Genex Tower Belgrade

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Even though the construction of Genex tower(s) has been met with criticism and even mockery by citizens and professionals alike, as soon as it was completed, it became one of the key landmarks in Belgrade.

Located in the municipality of New Belgrade, right next to the E75 highway, this raw facade building is the first monumental structure that draws attention when arriving in Belgrade from the west, and it is therefore referred to as the Western Gate. However, it has been better known as the Genex (Tower), after the highly successful state-owned Yugoslav trading company – Generalexport or Genex.

This brutalist architectural work was designed by one of the most productive Serbian architects, Mihajlo Mitrović (1922-2018). Initially, Mitrović was commissioned for a 12-storey building, but he suggested and further realized a building approximately 3 times as tall. In 1977, after 8 years of construction – twin towers, a business and a residential one, interconnected with a two-storey bridge, were completed. At the very top, there is a restaurant originally intended to revolve and make a full circle in 24 hours, but that has never happened because the operating licence was not obtained. To this day, 140+ meter tall concrete edifice has been an inescapable part of the city landscape and it still is one of the tallest in the city.

Before the company officially bankrupted in 2017, its collapse had already started as a consequence of the economic sanctions during the ‘90s, in spite the fact that in 1989 it made up about 13 percent of Yugoslav (and 27 percent of Serbian) foreign trade turnover.

Today, the almost 15,000 m²business tower is unoccupied and still owned by the reappeared Genex company (insolvent). The profit mainly comes from being used as a backdrop for gigantic advertising boards and renting few offices, while they have been expecting acquisition for a decade (following several unsuccessful attempts). A symbol of a bygone era, prosperity and failure of the system and its society, demanding a complete reconstruction.

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