Designers & Creators Directory
Bogdan Bogdanović
(BOG-dahn bog-DAHN-ah-vich)
Birthplace: Belgrade, Serbia
Heritage: Serbian
Date born: August 20th, 1922
Date deceased: June 18th, 2010
Education: Univ. of Belgrade (grad. 1950)
(Богдан Богдановић)
Biography
Bogdan Bogdanović was an acclaimed designer, teacher, writer, urbanist and architect who is renowned for the dozens of anti-fascist sculptural monuments he created across the Balkans from the 1950s to the late 1980s. He is considered one of the greatest Serbian architects of the 20th century. Raised in a progressive household by parents who were writers and intellectuals, Bogdanović was exposed to socially conscious art and activism at an early age, especially as his father, Milan, was director of the National Theatre of Serbia. At the onset of the National Liberation War (WWII), Bogdanović joined the Communist Party and enlisted as a Partisan soldier. While serving, he was seriously wounded while fighting in Bosnia, but he soon recovered.
After the war he studied architecture at the University of Belgrade where he later went on to teach and act as dean of the Faculty of Architecture. In the early 1950s, Josip Tito, President of Yugoslavia, became very impressed by his works. As a consequence, over the next four decades, Bogdanović was commissioned to design over 20 commemorative memorial complexes across Yugoslavia honoring WWII Partisan victories and Axis atrocities. Many of these monuments stand not only as some of Bogdanović's most memorable and recognized works, but were also some of the most significant and celebrated monumental sculptures in all Yugoslavia. Bogdanović was so well respected across Serbia, he was elected to serve as the mayor of Belgrade in 1982, a position which he held until 1986. In addition, Bogdanović was keen on reaching out to students and young architects with his unique approach to architecture, design and urban planning. For example, for 15 years he ran a summer program for students (starting in 1976) called the Village School for the Philosophy of Architecture, which he ran out of a small old schoolhouse in the the small rural Šumadija settlement of Mali Popović, Serbia. Bogdanović's teaching approach here was quite unorthodox compared to his contemporaries, with the curriculum described in the following terms by this CZKD article (translated here into English):
"Bogdan Bogdanovic's radical approach was even more pronounced here in the Village School, where the group gathered on weekends during the summer semester and created a fictitious civilization through myths as the basis for the creation of a city. Perhaps seemingly harmless, this creative play radically emphasized the unbroken link between culture and the built environment and the city as a cultural phenomenon."
After the fall of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Bogdanović found the nationalistic direction that Serbia was taking distasteful, even going as far as openly criticizing Slobodan Milošević, which resulted in the artist receiving death threats and being the target of political smear campaigns by Serbian state media. As a result, Bogdanović went into self-imposed exile to Paris in 1993, then later relocating to Vienna. During this post-Yugoslav era, many of the spomenik complexes Bogdanović created fell into disrepair and destruction, which devastated him greatly. After the fall of Milošević, he returned briefly to Belgrade, but soon left the city again, criticizing it for becoming "overwhelming, scary, cruel and mono-national". He lived in Vienna for the rest of his days, where he died in hospital of a heart attack in 2010.
Works by this Designer:
This is a listing of a number of memorials, monuments, cultural centers and other notable Yugoslav-era civic works by Bogdan Bogdanović. Those sites listed in the upper part of this section have profile pages, while those listed in the lower part do not yet have completed profile pages. This list also includes non-Yugoslav projects that Bogdanović created, as well as his unrealized works for which models only exist for. This list is not exhaustive and will be added to over time.
Yugoslav Works with profile pages:
Click photos to go to page
Bihać, BiH
Name: Garavice Memorial Park
Year: completed 1981
Kruševac, SRB
Name: Slobodište Memorial Complex
Year: completed 1965
Novi Travnik, BiH
Name: The Smrike Necropolis
Year: completed 1975
Štip, MK
Name: The Partisan's Necropolis
Year: completed 1974
Bela Crkva, SRB
Name: Monument to the Start of the Uprising
Year: completed 1971
Vlasotince, SRB
Name: Mon. to the Revolutionary Struggle
Year: completed 1975
Klis, HR
Name: Guardian of Freedom Monument
Year: completed 1987, expunged 1996
Čačak, SRB
Name: Mausoleum of Struggle & Victory
Year: completed 1980
Mitrovica, RKS
Name: Monument to Fallen Miners
Year: completed 1973
Popina, SRB
Name: Popina Memorial Park
Year: completed 1981
Vukovar, HR
Name: Dudik Memorial Park
Year: completed 1980
Leskovac, SRB
Name: Monument to the Revolution
Year: completed 1971
Leskovac, SRB
Name: Arapova Dolina Memorial
Year: completed 1973
Belgrade, SRB
Name: Mon. to WWII Jewish Fighters & Victims
Year: completed 1952
Jasenovac, HR
Name: The Flower Monument
Year: completed 1966
Mostar, BiH
Name: Partisan Memorial Cemetery
Year: completed 1965
Prilep, MK
Name: Burial Mound of the Unbeaten
Year: completed 1961
Berane, ME
Name: Jasikovac Hill Monument
Year: completed 1977
Sremska Mitrovica, SRB
Name: Memorial Necropolis
Year: completed 1960
Avala, SRB
Name: Housing for 'Jaroslav Černi' Institute
Year: completed 1954
Belgrade, SRB
Name: Alley of Shot Patriots at New Cemetery
Year: completed 1959, w/ Svetislav Ličina
Yugoslav Works without profile pages:
Knjaževac, SRB
Name: Mon. to History of the Freedom Fight
Year: completed 1971
Location: N43°33'59.5", E22°15'14.5"
Aranđelovac, SRB
Mali Popović, SRB
Name: Mural at old Village School
Year: completed somewhere btwn 1976-1990
Location: exact location not known
Labin, HR
Name: Altar of Adonis at Dubrova Sculp. Park
Year: completed 1974
Location: N45°06'55.7", E14°06'59.7"
Unrealized Memorial Projects
This section contains a listing of design proposals for various memorial projects that were submitted to competitions for consideration, but were ultimately NOT the final proposals chosen by the selection juries for the memorial projects they were submitted for. Below each photo is detailed the monument project it was submitted for, as well as the year it was submitted in.
Belgrade, SRB
Name: Concept for Jajinci Memorial Park
Year: proposed 1978, w/ D. Pavolić & others
Mitrovica, RKS
Name: Concept for Mon. to Fallen Miners
Year: proposed 1960s
Vienna, Austria
Name: Concept for Mon. to Peace on Danube Is.
Year: proposed 1994