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Museum of The Immortal - A city's claim to immortality

Part 2 Project 2012
Andjela Karabasevic
University of Belgrade | Serbia
The city is essentially immortal. With the impossibility of its natural death, it is on us to protect it from all the posing threats and thus sustain its eternal life.

This project struggles to save the life of the city of Krusevac. It pursues its fading immortality, by grasping the light of its glorious past and channeling it into the future.

Inspired by local historical events, it is located by the memorial complex Slobodiste, built in 1965 by the architect and sculptor Bogdan Bogdanovic. Dedicated to the innocent killed here during World War II, it includes a huge amphitheater under the open sky, where supreme theatrical performances were held for 35 years after its completion. The country gradually got smaller and weaker, and this extraordinary space is now only used by the residents of Krusevac for recreational purposes. The city itself that once used to be a marking point on the Yugoslavian cultural map is on its verge of dying out.

The design proposes an extension of the road leading from the centre of Krusevac towards the memorial, on the point where it suddenly stops and the emptiness takes over. Being the link between the two worlds, the reality of the city and the fantasy of the memory, the building introduces a gradual transition between the two. The visitor is led five meters below ground, between two massive wall like structures, forming the main body of the museum. Linear interior space ends with an underground tunnel that emerges directly into the amphitheater of Slobodiste, in this way making the crossing between the worlds complete.

Museum of the Immortal aims to rebuild a path that once used to be a walk of death turned into a stride for life, and then forcefully forgotten. In the end, if history does repeat itself, we should be the ones who chose which part of it we want to be replayed in our present time. In this endless time loop, the bright spots are the ones that seek for our attention, and, after all, make us truly alive.

Andjela Karabasevic

Tutor(s)

2012
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