EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE MEDITATIONS FROM "NIKOLA TESLA" AERODROM

Belgrade, future capital of the Balkan Region.
I have always considered the airports a very special place (more if they carry the name of an engineer, as well as the "Henri Coanda" in Bucharest or "Da Vinci-Fiumicino in Rome).
They are special because they are a space-time door. I do not mean any changes in the legal hour that accompanies the change of geographical position, but the transportation to a different reality. You can travel from a country that has its (let´s say) stage of development 70 (Spain) to another living at the stage 29 (Mauritania), then to others with more or less 55 or 57 (as could be Bulgaria or Romania), etc ... I don't know if you get the idea. International organizations (IMF, OECD, UN) have a lot of indicators for this.
Airports are the limit edge for this change of reality that may even start earlier depending on the plane company on which you fly.

The "Nikola Tesla" speaks without saying a word.
-Old building with many renovations one over another, without forming a harmonious whole entity.
-Hypermodern adjacent structures that contrast with the previous existing ones.
-Intensive commercial use of every square meter in a volume that was not originally designed for it.
-Coexistence of international chains of stores (that sell classic cheap Spanish shoes with Hugo Boss label from 30000 Serbian dinars or 300 euros) and small restaurants compete with local retailers.
-Obsolete military aircraft oxidinig near the track.
-Double-X-ray control in the departure area.
-Police scrutinizing you, trying to uncover your deepest secrets and projecting power (the "if I do not want, you do not pass", a classic among classics between the communist legacy)
-Aeroflot offices still with the Hammer and Sickle.
-Always the contrasts: The executive in Gucci suit and an elder couple wearing sad grey, the model with the perfect look and the whole family dragging their entire lives in countless bags (are those who will clap their hands when the plane is landed), the aging crew and moth-eaten (with cloth seats) JAT aircraft against the young staff and modern fleet (with leather seats) of Air Montenegro.

Outside there, in Belgrade, everything together. Elegant nineteenth century buildings, brutalist architecture (the communism absolutely missunderstood the Modernism of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe) and cutting-edge aluminum and glass buildings that are beginning to stand out at the Arsenije Boulevard.
Under the asphalt surface is the cubic stone paving and under cubic stone is the Roman road. All history, recent and distant, the crossroads of civilizations, is concentrated in the popular subconscious.

Serbia (and some other countries of the former Yugoslavia) begin to raise. Unlike in other nations today, here the business grows. In winter time the snow is cleaned from the road, dwellings are built, public works are ongoing and all of this without being under the economic umbrella of the EU (how many countries from inside would like to see all this activity).
There´s no need to remember the War between 1991 and 2001, first with the Croats, second with the Bosnians (we should never forget Srebrenica) and finally with the Kosovars. Again the religions dividing the world, as we noted earlier in another blog post.
It may be the collective nature itself or maybe there is a feeling of guiltiness similar to Germany after the Second World War that drives them to rise.
The European Economic Community countries shouldn´t bypass that, although on a smaller scale, these countries can be an economic engine, now that the German Giant threatens to stop pulling.

Or maybe they will prefer to manage themselves better without us.