Collaboration with Fontys Academy of the Arts from Tilburg: International Student Workshop “Stratifying Belgrade – Diagrammatic Mapping” | Univerzitet u Beogradu

The University of Belgrade – Faculty of Architecture organized an extracurricular student workshop on June 12, 2024, as part of a collaboration with Fontys Academy of the Arts from Tilburg, Netherlands, under the auspices of the BINA festival. The workshop was facilitated by Assistant Professor Alda Avdić Alagić and guest tutor Ivana Lovrinčević from Fontys Academy, and by Assistant Professor Marija Milinković, PhD assistant Christina Meseldžija, assistant Relja Petrović, and research assistant Dezire Tilinger from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade.

Master’s students from Fontys Academy visited Belgrade as part of the Worldschool Belgrade course. On Monday, June 10, 2024, they attended an introductory lecture at the Faculty of Architecture given by Professor Milica Milojević. The workshop, held on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, included master’s students from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade. Through drawings, students mapped and analyzed the layers of Belgrade at various scales, from architectural details to urban ensembles.

The workshop began with a lecture by Dr. Marija Milinković titled “Stratifying Belgrade: Six Images from Dobrović’s Archive” and an accompanying lecture by PhD candidate Dezire Tilinger titled “Diagrammatic Mapping: Exploratory vs Explanatory Nature of Drawing.” The lectures aimed to provide the Dutch students with a concise overview of the key milestones in Belgrade’s urban development history and the role of drawing in architectural research.

Following the introductory lecture, master’s students participated in a joint exercise producing over 200 analog drawings by tracing selected parts of Belgrade on tracing paper at specific time intervals. This was followed by a reflection on the process and the identification of key concepts defining Belgrade’s urban layers. In the next part of the workshop, students, either in groups or individually, used a chosen drawing technique, or a combination thereof, to conceptualize the locations they selected in relation to the previously established key concepts, resulting in new drawings.

The workshop concluded with a presentation and discussion in front of tutors, associates, and guest critic Dr. Jelena Ivanović Vojvodić, a representative of the BINA festival. The material produced during the workshop will be exhibited at Fontys Academy as part of the final exam for the group of students who visited Belgrade.