The Minimum Dwelling: New Belgrade Flat and Reflections on the Minimum Today

Abstract

The concepts for the minimum dwelling investigated by inter-war modernists were further developed and largely applied in the construction of postwar large-scale housing. As elsewhere in post-war Europe, affordable housing was high on the agenda in Socialist Yugoslavia. The right to a residence was an imperative of the socialist state, which set an enormous housing construction program so that each family could be housed in its own apartment. To meet the huge housing needs, another imperative was to build quickly and cheaply. New Belgrade, a project for the capital of the newly founded socialist state, eventually became the biggest construction field for providing societally owned flats for tens of thousands of inhabitants. The demand for huge amounts of flats, efficient construction and lowcosts dictated the optimization of design, standardization, and rationalization. The paper investigates the design of New Belgrade flats focusing on different aspects of the “minimum” that were applied. It additionally analyses how compared to the interwar concepts the perspective on the minimal needs changed. Furthermore, it compares these standards and needs with the actual ones. The research aims to trace these changing perspectives on minimum, to rethink the modernist minimum dwelling and explore how it relates and reflects the minimum in design today.