Interview with Vladimir Lojanica (1969, Belgrade)
Belgrade, December 28, 2017
Interview conducted by: Ilija Gubić
Interview recorded by: Nemanja Delja, Aleksandar Solomun
Professor, thank you for agreeing to meet with us. We will talk about your education, work and, finally, Rwanda. Your father, Milan Lojanica, is an architect, a full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. How much did the fact that you grew up with him influence your decision to become an architect? What did you learn from your father, and what later in your studies?
I was greatly influenced by growing up in an environment where architecture was present from my earliest days. My first contact with matter, equipment, graphics and thinking was in my house in my earliest days. After that, there were some dilemmas, during my maturation process, whether to go into another discipline, another matter or architecture. There were also “excursions” that leaned towards art history, but in the end, somehow of its own accord, the focus came back to architecture and that’s where I found myself.
At the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, you focused on housing, or rather residential architecture. What is the most important thing you learned from your professors and would you single out anyone as a role model?
While I was studying, there was a strong generation of professors. We had the pleasure of studying architecture from proven experts and practitioners, who had a lot of experience in the post-war construction of Belgrade. It was a generation of architects who came of age in that heroic period of reconstruction and a certain collective strength and awareness of the state that invested in significant public buildings, residential complexes and housing estates. They transmitted and disseminated knowledge to us at the faculty itself through various types of teaching, which studied public buildings, residential buildings, historical context, issues of urbanism and urban theories, etc. I could not single out anyone in particular, they are all great names in our architecture and some are still present in practice. I think that the knowledge they provided can best be understood as a polytechnic education, that is, a combination of art and polytechnic education. So, in addition to architecture being a humanistic discipline with foundations in various humanities and arts, we also had a strong polytechnic foundation, an engineering foundation that connected all that knowledge. Their experiences in practice with that kind of synthesis were the basis that they passed on to us at the time.
What is the difference between the education of architects back then, when you studied, and the education today through architecture studies? How would you compare the knowledge acquired then with that which is passed on to students today? And considering that you work at the faculty, what is it that students can learn from you?
Things in the education of architects have changed since then. The overall methodology of studying architecture on a global level has moved a little more towards studying some artistic disciplines, rather than those fundamental, polytechnic ones. In this sense, our school in Belgrade has also made a certain kind of turn towards such a step forward. Opinions vary, some think that this is good and that it is quite adequate at this moment, however, for today’s practicing architect who cooperates with concrete investments and works concretely, I think that it is very important that both poles or dualities are present in education. I took over the teaching of housing from Professor Darko Marušić. I teach the theoretical part of residential architecture, the methodology of designing residential architecture and I lead studies, that is, design studies for students in the 3rd, 4th and 5th years, culminating in diploma theses and a segment of teaching in doctoral studies. Since we came from such an environment that gave us that type of education, which is bivalent, through my work at the faculty I try to convey that type of knowledge – a type of synthetic knowledge that is based on various contextual influences, analytics, a design methodology that moves in cycles from the general to the specific, from the specific to the general, and a dynamic work that is based on the reality that students will encounter in future practice.
You are active in design practice and are the author or co-author of some of the most significant works in Belgrade and beyond. Which realization are you most proud of?
My career has mostly taken place through architectural competitions, and I would recommend that students, or rather young architects, engage in such a professional competition that gives them a chance to test their capacities and ideas on an open stage with their colleagues. It is also the fastest way to some affirmation and to the opportunity to build. Although the opportunities are not always favorable, although it is difficult to realize projects today, especially capital ones that are important to society, competitions are still the best way to achieve this. I have gained a lot of experience participating in architectural competitions, sometimes with better, sometimes worse placements, and I have also been lucky enough to receive awards for those public buildings that have been realized. For example, the competition for the reconstruction of the National Museum in Belgrade. The reconstruction is underway, but due to a certain political context, I do not really have insight into or influence on the fate of that project. Another thing that depends on our conditions is when and how we will be able to see off the award we received. On the other side of Knez Mihailova Street, in Rajićeva Street, there is a commercial-business-hotel complex that was recently opened. It is the largest facility in the creation and implementation of which I participated. Then, the “Holiday Inn” hotel with the “EXPO” hall in New Belgrade, various family villas in Dedinje. These are the facilities that you are currently working on.
You mentioned that the best way to build an architectural career is through competitions. At the beginning of your career, you also participated in competitions in Rwanda. How many competitions in Africa have you participated in? What were the reactions and results?
For me, that was a kind of early professional maturation. It was interesting because I came across competitions that were announced and published internationally, such as for the building of the Ministerial Complex in Kigali (Rwanda). I participated in that competition in 2000 and was lucky enough to win first prize. That was the reason for me to visit Kigali and Rwanda for the first time. Then a professional episode happened, which, based on the specific context of Kigali and Rwanda, climatic and cultural, inspired me to stay in that region for a while with some of my interests. Shortly after that, a competition was announced for a library in Kigali and I won first prize there.1 Until recently, I did not know what the fate of that project was, and I am extremely glad that it was realized, and that gives me special satisfaction. Given that I already had experience with that type of market and environment, other projects followed. I was also assigned to develop a project for the National Tender Committee in Kigali, which was prepared in Belgrade to the construction stage, but was ultimately not implemented. I also worked on a project to develop a six-hectare roundabout in Kigali, which was supposed to include various sports, recreational, informational and tourist facilities, as well as part of a compact museum, but that project was not realized either.
You only went to Rwanda for the first time after winning the competition. What impressions do you have of Kigali and Rwanda in general, and were they different from what you learned through your research in Belgrade?
That’s a good question. The essence of all my competition solutions for Rwanda did flow from the specificity and conditions of the context in which the object is located and in which it was created. That’s right, the different climate and sunshine in Rwanda greatly influenced the openness, the transparency of the objects. I studied the site from a distance, since the design task required a certain concept, but certainly my first visit to Kigali relaxed me quite a bit in certain aspects of architecture, for the simple reason that this type of natural context, and later also created one, provided opportunities to create different architectural contexts compared to those in a continental climate. The fact that the temperature is relatively constant, that precipitation is orthogonal to the surface and comes in waves during the rainy seasons, that the greenery is lush and that instead of pigeons, falcons fly, and that people have the habit of spending more time outdoors, in semi-open or even enclosed spaces, than indoors, influenced the understanding of the context and environmental conditions. All these concepts, including the one for the Ministerial Complex project, were created by intertwining open and closed spaces. Public and lobby spaces, central entrances, although we are used to being closed, in Rwanda are “airy” in a way, without facades, only with a roof. So there is a kind of play between the shift of open and closed space, that is, inversion, which led to a certain freshness in the spatial solutions. On the other hand, nature and volumetry, as well as the color of authentic architecture, were quite inspiring. The color of the land, the color of the environment, had a primary influence on the choice of colors for the projects I worked on. The volumetry of the buildings tended to be transposed by a certain gigantization and the addition of elements into some forms that represented the distillation of authentic, traditional forms. In creating the concept for the library, the relationship to that unique function was very important to me – the classic library, which in continental parts of the world we are used to being a library, in Rwanda takes on a broader role of a cultural destination, a kind of cultural center that should contribute more actively to the cultural life of the city. It should have that kind of transparency and flexibility in order to accommodate other active contents, including wedding ceremonies, celebrations, going out into nature, etc. So a university-academic environment is expected for such a place, in a strange way intertwined with new contents, needs and functions, which is why less standard solutions were created. In that sense, it was an interesting experience.
How many architects, including you personally, follow the life of completed buildings?
These are our children, so to speak, and we find it difficult to give them up, or rather, to be reborn from them. Especially if we are bound by certain specific experiences or contexts in which these projects were created. We follow the first awards and completed buildings as closely as possible. Sometimes I also take on the role of a “caretaker”, and react in a certain way to the buildings of which I am the author, in terms of some original qualities and their preservation. Buildings inevitably suffer invasions or changes during the time of use, especially if they are public buildings, which are not the responsibility of one person, but of a wider group of users. We are often able to see how our buildings experience certain transformations, extensions, enlargements, reconstructions, additions. I try, as much as I can with my relations with previous investors or with city administrations, to ensure that such transformations and subsequent extensions, if any, occur and are implemented in consultation with me as the author.
How do you see the future of architecture and cities? What would be your message to students and architects in both Serbia and Rwanda?
Different contexts have different effects on the architectural scene of each region. We are faced with a wave of certain global events with a lag of several decades. We are facing some diseases that architects in other parts of the world have long since overcome. But definitely, the integrity of the profession, the reflection on architecture, the attitude towards the artifact that is created and which is based on some postulates that originate from polytechnic disciplines related to artistic tendencies, the specificity of the regional in combination with the characteristics of global movements in architecture that are happening on a planetary scale, is, in my opinion, a good course of movement in contemporary architecture. So, it is necessary to remain in focus on the occurrence of architectural tendencies with a touch of adaptations in relation to the local context and to take care of the quality of architecture, and thus the overall cultural and aesthetic values of cities and local cultures. That is also the mission of us architects. Students should also understand that they are slowly taking on responsibility and the mantle for future works, because everything we create will outlive us and remain a testament to our attitudes – the better the attitudes, the more involved we are in them, the more aware we are of responsibility, the higher the quality of the architecture will be.
1 The library in the capital of Rwanda – Kigali – opened in 2012. It was built according to the first-prize winning project by Prof. Vladimir Lojanica in an international competition. The competition was announced in 2000 and the investor and organizer was the Rotary Club. Six works were submitted to the competition. From the photographs that Vladimir Lojanica took in 2000 in Kigali, it can be seen that most of the competition projects were inspired by the shape of the royal palace in Rwanda. Each of the projects also had a model. The jury had six members. Vladimir Lojanica’s work was evaluated and declared the best. 13 years passed from the end of the competition to the opening of the library building, and even the author did not know that the project had been implemented. The project underwent minor changes. The Horizon Group, one of the leading companies in Rwanda, was engaged to prepare the construction project. The reason for the conversation with architect Lojanica was precisely the realization of the library, one of four projects he worked on for Rwanda.
