Another villa in Vračar has been demolished, and a multi-story building will be constructed in its place. It might not have attracted public attention had it not been in the process of obtaining cultural heritage status. However, the authorities “fell silent.” And the excavators got to work.
Vračar has been left poorer by one work of architect Branislav Kojić. In Mome Kapora Street, only ruins remain of what was once a villa.
But it did not have to end in ruins. The Belgrade Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments wanted otherwise.
“They entered the building into the register of properties under preliminary protection in March 2021,” says Sonja Ćirić, journalist of the weekly “Vreme.”
This type of protection lasts three years by law, the N1 interlocutor explains, and in practice means that no one is allowed to demolish the building until the City Institute makes a decision on its status, that is, until it assesses whether it will become a cultural monument or not.
“They sent a proposal to the Republic Institute within the legal deadline, it is called a proposal, for that building to be registered as a cultural monument,” states Sonja Ćirić.
The City Institute’s proposal remained unanswered by the Republic Institute. Meanwhile, in September of last year, the City Institute issued a document to the investor stating that the building was not under preliminary protection.
“The City Institute did everything according to the law. Now, who could have saved that building? When you look at this chronology of events, you get the impression that it could have been the Republic Institute. Why they didn’t, I was unable to find out,” says Sonja Ćirić.
After that, the municipality issued a construction permit.
For Vladimir Pajić, this is a striking example, as he says, of a destructive policy in Vračar.
“When you change its spirit brick by brick, you change something much broader than the whole itself, a park or a building. You change how people will live there,” says restorer and conservator Vladimir Pajić from the Movement of Free Citizens.
Instead of the two-story house, of which only the ground floor currently remains, it will be replaced by a residential building of more than one thousand square meters.
We also tried to verify what the truth is regarding the protection of the villa at 2 Mome Kapora Street with those who officially granted the demolition permit — the chief of staff to the president of the Vračar municipality, Nikola Jelenković, told us to call him later and then stopped answering.
On the other hand, the president of the municipality, Milan Nedeljković, immediately told us that he was not in a position to speak on the subject.
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Source: N1, Foto: N1