MAP SCALE’S LULLABY

The project is to present architecture as a higher trade understood by those who recognise the principles or have a sense of esthetic, actually by those who believe in it.
Architecture is not only a “beautiful“ new building sticking out of a ’lined’ pocket, or a shining massive golden pendant landing on a powerful tattoo alongside a status-symbol bro sack whose arguments you don’t say ’NO’ to.
Today, architecture has been demoted and left loitering on street corners waiting for its pimps who call themselves politicians and who had their monuments built one the Sava promenade as a tower that tops it all. The architects who did this to be thought of as pioneers of building that blurs your vision and takes your breath away, to be talked about in the future as the ones that mattered in the past have become the puppets of that policy themselves. 
An architect once was the first in the line of builders, the builder of all builders, an artist of noble substance, and not a mere replicant fooling themself thinking they are pioneers of a “golden“ age of building in this part of the world because it came to them from the above.
According to Vitruvius, an architect had to be literate and know many trades and not one and one only, the one above in the hierarchy, which is listened to with one’s mouth open and with no questions asked, like today. Art enlightens you for it shows you the point of recognising beauty. I believe the ones who got off the right path had also been taught in the spirit of this ancient skill, the way I teach my students today. But, unfortunately, there will always be bad students and their time will be gone and forgotten even though their masters have made them stars and golden boys. Until then “Relax and sing folk songs!“, as our janitor will say probably thinking of I’m Not What You Think I am, the folk song that obviously reminds him of architecture and the TV viewers who think that everything is the way they’ve been presented. So no-plan building is presented as the perl of the new white city, but there are experts and people of integrity who couldn’t accept it at any cost.
I remember my father calling me once and asking if I watched an older gentleman, an architect talking on TV.
“His name is Dragoljub Bakić and he should be your role model when it comes to your arguments against the way Belgrade Waterfront has been built, he said it was no good at all.“
Brkman was a representative of the trade and fought for reason, he was one of the very few who spoke publicly about the problems of the issue. They didn’t listen to him, of course, not that anyone expected that since they are the ones who reinvented the wheel.
What have we been left with?
Reva Pond he defended from tons of construction waste burying trees and what has been left of nature there. The place once used as a flood barrier has been turned into a construction site. It’s no wonder since construction waste is not recycled here, so it makes sense to some to turn it into a base for new residential square meters inside a natural oasis.
Those at the wheel obviously still think they are mightier than nature and that with a lot of money they have they can buy anything, even good health in the sick environment.
Somebody said once: “They get hold of cash, they have a church built. That’s how it goes today. A bomb tattoo on one arm, Ostrog Monastery on the other!“

These blocks Bakić’s portrait is made of are not only construction waste, they are also a map scale like the ones on construction projects, and in this case they are a scale that measures human stupidity this great man pointed to as irresponsible and reckless treatment of nature and society. The size of the exhibit should show that the consequences of such treatment are massive and severe.
Unlike this project where the blocks were laid as planned, naturally, stupidity is better emphasized when the blocks are not laid as they should be as it happened in Republic Square. Anyway, blocks are there to be laid and architecture should definitely be there to spacially arrange them. The thing is, it seems the spirit of architecture is about to be banished from the Belgrade Fair as well. But, it has a place to go, the free land on Reva at Brkman’s, where the premiere of Map Scale’s Lullaby is on.
Key words: Her majesty architecture, Good genie Dragoljub Bakić, Non-recycling construction waste, Wild landfills, Illegal construction sites, Flood barriers, Blocks/Dice and gambling, Waste among us – it is and it will be, Fair – newer, better, ilder