Ranko Radovic’s approach to the planning and design of public spaces through projects for cities in Finland and Serbia

Abstract

Ranko Radovic (1935-2005) was one of Serbia?s most notable architects, urbanists, and professors, with a prominent influence on European scholarly discussions on planning urban centers and public spaces, which have come to light not only through his research design proposals but also through numerous publications, seminars, conferences and lecture notes. The importance of Radovic lies in his profound and early understanding of urban issues that became common across Europe in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He focused on the composition, ideologies, traditionality and innovation of cities, while striving to create paradigmatic shifts in urban design with the parallel retainment of strong cultures. Radovic, strongly influenced by his European experiences, created urban schemes based on his strong ideals that were a product of deep urban perception and collective criticism deriving from his experiential research. As a result, this paper seeks to show and discuss how his time and practice in Finland, and particularly his research designs for the areas of Herttoniemi and Vuosaari in Helsinki (1995-1996), shaped how he perceived the concepts of urban spatial identification, geometry, and historicity, and how these elaborations evolved through his urban planning and design schemes in Serbia?s northern province of Vojvodina (1997-2000).

Traditional circular plan housing for rapidly urbanizing Rwanda

“…Another issue is upgrading. In case new circular structures are added to the existing ones, this requires more materials and more facades that are not energy efficient [29]. On the other hand, adding a circle has the advantage of allowing for phased construction, so not everything has to be built at once.…”

“…This can be explained as creating a "syntax of perceptual security" in the contemporary space of the people, inspired by the surrounding landscape, and expressed through people's reliance "towards pure compositions and […] faithfulness towards 'schemata' (pure forms)" [28]. Consequently, the inspiration for shape formation is not only a matter of traditional arrangement based on the continuation of habit, but seems to have deeper justifications on perhaps on-situ arrangements that consider a "wider urban landscape configuration" and a sensitivity towards "green objects" that play a role in compositional gestures [29].…”

Single-family houses by Ranko Radović

“…Ипак, о његовом раду и деловању још не постоји обимна историографска литература. У научним и стручним часописима о Радовићевим урбанистичким пројектима за градове Србије и Финске пишу Илија Губић и Стефание Леонтиадис (Gubić & Leontiadis, 2018;Leontiadis & Gubić, 2020). Радове о његовом архитектонском стваралаштву објавили су у часопису Друштва архитеката Новог Сада DaNS Душан Крстић и Владимир Митровић који помињу његове пројекте надоградње објекта Факултета техничких наука (1997−1998) и павиљона Факултета техничких наука (2001−2002), оба у коауторству са Ксенијом Хиел (Krstić, 2003) као и Љиљана Вукајлов о привременом занатскоуслужном центру "Пејтон" у Београду (1968−1971) (Vukajlov, 2017).…”