under the protection of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade.

The external form consists of six notched two-storey cubes with an even roof line. The cubes are rotated to the rectangular ground floor at an angle of 45 degrees. The outside appearance of the Museum resembles crystal shapes and the building is surrounded by a park where the works of the most important Yugoslav sculptors of the 20th century are located.

INTERIOR

The walls of the interior are covered with white marble slabs, and the sloping roof surfaces are covered with glass, which enables adequate daylighting of the exhibition space. The unique and at the same time complex interior space, without vertical barriers and corridors, is divided into five exhibition levels connected by stairs. These levels imperceptibly pass into each other, so that it is possible to see exhibits from higher levels and at lower levels. In this way, visitors are also enabled to easily move through the entire space of the museum.

The walls of the interior are covered with white marble slabs, and the sloping roof surfaces are covered with glass, which enables adequate daylighting of the exhibition space. The unique and at the same time complex interior space, without vertical barriers and corridors, is divided into five exhibition levels connected by stairs. These levels imperceptibly pass into each other, so that it is possible to see exhibits from higher levels and at lower levels. In this way, visitors are also enabled to easily move through the entire space of the museum.

The value of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade lies in the fact that it is the first purpose-built museum building in Belgrade. The authors were awarded the October Award of the City of Belgrade for Architecture in 1965 for the museum project. Also, Ivan Antić was the winner of the Seventh of July Lifetime Achievement Award in 1969 and the SAS Grand Architecture Award in 1984. This work brought him a membership in SANU in 1976.

Written by Maja Milović i Sofija Jovanović

Translated by Maja Milović