Proposal to Stop Sale of Genex Tower – To Be Turned into Tesla Tower, Cultural and Educational “Disneyland” That Would Work 24 Hours Every Day of the Year

The world doesn’t run on trains and cars, but on ideas, that is the principle that guides the individuals and associations gathered around the tenants’ community of the Genex Tower, that is, the Belgrade West Gate, who have made a proposal to the prime minister of Serbia to stop the sale of the tower’s office part, for the state to use the right of first refusal, buy it out, turn it into an oasis of spirit, culture and architecture and call it Tesla Tower.

The repurposing of the office skyscraper would be preceded by a local or international contest for designs for the development of the building, that is, the office-residential center Genex, which was pronounced a cultural monument two years ago, and its office part has been in bankruptcy for a long time and the state has been failing in its attempts to find a new owner for years now.

– We propose for Tesla Tower to have features such as a lookout, a restaurant, Tesla’s Museum, instead of being located in Dorcol, could move to at least five floors, centers, for science and technology, galleries, libraries, book stores, concert halls, fitness centers. What’s most important is for all those spaces to be interactive, interesting, connected with each other, in other words, to become a cultural and educational “Disneyland” that would work 24 hours every day of the year – says the proposal of an international project signed by Bozidar Stavric, the head of the tenants’ community of the Genex Tower, architect Marina Visnjic, the director of the project of architectural development and reconstruction, and professor Dr Slobodan Slovic, the director of the project of economic feasibility.

In order for the project to be made complete, its initiators plan for an urban garden, thematic gardens and a friendship park to be established in front of the building, on a flat area of one hectare, and for the fountain and the amphitheater to be brought back to their functions, for footbridges to be introduced for pedestrians, and there would also be an outdoor gym and benches.

Sale of the Genex Tower

The new sale of the property of the company Generalexport in bankruptcy is scheduled for February 6, at the initial price of RSD 834.6 million. The office part of the Belgrade West Gate in Block 33 in New Belgrade consists of, among other things, 28 office spaces with an area of around 15,000 m2 and a garage part of the building of around 9,000 m2.

About the Genex Tower

The foundations of the Belgrade West Gate, that is, the Genex Tower, were laid down in 1971. For over three decades, this edifice, designed by architect Mihajlo Mitrovic, held the height record. Many never liked it, and it was featured on the front page of the catalog of the exhibition “Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980”, which was held between July 2018 and January 2019 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

The facility consists of two towers, reinforced-concrete skeletal structures, which are functionally separated into a residential part with 30 floors and an office part with 26 floors and connected into a whole by a bridge at the level of the 26th floor. The facades are made of fair-faced concrete. Each tower has two staircases, which are “hidden” inside the laterally positioned verticals with circular bases.

Vlada Republike Srbije

Generalexport Beograd

Government of Serbia

Generalexport

Museum of Modern Art

MoMA

Božidar Stavrić

Marina Višnjić

Slobodan Slović

Ana Brnabić

Mihajlo Mitrović

Genex tower

Belgrade West Gate

Dorćol

Block 33

New York

tenants community Genex Tower

sale of Genex Tower

Tesla Tower

residential office center Tesla

Tesla Museum

history of Genex Tower