BOGDAN BOGDANOVIĆ (Belgrade, 1922 - Vienna, 2010), architect, artist and philosopher
Bogdan Bogdanović was born in Belgrade on August 20th 1922. Having graduated from high school he enrolled at the Technical University in Belgrade, but his studies came to an abrupt end when he left to join the Partisans in 1944. He was wounded in Eastern Bosnia in February 1945, then demobilized with the rank of lieutenant. He received a medal for valour.
After the war he continued his studies and in 1950 graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade. He continued to work there as an apprentice in the Urbanism Department, then as docent (from 1960), and he served as Dean of Faculty (from 1970)
From 1970 to 1981 Bogdanović was a member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and from 1994 a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Architecture. He was one of the founders of the International Academy of Architecture. Between 1982 and 1986 he was the mayor of the City of Belgrade, but in 1987 he retired from political life, taking a sharp stand against nationalism in Serbia.
At the beginning of the 1990’s he was driven out of his studio and alternative school Mali Popović near Belgrade, after which attempts were made to break into his apartment, he was threatened with lynch, and defamatory statements were written on the stairway of his building.
From 1993 he lived in Vienna with his wife, and in 2002 he received an award from the Austrian government for his life’s work in science and art. He passed away in Vienna on June 18th 2010. He was 87 years old.
Bogdanović was the author of numerous publications and papers. He designed a large number of memorials, such as those in Prilep, Kruševac, Kosovska Mitrovica, Leskovac, Štip, Travnik, Belgrade, Vlasotince etc.
One of his most famous memorials is the Flower Monument in Jasenovac. In 2004 he gave a couple of hundred drawings and sketches of the Flower to the Jasenovac Memorial Site as a gift. He attended numerous commemorations and was part of the restoration and conservation of his favorite monument, as he himself called it. Bogdanović also came up with the arrangement solution for the concentration camp in Limani, as well as the Roma cemetery in Uštica.
Bogdan Bogdanović was the recipient of many awards, such as: The October Award of the City of Belgrade for the Memorial graveyard to victims of Fascism in Sremska Mitrovica (1961), the award for the Flower Monument in Jasenovac (1966), the Sedmojulska Award (1979), the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) Award (1981), the Herder Prize (1997), and the International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens which was presented to the Jasenovac Memorial Site (2007).