In Situ

year: 2021
published by: superland.space (web magazine)

I took a field trip to Belgrade with the intention of visiting and documenting one specific urban neighbourhood called Ada Međica, which is located on an island in the Sava River. The island is home to a site-specific community characterised by collective power, self-government, self-built solidarity, good neighbourly relations, and shared common interests.
In what way does the self-sustained community build its common language and establish its own rules? What are the residents’ common interests and motivations? What keeps them together? What is the significance of the island's informal urbanism for the inhabitants and environment?
    
Through analogue documentation and listening to these spatial practices, I believe we can spark a debate about our right to the city and our right to the land(scape). It is important to recognise and acknowledge community-based self-organisation as an influential part of how land areas develop and as a good contributor of citizen involvement to urban spatial planning.
This essay contains my diary notes from the field trip, records of conversations with inhabitants and members of the self-sufficient community, speculations, and personal impressions, with the intention of (re)discovering the identity of the island and the significance of informal urbanism for the inhabitants and environment.

Friday, 09:30.
I’m waiting at the Zeleni Venac bus station in Belgrade. A bus finally arrives headed for the neighbourhood of New Belgrade, Block 443. In the background noise of the bus, I hear the romantic song ‘When I Fall in Love’ (by Michael Bublé). While listening to the song, I gaze out the window, noticing how the light reflects off of the glass façade of the new Belgrade Waterfront development. It looks like an real-estate advertisement for this new development. In the distance, I can see a piece of wilderness rising above the river Sava. It is the island Ada Međica. As we approach the final station, the bus empties. It looks like people aren't going to the island. It‘s sunny, I’m at the riverbank already, waiting for the boat to the island.

One specific urban form located on the Sava River, in Belgrade’s municipality of New Belgrade and Čukarica, is the island of Ada Međica, an island that associates ecology with recreation, war memory, dwelling, and community rituals. As the root of its name ‘međa’ (a Serbian word for a border) suggests, Ada Međica was historically a borderland of many different states (the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, Serbia, the Ottoman Empire, etc.) and a site of military conflicts. The island was a weed of urban wilderness in the city until the 1960s when it became the site of the self-governing community ‘Ljubitelji Save i Dunava’ (the Society of the Sava and Danube Devotees). Through a decision of the Supreme Court of Yugoslavia, the municipal government has entrusted the community to manage and use the land of the island for a period of 99 years, without the right to sell the land. For a short time, the concept of self-governance was strongly embedded in the socio-economic policy of Yugoslavia. It was a response to both Western capitalism and the Soviet model of communism, emphasising social rather than state ownership of the means of production. Accordingly, in the 1970s, the main model for managing the entire society was based on the people’s right to self-determine.



However, it raises a question: after the failure of Yugoslavia, what happened to this kind of self-sustained spatial practice in a post-socialist city such as Belgrade? Is such a practice finished, or is it still in transition?

Friday, 12:30.
I decide to go to the other tip of the island. As I am walking, the island’s specific weekend houses on stilts appeared through the trees. Ada Međica is subject to frequent flooding by the Sava, and therefore the dwellings and living conditions on the island have been adapted to the environment of the wetland. There are about 90 stilt houses and about 300 floating houseboats on the island.

The ground floor of these weekend houses comprises an open space, hemmed in by pillars, usually containing an open kitchen with a fireplace, a dining table, and small storage area. In some houses, the ground floor is a studio for artists. From the ground floor, there are always stairs leading up to the first floor with an open veranda and one or two living areas, such as a bedroom and a living room. The ground floor is the most domesticated space of the inhabitants’ daily lives for the performance of different activities. From cooking, to feasting, to meetings, to performing, the open space is a stage for rituals, connecting the residents’ public and private lives with the land and surroundings. This open form supports the community’s neighbourly relations.

During floods, the island is regularly covered with mud and usually flooded so much that boats have to be used for transportation from one stilt house to another. When it comes to this rare situation, a veranda or a houseboat takes over as the main space for community life. What is interesting is that these weekend houses have no electricity, water, or sewage system. They use solar panels as an alternative energy source, public fountains as their main water source, latrines as toilets, and fireplaces for heating and cooking.

With self-established guidelines, self-built common interests, and methods for caring for each other, the community functions without public infrastructure. By paying annually for their membership, the members of such a community not only support and maintain their self-established network but also improve their living conditions on the island. It seems that the community’s interest is to be conscious of the environment. But I think they are more like modern hermits, familiar with the conditions and limits of the land. The Sava River and the nature of the island determine their rhythm of life and influence their thoughts and feelings.

Friday, 13:30.
As I am wandering the territory, I notice various fountains by the road, open gathering areas, fireplaces, deck chairs, and small playgrounds for children. At the veranda of one house, I hear two women drinking coffee and talking. On the ground floor, beans are cooking – a black, iron pot hung over the fire, the escaping steam gently rattling its slightly open lid.

In the 1960s, after several consecutive demolitions of his houses, the architect, university professor Predrag Ristić decided to fight for his right to be on the river. As I wrote at the beginning of this essay, in former Yugoslavia at that time, self-governance was an important goal of the socio-economic policy, which emphasised social ownership in urban policy. Therefore, the architect used this motive and, together with his friends, also lovers of the river and nature, founded the autonomous community Society of the Sava and Danube Devotees. The municipal government gave them the right to manage and use the island.

In 1965, a dispute against this community which lasted for 20 years began. After the first weekend houses on stilts appeared in Ada Međica, the city’s authorities filed a lawsuit against the self-sustained community via public enterprise because they feared that the island would become privatised. However, the interests and motivations of this informal autonomous organisation were much more grounded than the authorities’ fear of having land privatised. After 20 years of struggle, the community of the Sava and Danube Devotees won the case, and the Supreme Court of Yugoslavia gave them the right to manage the land for 99 years.

There are many social rituals in this community. Every year, members of the community organise a swimming marathon around the island. Once, in 2016, during the marathon, a heavy, unexploded bomb from World War II was discovered near the tip of the island. The bomb was removed and destroyed, but it reminded everyone that the island was once the site of military conflicts.

Friday, 15:30.
What fascinates me is to feel the freedom of wandering around this neighbourhood with no fenced-in plots of land. You have the chance to come into direct contact with the inhabitants, have a coffee or lunch in some of the weekend houses, and explore the landscape of the island.

Friday, 16:00.
As I sit and observe the landscape, in the distance I see small fishing boats. Seagulls fly toward the wild vegetation. Hundreds of floating rafts and houseboats are moored along the entire riverbank of the Sava River. It feels like a new, self-built city on the periphery.

Friday, 16:30.
Night is falling. I need to go back to the city because the public ferry only runs until 17:00. But it must be very magical here at night. The sky illuminated with different constellations and the light of fireflies appearing from the bushes while the river gently splashes against the shore.