The Tower is part ode, part record, and part speculation about one of Belgrade’s most important buildings, Genex Tower, a symbol of the city and one of the world’s most recognizable brutalist structures.
Since its completion in 1979, Genex Tower has borne witness to four decades of tumultuous history: from economic collapse, to war, the splintering of Yugoslavia, and the formation of modern-day Serbia. In the residential half of the building, hundreds of residents go about their day-to-day lives and quotidian dramas. Meanwhile, the commercial half, which was once the headquarters of the monolithic Yugoslav trading company Generaleksport (also the building’s namesake), remains caught in a liminal zone between decades and ideologies. Here, it is as if the clocks have stopped at various points which echo throughout the pages of The Tower: 1980, when the original furnishings still gleamed; 1997, when the top-floor restaurant served apple pie and local wine; and 2014, when the commercial side was emptied of both employees and furniture.
Sifting through the building’s debris, the photographs assemble a fragmentary portrait of Genex Tower. What emerges is a story of a building that once embodied a real historical alternative — a socialist modernity neither Soviet nor Western — and the aftermath of its unravelling.
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Bildband Berlin (Germany)
