This architectural gem and one of the symbols of Belgrade was sold at the end of March this year at a public auction to the company “MV Investment,” a subsidiary of “Millennium Team,” a corporation known for winning large state contracts without a tender process. The hotel, along with the entire development site and access roads previously used by the public, was sold for about 27 million euros. “MV Investment” was the only company to respond to the public tender, hence the absence of any competitive bidding process. They accepted the starting price and purchased the “Jugoslavija” hotel for half of its estimated value! The company also financed the preparation of a new Detailed Regulation Plan that stipulates the demolition of the hotel. Despite more than 500 objections from citizens, petitions, and amendments submitted, the Detailed Regulation Plan was adopted in September 2024, and every argument concerning the preservation of cultural heritage and the ambient as a whole was disregarded by insatiable investment interests. In the urban area, part of which is a green oasis intended for rest, sports, and recreation, and in close proximity to the Great War Island, which is a protected natural asset and a unique ecosystem and habitat for endangered bird species, there are plans for the construction of a new megalomaniacal completely out of scale and out of place commercial development with luxury apartments and hotels, including two towers reaching a height of 150 meters!

History: The Jugoslavija Hotel was opened in 1969 as the largest and most modern hotel in the former Yugoslavia and among the five largest and most beautiful hotels in Europe at the time. It was designed by the architects Mladen Kauzlarić, Lavoslav Horvat, and Kazimir Ostrogović, renowned figures of the Zagreb School of Modernism. The location for the hotel on the Danube Quay was determined in the conceptual plan for New Belgrade by architect Nikola Dobrović. The interior also holds special value, being a kind of total design based on modular principles, evident in all details, from railings to metalwork, from lamps to armchairs. The “Jugoslavija” Hotel has hosted numerous historical figures, from statesmen to music stars, including astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Queen Elizabeth, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Monica Vitti, Tina Turner, and many others. Until 2011, the “Jugoslavija” Hotel enjoyed status and protection as a cultural monument. Damage to part of the building during the NATO bombing in 1999 served as a reason for the withdrawal of protection and a series of failed privatizations that continue to this day.

The “Jugoslavija” Hotel is one of three key representative buildings of the new capital city of Socialist Yugoslavia, alongside the former Central Committee building (now business center “Ušće”) at the confluence of the Sava River, which unites all republics of Socialist Yugoslavia, and the Federal Executive Council (now “Palata Srbija”). All three representative buildings are monumental landmarks of architectural metaphors of the new city submerged in the green ambient landscape of post-war modern-era cities, with New Belgrade being one of the most prominent example of this type of modernist Corbusian town planning in the entire world. Why not preserve the character of a modernist capital that is not maintained in its original form anywhere else in the world?

Thus, we call on the international professional community to demand the preservation of this building of great architectural heritage importance and sentimental value to the citizens of Belgrade and Serbia!