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Apparently, this time it will also be the same. If the Serbian Government accepts the proposal of the city of Belgrade, the old building of the Dorcol thermal power station in Belgrade, with a name that marks its ancient meaning: “Energy and light”, will be transformed into a museum of the famous scientist. “Power and Light” will illuminate a unique legacy of a strong mind that has seen light in everything.
The former symbol of Belgrade’s industrialization is now a ruin. However, the building with a crane dominates the area of the Marina “Dorcol”. A few months ago, the city authorities began cleaning up. It was full of rubble and debris that had been accumulating there for decades. It was so careless that 500 gunshot trucks were taken away. “Novosti” was the first to enter the clean building.
– A fantastic place worthy of the legacy of Nikola Tesla. There is nothing more important that we can present to the world. The current Nikola Tesla Museum on Krunska Street has around 115,000 visitors a year, I think there will be over a million if they move here. The reconstruction of this space is a national project, important for Serbia – says Deputy Mayor Goran Vesić, who, apparently, like us, already sees inventions of unsurpassed genius supported by new technologies in the moss-covered ruined walls.
The thermal power plant building is a monument of industrial heritage, in the architectural sense it is a symbol of revolutionary and modernist conceptions in the practice of interwar construction. It is also a symbol of rationality and simplicity.
SIGNATURE OF BROZ
After the death of Nikola Tesla, the care of the property of the scientist, and before the creation of the museum according to the judicial decision of the American authorities of January 1943, it belonged to Sava Kosanović, son of his younger sister Marica. With the efforts of Kosanović in 1951, all of Nikola Tesla’s personal belongings and writings were finally transferred to Belgrade. Kosanović then donated them to the state.
The Government of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia founded the Nikola Tesla Museum on December 5, 1952 and the decision was signed by Josip Broz Tito. The only institution of science and culture in Serbia and in the world, which preserves the original and personal legacy of Tesla, is located in the “village of Genčić” on Krunska street.
– The museum will cover 10,000 square meters, and there will be a scientific research center and a campus for students and teachers from all over the world – shows us the deputy mayor of the surrounding building. – Within the detailed regulation plan of the line park, we have foreseen that this space owned by the Republic of Serbia will be destined to culture and education. We will propose to the Government of Serbia that the Nikola Tesla Museum be here, and if they accept our proposal, we will announce an international competition for the layout of the building. Only when we get an architectural solution will we know how much the rebuild will cost. According to my free estimate, between 20 and 25 million euros will be needed for that job.
The “Power and Light” building was built by the Swiss company for electrification and traffic from Basel, and the construction works lasted a year and a half. The delivery of electricity to the municipality of Belgrade began in the autumn of 1932.
– To build this power plant, the then Belgrade authorities took a loan of three million dollars, and that was one of the largest loans at that time – says Vesić. – The mayor was Miloš Savčić, one of the three mayors to whom we will erect a monument because they put Belgrade in debt.
On the eve of World War II, Belgrade had 320,000 inhabitants, who were supplied with electricity from this thermal power station. It was damaged in the 1941 bombing, and when it was rebuilt after the war, it was Belgrade’s main electricity supplier for a long time.
Photo of Ž. Knezevic
– It was in operation until 1969, when a new heating plant with fuel oil was built – Vesić reminds us. – Since then, hardly anyone has entered this building, except when “Otpisani”, “Sabirni centar” and some other movies were shot.
It was then that the decades-long work of the crane on the Danube ceased, pulling coal from the ships that arrived near the Dorćol marina every day and transporting it to the thermal power plant. And the crane is under protection and will be saved.
– From the Nikola Tesla Museum, we can not only make our, but also a world brand – Vesić is convinced. – The museum could revive the coastal area behind the apartment block in the lower Dorcol. There are several other old factories in the neighborhood, which are valued as a rich industrial heritage of Belgrade.
The Museum of Science and Technology was opened in one of those spaces on Skender-beg Street, where the thermal power plant used to be.
CLOSED CIRCLE
There has long been talk of the relocation of the Nikola Tesla Museum to Krunska Street. The original plan was to move to the “Power and Light” thermal power plant, to give it up some time ago, and the old main train station in Sava square appeared as a location for the Tesla treasure.
This was abandoned after the proposal that the Museum of the History of Medieval Serbia should be next to the Stefan Nemanja monument. History went like this back to the beginning, and if it is realized, the legacy of the father of alternating currents will remain in the place where perhaps some of his inventions were once applied.
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